DirectSound Driver Models

Under the virtual device driver (VxD) model, all Microsoft DirectSound mixing is done in Dsound.vxd, a virtual device driver. Dsound.vxd also provides close access to the actual direct memory access (DMA) buffer that the sound card uses to receive data from the host CPU. This is the same as the DirectSound primary buffer. A DirectSound application can set specific properties of the primary buffer, such as sampling rate and bit depth, thus changing the properties of the hardware itself.

Under the Microsoft Windows Driver Model (WDM), DirectSound does not have direct access to the sound hardware, except in the case of hardware-accelerated buffers. Instead, DirectSound works with the kernel mixer, or Kmixer. The job of Kmixer is to convert the format of multiple audio streams to a common format, mix them together and send the result to the hardware. In a sense, it does what Dsound.vxd does. One major difference is that Dsound.vxd only mixes DirectSound buffer data, but Kmixer mixes all Windows audio data, including data from applications that use the Microsoft Win32waveOut functions. The rule that DirectSound and the waveform-audio output device cannot both be open at the same time is not true on systems with WDM drivers.

Of particular importance is Kmixer's relationship with the audio hardware. Kmixer is the only software on the system that can specify the format of the hardware's DMA buffer. It selects the format on the basis of sounds it is asked to mix. It sets the output format to the highest-quality format of sounds that it is asked to mix, or to the closest format to this that the hardware supports.

This has one very important implication: DirectSound cannot set the format of the hardware's DMA buffer. For your application, this means that the hardware format is based on the data you actually play. If you play a 44-kHz file, Kmixer will mix all data up to 44 kHz and ensure that the hardware is running at 44 kHz.

As an application developer, you do not choose the driver model used. That is completely determined by the type of sound card, the version of Windows, and the particular driver the user has installed. For that reason, it is very important that you cover all possibilities when you test your application. DirectSound might be using Dsound.vxd or it might be using Kmixer, and you should ensure that your application's behavior and performance are acceptable on both.

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