Windows Media Encoder SDK banner art

Resource Usage and Buffers

When using multiple buffers in an audiopath, you must consider the cost in memory and other resources. Planning ahead can eliminate unnecessary duplication of buffers and reduce the overall audio resource requirement.

For example, if a buffer is used more than once, you can share it to conserve resources. See Sharing Buffers.

When an audiopath is used in a performance, buffers are created in the order they appear, beginning at the top of the audiopath file. This is important when allocating hardware resources.

When you use a Send destination buffer, it is never lower in the audiopath file than the Send source buffer. The order of the list of buffers shown in the Audiopath Designer window is identical to the order of the list of buffers that are created when the audiopath is used for playback. Therefore a Send destination is always created before the buffer that sends data to it. See Send Effects.

Using DirectSound accelerating hardware for mix groups also affects computer resources. DirectSound accelerates the mixing and positioning of the underlying buffer of the audiopath. If you use a DirectSound hardware accelerating card for an audiopath, DirectSound does not use its own software mixer. This reduces CPU usage and allows for multi-speaker playback using 3-D parameters. It also allows you to set the latency setting lower for the synthesizer, because the audiopath bypasses the DirectX software mixer, which has inherent latency.


© 2000-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.