PortAudio Tutorial

Compiling for Windows (WMME or DirectSound)

To compile PortAudio for Windows, you can choose between two options. One implementation uses the DirectSound API. The other uses the Windows MultiMedia Extensions API (aka WMME or WAVE).

Some advantages of using DirectSound are that DirectSound may have lower latency than WMME, and supports effects processing plugins. But one disadvantage is that DirectSound is not installed on all PCs, and is not well supported under Windows NT.

For either implementation add the following source files to your project:

pa_common\pa_lib.c
pa_common\portaudio.h
pa_common\pa_host.h

Link with the system library: winmm.lib

WMME - To use the WMME implementation, add the following source files to your project:

pa_win_wmme/pa_win_wmme.c

DirectSound - If you want to use the DirectSound implementation of PortAudio then you must have a recent copy of the free DirectX SDK for Developers from Microsoft installed on your computer. To compile an application add the following source files to your project:

pa_win_ds\dsound_wrapper.c
pa_win_ds\pa_dsound.c

Link with the system library: dsound.lib

You may try compiling the "pa_tests\patest_saw.c" file first because it is the simplest.