Search code examples
androidiosaudiocross-platformopenal

OpenAL for CrossPlatform Development


OpenAL is one confusing project to pull up relevant information on. Is there an official OpenAL anymore? What is creativelabs control over the project?

I am looking for a cross platform audio library to support IOS (iPhones, Ipads), Android, Windows and Linux.

Does OpenAL fill this need? What is OpenAL's license? Although we intend to release some of our source code we have no interest in being forced to because of a license conflict.

There is enough evidence for me to assume it is working on Android Relevant links (Android OpenAL?) plus google searches yield positive results.

I realize Android has OpenSL officially supported. However Android appears to be the only platform which supports OpenSL currently so this is not an option.


Solution

  • I went with OpenAL-soft and OpenAL for windows. They are both the same interface so still one code base.

    Android was easy. https://github.com/AerialX/openal-soft-android

    IOS was even easier. You can add OpenAL.Framework to your XCode project. The header location is just different (OpenAL/al.h vs AL/al.h).

    Linux is very easy. Install the openal dev package for your distro.

    Windows was the biggest pain for OpenAL. In the end just install the original OpenAL SDK from creative. OpenAL does seem very choppy on Windows though. I get some popping and crackles now and then where on every other platform it is perfect. I might switch to OpenAL-soft for the windows distribution before release.