[Openal-devel] Generating buffers with al/alut

[Matthias Schweinoch]

Hi all (again:-)),

I have yet another two (newbie?) question: According to the OpenAL
Programmer's Guide, buffers are specific to an opened device and can be
shared among the contexts/sources on that device. 

The ALUT spec at http://www.openal.org/openal_webstf/specs/alut.html
says that certain functions, among others those for creating buffers,
can only be called (successfully) if a current valid context exists.

Anyway, the first question: Is there a reason why ALUT is more
restrictive in creating/loading buffers than AL, i.e. why is a current
context required? Shouldn't a device be enough? 

And the next question: Where ALUT seems too restrictive (requiring a
current context), AL seems too lax: I can create buffers without even
having opened a device, which seems to contradict the description of the
programmer's guide (though I've just tried creating them with
alGenBuffers() and then tested them with alIsBuffer() - I've not
actually filled them). Shouldn't alGenBuffers fail if called before a
device is opened?

Thanks again for the info.

Matthias