Cross-Platform 3D Audio
Titles Platforms Links Documentation Downloads Mailing Lists
Introduction:
OpenAL is a cross-platform 3D audio API appropriate for use with gaming applications and many other types of audio applications.The library models a collection of audio sources moving in a 3D space that are heard by a single listener somewhere in that space. The basic OpenAL objects are a Listener, a Source, and a Buffer. There can be a large number of Buffers, which contain audio data. Each buffer can be attached to one or more Sources, which represent points in 3D space which are emitting audio. There is always one Listener object (per audio context), which represents the position where the sources are heard -- rendering is done from the perspective of the Listener. Of course, there are many more details to learn, which are covered in links on our documentation page.
For more information about what products and programming tools currently use OpenAL, go to the Titles and Links pages.
News:
December 12, 2006 -- A new OpenAL 1.1 Installer for Windows and a new OpenAL 1.1 SDK for Windows are now available at developer.creative.com. The OpenAL Installer includes new libraries incorporating the latest bugfixes, some performance improvements, and Windows Vista compatability. The SDK incorporates the new OpenAL Installer, and has minor changes and improvements.September 14, 2006 -- An article has been posted on the subject of OpenAL® and Windows Vista™.
July 18, 2006 -- A new OpenAL 1.1 Installer for Windows and a new OpenAL 1.1 SDK for Windows are now available at developer.creative.com. This SDK combines the OpenAL SDK with the X-RAM SDK and the Creative Effects SDK to create a single download for OpenAL developers. The SDK includes new documentation, more example source code, and Help 2.0 help files for integration with Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET compilers.
June 8, 2006 -- New ALUT packages (version 1.1.0) are available on the downloads page.
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