OpenAL
More info
- Creator
- Loki Software
- Owner
- Creative Technology
- Type
- 3D audio API
A cross-platform API for positional audio in games, deliberately designed to look like OpenGL.
Loki Software, which ported Windows games to Linux around 2000, needed something to replace DirectSound and wrote OpenAL. The model is simple: one listener, a number of sources with position and velocity, and buffers of sample data. The library works out distance attenuation, panning and Doppler shift on its own.
When Loki went bankrupt, Creative Technology took over and added its EAX effects, giving Sound Blaster cards something to do. Creative's own implementation was later closed, and today the open OpenAL Soft is what most people actually use — complete with HRTF for headphones. Modern engines reach for FMOD or Wwise more often.