DESCRIPTION=" This library is meant as a compatible update/replacement to the OpenAL Sample Implementation (the SI). The SI has been unmaintained for quite a while, and would require a lot of work to clean up. After attempting to work on the SI for a bit, I became overwhelmed with the amount of work needed, and I eventually decided to fork the old Windows version to attempt an accelerated ALSA version. The accelerated ALSA idea quickly fell through, but I ended up porting the software mixing code to be cross-platform, with multiple output backends: ALSA, OSS, DirectSound, and a .wav writer are currently implemented. OpenAL Soft supports mono, stereo, 4-channel, 5.1, 6.1, and 7.1 output, as opposed to the SI's 4-channel max (though it did have some provisions for 6 channel, this was not 5.1, and was seemingly a 'late' addition). OpenAL Soft does not support the Vorbis and MP3 extensions, however those were considered deprecated even in the SI. It does, though, support some of the newer extensions like AL_EXT_FLOAT32 and AL_EXT_MCFORMATS for multi-channel and floating-point formats, as well as ALC_EXT_EFX for environmental audio effects, and others."
