[Openal] how to dynamically load openAL (win32) ??

[Garin Hiebert]

> check if openAL dll is already installed;
> if yes,
> 	load that dll
> else
> 	extract the dll from my game's archive
> 	load that dll
>   

It's probably easiest to just include the OpenAL installer within your 
game installer.  Run it with the "/s" option (silent mode) so that it 
doesn't display anything or have any interaction with the user.

OpenAL Installer -- 
http://developer.creative.com/articles/article.asp?cat=1&sbcat=31&top=38&aid=46

Some games will just include their own app-local version of the 
wrapper.  The downside of this approach is added complexity if you want 
to provide access to enumerated devices in the system directory.  You're 
really pretty safe just using the OpenAL installer -- then your app gets 
the ability to enumerate all available devices in a pretty 
straightforward way.

> of to do that? i know there is LoadLibrary("mydll.dll");
> but what got me confused is that it seems i would, if i load
> dynamically, need to call GetProcAddress for all these openAL functions
> i want to use...
> can't i somehow just use the openAL headers ??
>   

There's code in LoadOAL.cpp and LoadOAL.h, which comes with the OpenAL 
SDK, showing how to do this.  You can copy the code, or use it for 
reference.  For a game, it's probably best to do things this way so that 
the product can report a library-loading error itself rather than having 
Windows do it.

OpenAL SDK -- 
http://developer.creative.com/articles/article.asp?cat=1&sbcat=31&top=38&aid=45

Garin