Editing DirectSound (section)

===Windows Vista/Windows 7===
Windows Vista features a completely re-written audio stack based on the ''[[Universal Audio Architecture]]''. Because of the architectural changes in the redesigned audio stack, a direct path from DirectSound to the audio drivers does not exist.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://techreport.com/articles.x/13874 |title=Techreport article on Vista-ready soundcards |date=15 January 2008 |access-date=2008-12-23}}</ref> DirectSound, [[DirectMusic]] and other APIs such as [[MultiMedia Extensions|MME]] are emulated as [[Technical features new to Windows Vista#Audio stack architecture|WASAPI]] Session instances. DirectSound runs in emulation mode on the Microsoft software mixer. The emulator does not have hardware abstraction, so there is no hardware DirectSound acceleration, meaning hardware and software relying on DirectSound acceleration may have degraded performance. It's likely a supposed performance hit might not be noticeable, depending on the application and actual system hardware. In the case of hardware [[3D audio effect]]s played using DirectSound3D, they will not be playable; this also breaks compatibility with EAX extensions.<ref name=creativeKB25937>[http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=25937 Creative Technology - Support - Audio in Windows Vista]</ref>

Third-party APIs such as [[Audio Stream Input/Output|ASIO]] and [[OpenAL]] are not affected by these architectural changes in Windows Vista, as they use [[ioctl|IOCtl]] to interface directly with the audio driver. A solution for applications that wish to take advantage of hardware accelerated high-quality 3D positional audio is to use OpenAL. However, this only works if the manufacturer provides an OpenAL driver for their hardware.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.openal.org/openal_vista.html |title=OpenAL and Windows Vista |access-date=2008-01-10 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080102032457/http://www.openal.org/openal_vista.html |archive-date=2008-01-02 }}</ref>