DirectSound
More info
- Owner
- Microsoft
- Released
- 1995
- Type
- Audio API
- Successor
- WASAPI
Windows' audio API from the first DirectX, built to let games talk almost directly to the sound card.
Before DirectX, DOS games shipped their own drivers for every sound card on the market. DirectSound offered a common interface with buffers the card could mix in hardware, and DirectSound3D added positional audio. Creative built EAX on top, and for a few years hardware mixing on a Sound Blaster was a genuine reason to buy one.
Windows Vista moved the audio stack into user mode in 2007 and turned DirectSound into a software emulation. Hardware acceleration vanished, EAX went with it, and older games lost their effects overnight. The API survives for compatibility, but new work happens in WASAPI and XAudio2. Music production never took it seriously — its latency is the reason ASIO exists.