OpenAL
Software theme
Cross-platform audio API for multichannel 3D positional audio originally by Loki Software.
623
games
18platforms
Alternate names: OAL, Open Audio Library
X360 2010-09-22
WIN 2009-05-18
WIN 2014-07-08
X360 2009-05
WIN 2003-09-16
WIN 2006
LIN 2004-12-07
WIN 2014-07-22
WIN 2014-07-07
WIN 2009-08-18
LIN 2011
X360 2007-09-04
Presence of OpenAL can easily be noticed (in Windows) if the game directories contain any of the following files: OpenAL32.dll, wrap_oal.dll and alut.dll
Originally released under a BSD license it was changed to a LGPL. v1.1 However became proprietary. "OpenAL Soft" is a compatible updated free alternative to OpenAL. It is a continuation of Loki's version. It notable supports surround sound up to 7.1.
Supported platforms:
* Mac OS 8/9
* Mac OS X
* Linux
* BSD
* Solaris
* IRIX
* Windows
* Xbox
* X360
Currently supports stereo and 4 channel surround sound. Apparently surround sound breaks (falls back to stereo) with setups that have more than 4 channels/speakers (at least on Linux).
OpenAL SDKs often include some implementation of ALUT (OpenAL Utility Toolkit), a convenience wrapper for quickly setting up OAL.
- source
Supported platforms:
* Mac OS 8/9
* Mac OS X
* Linux
* BSD
* Solaris
* IRIX
* Windows
* Xbox
* X360
Currently supports stereo and 4 channel surround sound. Apparently surround sound breaks (falls back to stereo) with setups that have more than 4 channels/speakers (at least on Linux).
OpenAL SDKs often include some implementation of ALUT (OpenAL Utility Toolkit), a convenience wrapper for quickly setting up OAL.
- source
OAL runs in separate thread automatically (I have no idea how to disable this, nor why would I want to do that). The API is extremely simple to use because of this.
Speaking from personal experience, it took me less than a day to write a crude Ogg audio player with OAL. And most of the time went into understanding Vorbis library (for reading and decoding the audio file) than into learning OAL (both of which I had never before used - nor was I familiar with OGL, which supposedly shares a similar API). OAL also handles sound position and movement in 3D in quite simple manner, so there's even less for the programmer to do.
Speaking from personal experience, it took me less than a day to write a crude Ogg audio player with OAL. And most of the time went into understanding Vorbis library (for reading and decoding the audio file) than into learning OAL (both of which I had never before used - nor was I familiar with OGL, which supposedly shares a similar API). OAL also handles sound position and movement in 3D in quite simple manner, so there's even less for the programmer to do.
The first OpenAL video game was released in 1997.
COR Entertainment, Electronic Arts and Tripwire Interactive published most of these games.
Parent groups
License: BSD, License: Lesser GNU Public License, Proprietary license, License change, Audio middleware
Related sites
Platforms
By year
A | 2000 - OpenAL 1.0 |
B | 2005 - OpenAL 1.1 |
C | 2007 - OpenAL driver 2.0.3 (1.1 spec) |