Why Use DirectSound?

The overriding design goal in DirectX is speed. Like other components of DirectX, DirectSound allows you to use the hardware in the most efficient way possible while insulating you from the specific details of that hardware with a device-independent interface. Your applications will work well with the simplest audio hardware but will also take advantage of the special features of cards and drivers that have been enhanced for use with DirectSound.

Here are some other things that DirectSound makes easy:

• Querying hardware capabilities at run time to determine the best solution for any given personal computer configuration.
• Using property sets, when programming in C++, so that new hardware capabilities can be exploited even when they are not directly supported by DirectSound.
• Low-latency mixing of audio streams for rapid response.
• Implementing three dimensional (3-D) sound.
• Capturing sound.

Despite the advantages of DirectSound, the standard waveform-audio functions in Windows® continue to be a practical solution for certain tasks. For example, an application can easily play a single sound or audio stream, such as introductory music, by using the PlaySound or waveOut functions.