Why did microsoft ditch directsound in vista?

[Maximilian]

Isnt ditching it for OpenAL or whatever just like ditching directX for OpenGL? I read the wiki on direct sound, it started in 1996 and standardized sound so why are they getting rid of it? Isnt it good for ms to have a strangehold over sound like they do with most games?

 

[Schadenfroh]

Microsoft did not ditch DirectSound for OpenAL (which Creative Labs is pushing for it is the only way they can get hardware sound working without emulation)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista#DirectX

DirectSound is also deprecated in favor of XACT and is also not hardware accelerated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XACT

XACT is an audio programming library released by Microsoft as part of the DirectX SDK. It was originally developed for Xbox development, and was later modified to work for Microsoft Windows development as well.

 

[manowar821]

It wasn't ditched for OpenAL.

Also, DRM. Of course, the day that circumvention is available to destroy DRM in Vista, I'm jumping at it.

DRM is a disease.

 

[Rilex]

Also, DRM

What does this have to do with it?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Rilex

Also, DRM

What does this have to do with it?

nothing really DRM is related to video and music.

 

[Maximilian]

Ok so they ditched it for XACT, but why? Wiki says "As of DirectX 9.0c, however, neither XInput nor XACT have all of the capabilities of DirectInput or DirectSound"

The big guide on vista performance says that it was for stability reasons, but what was unstable about Directsound?

 

[StormRider]

That's been one of my disappointments with Vista. Why would they get rid of hardware accelerated sound? It totally ruins the soundcard market when a soundcard with a powerful audio processor will be used as if it only contain a simple DAC and some codecs and is basically the same as a cheap end soundcard.

 

[drag]

The sound card market deserves to be ruined.

If Creative wanted people to use it's EAX stuff then they should of licensed it to other companies and make it a completely open standard like OpenGL.

Realy the only purpose a sound card provides is realy to provide multichannel I/O. You pay more for a card and you get better quality sound handling, better AD and DA converters, midi stuff, and more I/O options...

Otherwise for the vast majority of people all you ever need is the 7.1 channel audio support that comes onboard motherboards. This is the stuff that Vista's new audio support is geared for.

Hardware acceleration is completely overrated anyways. If you have the choice between spending your money on hardware acceleration for sound or a slightly faster proccessor you'll get better performance with the slightly faster proccessor. With proccessors starting to show up with quad cores, what is the point anyways?

 

[Schadenfroh]

The sound card market deserves to be ruined.

I agree that Creative Labs needs to be bought by a semiconductor that might actually innovate, its current state needs to be ruined for sure.

If Creative wanted people to use it's EAX stuff then they should of licensed it to other companies

I believe they licensed it partially to other groups, I believe my soundstorm had partial EAX 2.0 support back in the day, although it was not able to work with the latest EAX at the time, 3.

make it a completely open standard like OpenGL.

Agree, 100%, but wasn't EAX just an extended proprietary library for DirectSound and not really a true API in of itself?



The hardware accelerated soundcard market would be awesome right now if Aureal was still around (A3D sounded great) forcing Creative Labs to innovate all of these years while they were just churning out minor revisions of its hardware (save the new XiFi)

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: drag
Hardware acceleration is completely overrated anyways. If you have the choice between spending your money on hardware acceleration for sound or a slightly faster proccessor you'll get better performance with the slightly faster proccessor. With proccessors starting to show up with quad cores, what is the point anyways?

The point is that technology is going to continue to advance, in all aspects. Also, multi-point advanced audio effects aren't a drop in the bucket in terms of cycles. If it's possible, why in the hell wouldn't someone want it handled by a dedicated processor?

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: Rilex

Also, DRM

What does this have to do with it?

nothing really DRM is related to video and music.

Ah, you mean I don't need sound for my videos and music?! Cool! *Violently rips out soundcard, cranks up Dave Matthews on WMP* errr.... somethings wrong