DirectSound Buffers

DirectSound buffer objects control the delivery of wave data from a source to a destination. The source might be a synthesizer, another buffer, a file, or a resource. For most buffers, the destination is a mixing engine called the primary buffer. From the primary buffer, the data goes to the hardware that converts the PCM samples to sound waves.

The information in this section is of interest mainly for applications originally written for previous versions of DirectSound, or applications that need to have low-level control over buffers. If your application is playing sounds by using the DirectMusic performance object, buffer creation and management is done automatically. You can, however, obtain buffer objects in order to gain access to parameters for 3-D effects and effects in DMOs. For more information, see Using Effects and 3-D Sound.

Information about using DirectSound buffers is contained in the following topics:

• Buffer Basics
• Creating Secondary Buffers
• Duplicating Buffers
• Buffer Control Options
• 3-D Algorithms for Buffers
• Filling and Playing Static Buffers
• Using Streaming Buffers
• Playback Controls
• Play and Write Cursors
• Play Buffer Notification
• Mixing Sounds
• Buffer Management

For information about capture buffers, see Capturing Waves.