Technical features new to Windows Vista: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:27, 3 May 2020

Revision as of 17:28, 18 May 2020

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===Audio stack architecture===

{{redirect-distinguish|WASAPI|Wasabi}}

Applications communicate with the audio driver through ''Sessions'', and these ''Sessions'' are programmed through the ''Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI)''. In general, WASAPI operates in two modes. In ''exclusive mode'' (also called ''DMA mode''), unmixed audio streams are rendered directly to the audio adapter and no other application's audio will play and signal processing has no effect. Exclusive mode is useful for applications that demand the least amount of intermediate processing of the audio data or those that want to output compressed audio data such as [[Dolby Digital]], [[Digital Theatre Systems|DTS]] or [[Windows Media Audio|WMA Pro]] over [[S/PDIF]]. WASAPI exclusive mode is similar to [[kernel streaming]] in function, but no kernel mode programming is required. In ''shared mode'', audio streams are rendered by the application and optionally applied per-stream audio effects known as ''Local Effects (LFX)'' (such as per-session volume control). Then the streams are mixed by the global audio engine, where a set of ''global audio effects'' (GFX) may be applied. Finally, they're rendered on the audio device.