[Openal] Max number of sources (and legit id values) for each OpenAL implementation

[E. Wing]

On 7/21/09, Daniel PEACOCK <dpeacock at creativelabs.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Those numbers are correct for Generic Hardware and Generic Software.
>
> Creative ships various other OpenAL devices that support between 60 and 128
> sources.

Thanks Daniel. That's good info.
Now I recall that there is a possibility of sounds being dynamically
diverted to meet other demands which means a source could refuse to
play even if you've already generated it. Can this still happen with
the current implementations? If so, is it limited to only the hardware
based implementations?

Also, I just remembered, you guys have Xbox and Xbox 360
implementations. Can you share any information on the sources for
these?


> We used to ship an OpenAL implementation that would return 0 for a valid
> Source ID.  However we
> found some problems in the field with games that were doing things like ...
>
> if (sourceID)
>       // found valid source do something with it
>
> instead of ...
>
> if (alIsSource(sourceID))
>       // found valid source do something with it
>
> So we changed our implementations to stop returning an id of 0.  However, as
> you say, the spec. does
> not disallow Source IDs of 0 - so code should always use alIsSource() to
> validate a Source ID.

Thanks, that's good to know. If a 1.2 spec is ever made, I would like
to see 0 be reserved for just this reason.

Thanks,
Eric