[Openal] Any floating point extensions?

[Chris Robinson]

On Tuesday 30 December 2008 06:53:01 am E. Wing wrote:
> Are there any extensions (particularly on Windows) for floating point
> samples? I am throwing my captured samples at FFTs, but the libraries
> I use require floating point and I know int to float conversions are
> not necessarily cheap. I know the Apple implementation used to support
> floating point, but the constant has been removed from the headers
> (but it actually still seems to work if I redefine it). I would like
> to know if I can get it on Windows too (and if its being considered
> for future revisions of OpenAL).

Hi.

There is the AL_EXT_float32 extension which provides the float formats:
#define AL_FORMAT_MONO_FLOAT32                   0x10010
#define AL_FORMAT_STEREO_FLOAT32                 0x10011

OpenAL Soft supports this on Windows and Linux (though it currently internally 
converts and clamps to a 16-bit sample range). I'm not sure if Creative's 
Windows drivers support it, but I imagine they would.