[Openal] OpenAL hardware buffer problem

[Oliver Gantert]

Hi everybody!

Whenever I'm using a hardware OpenAL device ("Generic Hardware"
or "SB Audigy Audio [A000]"), data buffers don't work anymore.

The SDK sample program "PlayStatic" works fine in HW mode,
but "PlayStream" and "PlayOggVorbis" only play the first beat
and process the remaining buffers in silence. "OpenALDemo" (from
an older version of the SDK) does not play anything in the stereo
test. alSourceUnqueueBuffers gives me an "invalid operation attempted"
when I'm trying to unqueue the 2 stereo buffers from source 0
(that I queued before, of course).

The strange thing is, it all worked several months ago when I
first tried OpenAL. I'm now trying for two or three weeks to
hunt down this problem, and all my test programs work fine in
software mode. I'm sure my Soundblaster isn't damaged because
it's playing MP3s all day and no hardware-accelerated game,
MIDI sequencer or any other software ever had a problem with
my good old SB Audigy Gamer. Not even dxdiag.

I've tried several versions of the Audigy drivers, even switched
from WinME to WinXP, got a new mainboard and CPU, but it seems to be
a problem between OpenAL and the Audigy driver. One of them fails.
Unfortunately I don't know which version of the OpenAL library worked
for me back then. They're all called "OpenALwEAX.exe" - brilliant.
Reminds me of Microsoft releasing a new DX9.0c every week ;)

Is there any diagnosis tool or some way to "see" what happens
to those buffers? A debug-version of OpenAL that creates a log file?

I like OpenAL. I like the OpenGL-style API and platform independence.
Nothing could ever force me to use DirectX audio again. But I want
my device to work with hardware buffers! What can I do?

Greetings, Olli.