WASAPI: Not just for 2 channels anymore

Windows
1

Alright upon further investigation I believe that the following is true:

  • Under WASAPI, each stereo pair belonging to a hardware device appears as its own audio endpoint
  • Juce currently only implements one audio endpoint for output, and one endpoint for input

Therefore

  • Juce cannot output more than 2 channels at a time in WASAPI

I poked around the WASAPI calls and traced these values for the first endpoint in my Fireface 400 setup:

GetValue (PKEY_Device_FriendlyName,…) == "Speakers (RME Fireface 400)"
GetValue (PKEY_Device_DeviceDesc,…) == “Speakers”

and

GetValue (PKEY_DeviceInterface_FriendlyName,…) == “RME Fireface 400”

So here is what I am thinking needs to be done, so far:

  1. Change WASAPIAudioIODeviceType to allow for an array of active endpoints for both input and output
  2. Modify scanForDevices() to identify unique instances of the PKEY_DeviceInterface_FriendlyName and treat the whole set of endpoints as a single device
  3. Add code to build a list of input or output channels for a given PKEY_DeviceInterface_FriendlyName by enumerating all the endpoints, collecting the ones that match
  4. Change the input and output channel names to use PKEY_Device_DeviceDesc instead of PKEY_Device_FriendlyName

How does this sound Jules?

Is there anyone with knowledge that can chime in and let me know if I’m going in the right direction? I don’t want to waste my time on a dead end because this WASAPI COM interface is really bulky and clumsy to work with…

2

Yeah, that does sound like you’re thinking in the right direction. Making it handle multiple in + out devices could be quite a complicated process though, which is probably why I didn’t do it like that originally!

3

I would check PortAudio implementation if I were you.

http://www.portaudio.com/

4

[quote=“otristan”]I would check PortAudio implementation if I were you.

http://www.portaudio.com/[/quote]

LOL its funny that you mention that because…the portaudio developers were asking the same question as me, on their mailing list! How the heck to enumerate the channels for a given device in WASAPI? But I’m going to have a look at it, thanks.

5

DirectSound suffers the same problem, it treats each stereo pair as a different device, so no multichannel output :frowning: