OpenAL

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OpenAL

Original author(s)	Loki Software
Developer(s)	Creative Technology
Stable release	1.1 (installer 2.1.0.0)[1] / November 2009; 15 years ago (2009-11)
Written in	C
Operating system	15 operating systems See: Supported platforms
Type	Application programming interface
License	Sample Implementation: Proprietary since v1.1, LGPL before v1.1, BSD in early versions[2] "OpenAL" trademark: unclear, held by Creative Labs, Inc.
Website	www.openal.org

OpenAL (Open Audio Library) is a cross-platform audio application programming interface (API). It is designed for efficient rendering of multichannel three-dimensional positional audio. Its API style and conventions deliberately resemble those of OpenGL. OpenAL is an environmental 3D audio library, which can add realism to a game by simulating attenuation (degradation of sound over distance), the Doppler effect (change in frequency as a result of motion), and material densities.

OpenAL aimed to originally be an open standard and open-source replacement for proprietary (and generally incompatible with one another) 3D audio APIs such as DirectSound and Core Audio, though in practice has largely been implemented on various platforms as a wrapper around said proprietary APIs or as a proprietary and vendor-specific fork. While the reference implementation later became proprietary and unmaintained, there are open source implementations such as OpenAL Soft available.