Editing OpenAL (section)

==Limitations==
The ''single listener'' model in OpenAL is tailored to a single human user and is not fit for artificial intelligence or robotic simulations or multiple human participants as in collaborative musical performances.<ref>{{cite conference|author1=Wozniewski, Mike |author2=Settel, Zack |author3=Cooperstock, Jeremy |title=User-specific audio rendering and steerable sound for distributed virtual environments|book-title=Proceedings of International conference on auditory displays (ICAD)|year=2007|url=http://sheefa.net/zack/publications/audioscape_ICAD2007.pdf|access-date=August 5, 2012}}</ref>
In these cases a multiple listener model is required. OpenAL also fails to take into account ''sound propagation delays'' (the [[speed of sound]] is used for the [[Doppler effect]] only). The distance to a sound source only translates into an amplitude effect (attenuation) and not a delay. Hence OpenAL cannot be used for [[time difference of arrival]] calculations unless that functionality is added in separately.<ref>[https://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1276489&cid=28412367 Open Source FPS Game Alien Arena 2009 Released #28412367]</ref>

In order to take [[Hardware acceleration|full speed advantage]] of OpenAL, a vendor/hardware specific implementation is needed and these are seldom released as open source. Many supported platforms in fact implement OpenAL as a [[Wrapper library|wrapper]] which simply translates calls to the platform's native, and often proprietary, audio API. On Windows, if a vendor specific implementation is not detected it will fall back to the wrap_oal.dll wrapper library that translates OpenAL into DirectSound (Generic Software) or DirectSound3D (Generic Hardware); the removal of the latter from [[Windows Vista]] onward has effectively broken generic hardware acceleration on modern versions of Windows.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070118174547/http://www.openal.org/windows_enumeration.html Enumeration with OpenAL on Windows]</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130606032320/http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/OpenAL%20Wiki/OpenAL%C2%AE%20and%20Windows%20Vista%E2%84%A2.aspx OpenAL® and Windows Vista™]</ref>