Feedback Regarding OpenAL

I downloaded Path of Exile today when I saw it on the Steam store.

I was pleased to see that you guys are using OpenAL for audio processing. This allows me to use my copy of Rapture3D, which is a very sophisticated implementation of the OpenAL API. Out of all the different audio systems that I've tested, Rapture3D provides the best 3D positional audio. I like using headphones and Rapture3D integrates head-related transfer functions (HRTF) to provide a much more accurate sensation of sound localization.


Whilst Rapture3D works great in Path of Exile, I did encounter some unexpected behavior while testing some other drivers.

ASUS Xonar Essence STX (Cm_Oal.dll)
This driver comes with my audio card and is presumably for hardware mixing. The game doesn't start at all when using this driver. I'm not too concerned by this because hardware mixing is of little use these days.

OpenAL Soft 1.15.1 (soft_oal.dll)
The game often crashes during the initial loading phase when using this driver but only if 'hrtf=on' in '%APPDATA%\alsoft.ini'. I've never experienced this with any other game in which I've tested OpenAL Soft. OpenAL Soft is a much better implementation of OpenAL than Creative's wrap_oal.dll and you should actually consider distributing this implementation with Path of Exile instead of wrap_oal.dll. OpenAL Soft is LGPL-licensed free software.


I've read a few other posts on these forums about people having troubles with the OpenAL implementations that come with Creative's X-Fi audio cards. It seems to me that you guys might need to iron out some glitches with your usage of the OpenAL API.

Once you've got the game working correctly with these other implementations, I'd suggest adding the ability for the user to select their preferred OpenAL driver from within the game's audio options menu. This was actually suggested over a year ago. Currently, I have to do a bunch of renaming of files in order to get the game to use the driver I want.

Let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to test or if there's any additional information you'd like me to provide.