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Whither OpenAL?

delYsid asks: "About a year ago, Slashdot had a story about the OpenAL project by Loki and Creative. There was much hype around it. But if you check their website now, the last changelog entry appears to be from December of 1999! Does anyone know of a good (preferable platform independent) library for 3D audio? The only answer I get when I ask professionals in this field is DirectX. I'd love to have my app under Linux instead of having to move to Win again. Any pointer or hints about the current status of OpenAL? Are there any alternatives?" Update: 09/18 15:33 PM GMT by C :Corrected the link which referred to Slashdot's previous story on OpenAL.

I forwarded this question on to Loki, and here's the response from Scott Draeker, president of Loki Games:

As you can imagine, everyone is pretty busy right now, especially as we had some folks out on vacation the last couple of weeks. So I'm sorry about the slow response.

In answer to your question, work on OpenAL continues. Creative has already added EAX and hardware acceleration to the Mac and Windows versions, and are working on adding both to the Linux implementation as well. Work is also continuing on an OS X port as well as other OSes. OpenAL continues to be the sound API which Loki uses in all of its products, and many other companies are either using or evaluating OpenAL for their products as well.

Hope that helps.

So there you have it, straight from the source. Development is progressing, although it's likely to be a bit slow at present. Here's hoping we'll hear more updates on the progress of OpenAL, over the next 6 months. Thanks a bunch for taking the time to answer, Scott!

3 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Question & Answer? by digital_freedom · · Score: 0, Troll

    Well thanks for the update, but I guess we don't need to show off our web-searching skills now to find the answer.

    And I had google, dogpile, Lycos all up and ready to go.

  2. Breaking News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    This just in!

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. jets attacked anti-aircraft guns and missile sites in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the Pentagon said. The Navy F-18 and Air Force F-16 jets attacked the military targets at about 130 miles southeast of Kabul, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told Reuters.

    ``The strikes with precision-guided munitions were in response to the terrorist attacks in the U.S.A. after Taleban refused to extradite the prime suspect Osama bin Laden'', Whitman said. ``All aircraft left Afghanistan airspace safely.''

    F-18s based on the aircraft carrier Enterprise stationed in the Gulf and Air Force F-16 warplanes based near southern Iraq conducted the raids with both bombs and missiles which are guided to their targets using satellites and laser beams, according to other defense officials.

    The U.S. military's Central Command in Tampa, Florida, which is responsible for operations in the Afghanistan, said damage from the raids was still being assessed.

    ``We have said repeatedly that we reserve the right to retaliate the attack on the U.S. at a time and place of our choosing,'' Whitman told Reuters in Washington.

    Whitman also confirmed the rumours that the well known author of horror novels, Stephen King, had been found dead yesterday.

  3. blame OpenAL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    at the time OpenAL was created, ALSA was already working and somewhat stable. why did they start another project? the only reason I can imagine is to make proprietary extensions in the future...
    blame it!