[Openal] OpenAL for flight simulator

[Chris Robinson]

On Wednesday, October 13, 2010 12:56:12 pm Andrzej Artymowicz wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I'm completely new to the OpenAL. Planning to use it in X-Plane flight
> simulator. I'm a sound engineer. My quiestion is can OpenAL read the
> looping markers in WAV files? I need to read the transient (attack) than
> loop sustain and than playback release part. Is it possible with OpenAL?

Hi,

OpenAL doesn't read files. You have to read the file to get the format, then 
pass that, along with the PCM data, to OpenAL. There are some libs that can 
help with that, though.

As for the loop markers, there is the hopefully-soon-to-be-completed 
AL_EXT_loop_points extension, which lets you specify the segment of a sound to 
loop (anything before the loop start will only play once, anything after the 
loop end will only play when looping is disabled, and anything in between will 
continually play while looping is enabled). Not sure where the in-progress 
extension spec went to.. I'll try to get the current copy up somewhere.

> The next question is about hardware accelerated DSP (filters, reverb etc),
> which cards it supports? is it available for other platforms than Windows?

I don't know about which hardware supports what, but using EFX, reverb and 
low-pass filters are available in the software drivers. Outside of Windows, 
EFX is also available in Linux with a non-ancient version. Under OSX, there's 
a separate extension set to handle such effects, but I don't know too much 
about it.

Hope that helps. :)