1 <chapter id="multimedia">
2 <title>Wine and Multimedia</title>
5 This file contains information about the implementation of the
6 multimedia layer of Wine.
10 The implementation can be found in the
11 <filename>dlls/winmm/</filename> directory (and in many of its
12 subdirectories), but also in <filename>dlls/msacm/</filename>
13 (for the audio compression/decompression manager) and
14 <filename>dlls/msvideo/</filename> (for the video
15 compression/decompression manager).
18 <sect1 id="mm-overview">
19 <title>Overview</title>
22 The multimedia stuff is split into 3 layers. The low level (device
23 drivers), mid level (MCI commands) and high level abstraction layers.
24 The low level layer has also some helper DLLs (like the MSACM/MSACM32
25 and MSVIDEO/MSVFW32 pairs).
29 All of those components are defined as DLLs (one by one).
33 The low level layer may depend on current hardware and OS services
34 (like OSS on Unix). It provides the core of playback/record
35 using fine grain objects (audio/midi streams...).
38 Mid level (MCI) and high level layers must be written independently from
39 the hardware and OS services.
43 MCI level provides some coarser grain operations (like playing
44 a Midi file, or playing a video stream).
50 <title>Multimedia architecture</title>
53 <title>Windows 95 multimedia architecture</title>
57 Kernel space | Client applications
60 | 16>| |<32 16>| |<32 16>| |<32 16>| |<32
62 | +----|-----------|---------|------------|-------+
63 | | | | | | | WinMM.dll
65 | +----|-----------|---------|------------|-------+
67 | +------+ | |<16 | | | |<16 |
68 | | 16>| | | | | | | |
70 | | +---------------+---+-------------+-------------+
71 | | | waveInXXX | | mciXXX | *playSound* |
72 | | | waveOutXXX | | | mmioXXX |
73 | | | midiInXXX | | | timeXXX |
74 | | | midiOutXXX | | | driverXXX |
75 | | | midiStreamXXX | | | | MMSystem.dll
76 | | | mixerXXX | | | | 16 bit
77 +--------+ | | | auxXXX +---+ +---+ mmThread| |
78 |MMDEVLDR|<------->| joyXXX | Call back | mmTask | |
79 +--------+ | | +-----------+-----------+---------+-------------+
81 | | | 16>| |<16>| 16>| |<16
83 +--------+ | | +-------------+ +----------+
84 | VxD |<------->| *.drv | | mci*.drv |
85 +--------+ | | +--------------+ +-----------+
86 | | | msacm.drv | | mciwave |
87 | | +--------------+ +-----------+
88 | | | midimap.drv | | mcimidi |
89 | | +-------------+ +-----------+
90 | | Low-level drivers | ... | MCI drivers
94 | +-------------------------------+
99 The important points to notice are:
103 all drivers (and most of the core code) is 16 bit
108 all hardware (or most of it) dependent code reside in the kernel
109 space (which is not surprising)
118 <title>Windows NT multimedia architecture</title>
121 Note that Win 98 has mixed 95/NT architecture, so when
122 speaking about Windows 95 (resp. NT) architecture, it refers
123 to the type of architecture, not what's actually
124 implemented. For example, Windows 98 implements both types
129 The important points to notice (compared to the Windows 95
134 drivers (low level, MCIs...) are 32 bit and Unicode
139 the interfaces between kernel and user drivers has
140 changed, but it doesn't impact much Wine. Those
141 changes allow some good things (like kernel mixing,
142 where different apps share the audio hardware) and of
143 course bad things (like kernel mixing, which adds
152 <title>Wine multimedia architecture</title>
156 Kernel space | Client applications
159 | 16>| |<32 16>| |<32 16>| |<32 16>| |<32
161 | +------+ | | | | | | | |
162 | |32/16>| | | | | | | | |
163 | | v v v | | v v v v
164 | | +---------------+---+-------------+-------------+
165 | | | waveInXXX | | mciXXX | *playSound* |
166 | | | waveOutXXX | | | mmioXXX | WinMM.dll
167 | | | midiInXXX | | | timeXXX | 32 bit
168 | | | midiOutXXX | | | driverXXX |
169 | | | midiStreamXXX | | | | MMSystem.dll
170 | | | mixerXXX | | | | 16 bit
171 | | | auxXXX +---+ +---+ mmThread| |
172 | | | joyXXX | Call back | mmTask | |
173 | | +-----------+-----------+---------+-------------+
175 | | 16>||<32 |<16>| 16>| |<16
176 | | vv |<32>| 32>v |<32
177 +---------+ | | +-------------+ +----------+
178 |HW driver|<------->| *.drv | | mci*.drv |
179 +---------+ | | +--------------+ +-----------+
180 | | | msacm.drv | | mciwave |
181 | | +--------------+ +-----------+
182 | | | midimap.drv | | mcimidi |
183 | | +-------------+ +-----------+
184 | | Low-level drivers | ... | MCI drivers
188 | +-------------------------------+
193 From the previous drawings, the most noticeable differences are:
197 low-level drivers can either be 16 or 32 bit (in fact,
198 Wine supports only native wave and audio mappers).
203 MCI drivers can either be 16 or 32 bit
208 all built-in drivers (low-level and MCI) will be written as 32 bit
216 Wine's WinMM automatically adapts the messages to be sent to
217 a driver so that it can convert it to 16 or 32 bit
226 <title>Low level layers</title>
229 The low level drivers abstract the hardware specific features
230 from the rest of the multimedia code. Those are implemented with a
231 well defined set of APIs, as windows do.
235 Please note that native low level drivers are not currently supported
236 in Wine, because they either access hardware components or require
237 VxDs to be loaded; Wine does not correctly supports those two so far.
241 There are two specific low level drivers (msacm.drv for wave input/output,
242 midimap.drv for MIDI output only). These drivers (also present
247 choosing one low level driver between many (we'll
248 discuss how the choice is made later on)
253 add the possibility to convert stream's format (ie ADPCM =>
254 PCM) (this is useful if the format required by the
255 application for playback isn't supported by the soundcard).
260 add the possibility to filter a stream (adding echo, equalizer...
261 to a wave stream, or modify the instruments that have to be
262 played for a MIDI stream).
269 <title>Hardware-bound low level drivers</title>
272 Each low lever driver has to implement at least one of the
273 following functionality, through the named function:
277 Waveform audio: out for playback, and in for
278 recording. MMSYSTEM and WINMM call the real low level
279 audio driver using the driver's
280 <function>wodMessage</function> and
281 <function>widMessage</function> functions which handle
282 the different requests.
287 MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface): out for
288 playback, and in for recording. MMSYSTEM and WINMM
289 call the low level driver functions using the driver's
290 <function>midMessage</function> and the
291 <function>modMessage</function> functions.
296 Mixer: this allows setting the volume for each one of
297 the other functionnality (and also some specific
298 attributes, like left/right balance for stereo
299 streams...). MMSYSTEM and WINMM call the low level
300 driver functions using the
301 <function>mxdMessage</function> function.
306 Aux: this is the predecessor of the mixer
307 functionnality (introduced in Win 95). Its usage has
308 been deprecated in favor of mixer interfaces.
315 Wine currently supports the following (kernel) multimedia
320 Open Sound System (OSS) as supplied in the Linux and
321 FreeBSD kernels by <ulink
322 url="http://www.4front-tech.com/">4Front
323 Technologies</ulink>. The presence of this driver is
324 checked by configure (depends on the
325 <sys/soundcard.h> file). Source code resides in
326 <filename>dlls/winmm/wineoss</filename>.
331 Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (<ulink
332 url="http://www.alsa-project.org/">ALSA</ulink>) as
333 supplied in the Linux kernel. Source code resides in
334 <filename>dlls/winmm/winealsa</filename>.
339 Analog RealTime Synthetizer (<ulink
340 url="http://www.arts-project.org/">aRts</ulink>): a
341 network server (and virtual mixer) used in the KDE project.
346 Network Audio Server (<ulink
347 url="http://radscan.com/nas.html">NAS</ulink>): an
354 url="http://jackit.sourceforge.net/">Jack</ulink>: a
355 low latency audio server.
360 AudioIO: the native Solaris audio interface.
367 The supported functionnalities per driver is as follows
368 (this table lists the available features of the products,
369 not exactly what's actually implemented on Wine):
371 <title>Wine multimedia drivers' functionalities</title>
372 <tgroup cols="6" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
375 <entry>Driver</entry>
376 <entry>Wave Out</entry>
377 <entry>Wave In</entry>
378 <entry>Midi Out</entry>
379 <entry>Midi In</entry>
380 <entry>Mixer (and Aux)</entry>
417 <entry>AudioIO</entry>
438 Lots of listed drivers won't support Midi (in a short time)
439 because the exposed "Un*x" native interfaces don't. This
440 would require using some kind as software synthesis (as
441 Timidity), but we cannot incorporate as it's GPL'ed.
447 <title>Wave mapper (msacm.drv)</title>
450 The Wave mapper device allows to load on-demand audio codecs
451 in order to perform software conversion for the types the
452 actual low level driver (hardware). Those codecs are
453 provided through the standard ACM drivers in MSACM32.DLL.
457 Wave mapper driver implementation can be found in
458 <filename>dlls/winmm/wavemap/</filename> directory. This
459 driver heavily relies on MSACM and MSACM32 DLLs which can be
460 found in <filename>dlls/msacm</filename> and
461 <filename>dlls/msacm32</filename>. Those DLLs load ACM
462 drivers which provide the conversion to PCM format (which is
463 normally supported by low level drivers). A Law, uLaw,
464 ADPCM, MP3... fit into the category of non PCM formats.
470 <title>MIDI mapper (midimap.drv)</title>
473 Midi mapper allows to map each one of 16 MIDI channels to a
474 specific instrument on an installed sound card. This allows
475 for example to support different MIDI instrument definitions
476 (XM, GM...). It also permits to output on a per channel
477 basis to different MIDI renderers.
481 A built-in MIDI mapper can be found in
482 <filename>dlls/winmm/midimap/</filename>. It partly provides
483 the same functionality as the Windows' one. It allows to
484 pick up destination channels: you can map a given channel to
485 a specific playback device channel (see the configuration
486 bits for more details).
494 <title>Mid level drivers (MCI)</title>
497 The mid level drivers are represented by some common API
498 functions, mostly <function>mciSendCommand</function> and
499 <function>mciSendString</function>. Wine implements several
500 MCI mid level drivers.
505 <title>Wine MCI drivers</title>
506 <tgroup cols="4" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
509 <entry>MCI Name</entry>
510 <entry>DLL Name</entry>
512 <entry>Location</entry>
513 <entry>Comments</entry>
518 <entry>CdAudio</entry>
519 <entry>MciCDA.drv</entry>
520 <entry>MCI interface to a CD audio player</entry>
521 <entry><filename>dlls/winmm/mcicda/</filename></entry>
523 Relies on NTDLL CdRom raw interface (through
524 <function>DeviceIoControl</function>).
528 <entry>WaveAudio</entry>
529 <entry>MciWave.drv</entry>
531 MCI interface for wave playback and record
533 <entry><filename>dlls/winmm/mciwave/</filename></entry>
534 <entry>It uses the low level audio API.</entry>
537 <entry>Sequencer</entry>
538 <entry>MciSeq.drv</entry>
539 <entry>Midi Sequencer (playback)</entry>
540 <entry><filename>dlls/winmm/mciseq/</filename></entry>
541 <entry>It uses the low level midi APIs</entry>
544 <entry>AviVideo</entry>
545 <entry>MciAvi.drv</entry>
546 <entry>AVI playback and record</entry>
547 <entry><filename>dlls/winmm/mciavi/</filename></entry>
549 It rather heavily relies on MSVIDEO/MSVFW32 DLLs
556 The MCI Name column is the name of the MCI driver, as it is
557 searched in configuration. The DLL Name column is the name of
558 the DLL the configuration provides as a value. The name listed
559 here is the default one (see the configuration section for the
564 Adding a new MCI driver is just a matter of writing the
565 corresponding DLL with the correct interface (see existing MCI
566 drivers for the details), and to provide the relevant setup
567 information for <filename>wine.inf</filename>
573 <title>High level layers</title>
576 <title>WINMM (and MMSYSTEM)</title>
579 The high level layers encompass basically the MMSYSTEM and
580 WINMM DLLs exported APIs. It also provides the skeleton for
581 the core functionality for multimedia playback and
582 recording. Note that native MMSYSTEM and WINMM do not
583 currently work under Wine and there is no plan to support
584 them (it would require to also fully support VxD, which is
589 WINMM and MMSYSTEM in Wine can handle both 16 bit and 32 bit
590 drivers (for low level and MCI drivers). It will handle all
591 the conversions transparently for the all the calls to WINMM
592 and MMSYSTEM, as it knows what the driver interface is (16
593 bit or 32 bit) and it manages the information sent
598 MCI drivers are seen as regular Wine modules, and can be
599 loaded (with a correct load order between builtin, native),
600 as any other DLL. Please note, that MCI drivers module names
601 must bear the <filename>.drv</filename> extension to be
602 correctly understood.
606 Multimedia timers are implemented with a dedicated thread,
607 run in the context of the calling process, which should
608 correctly mimic Windows behavior. The only drawback is that
609 the thread will appear the calling process if it enumerates
610 the running processes.
616 <title>DSOUND</title>
619 Wine also provide a DSound (DirectX) DLL with the proper
624 Note that a Wine specific flag has been added to the
625 <function>wodOpen</function> function, so that the DSound
626 DLL can get a reference to a COM sound object from a given
627 WINMM wave output device. This should be changed in the
636 <title>MS ACM Dlls</title>
639 <title>Contents</title>
642 The MSACM32 (and its 16 bit sibbling MSACM) provide a way to
643 map a given wave format to another format. It also provides
644 filtering capabilities. Those DLLs only implement the proper
645 switch between a caller and a driver providing the
646 implementation of the requested format change or filter
651 There's nothing specific in Wine's implementation compared
652 to Windows' one. Here's however a list of the builtin format
653 change drivers (there's no filter driver yet):
655 <title>Wine ACM drivers</title>
656 <tgroup cols="2" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
660 <entry>Provides</entry>
665 <entry>imaadp32</entry>
666 <entry>IMA ADPCM (adaptative PCM)</entry>
669 <entry>msadp32</entry>
670 <entry>Microsoft's ADPCM (adaptative PCM)</entry>
673 <entry>msg711</entry>
674 <entry>Microsoft's G.711 (A-Law and µ-Law)</entry>
677 <entry>winemp3</entry>
679 Wine's MP3 (MPEG Layer 3), based on mpglib library
688 Note that Wine also supports native audio codecs as
693 All builtin ACM drivers are 32 bit Unicode DLLs
699 <title>Caching</title>
702 The MSACM/MSACM32 keeps some data cached for all known ACM
703 drivers. Under the key
705 Software\Microsoft\AudioCompressionManager\DriverCache\<driver name>
707 , are kept for values:
711 <literal>aFormatTagCache</literal> which
712 contains an array of <literal>DWORD</literal>. There
713 are two <literal>DWORD</literal>s per <literal>cFormatTags</literal>
714 entry. The first <literal>DWORD</literal> contains a
715 format tag value, and the second the associated
716 maximum size for a <literal>WAVEFORMATEX</literal> structure.
717 (Fields <literal>dwFormatTag</literal> and <literal>cbFormatSize</literal> from
723 <literal>cFilterTags</literal> contains the number of tags supported by the driver
729 <literal>cFormatTags</literal> contains the number of tags support
730 by the driver for conversions.
735 <literal>fdwSupport</literal> (the same as the one returned from
736 <function>acmDriverDetails</function>).
743 The <literal>cFilterTags</literal>,
744 <literal>cFormatTags</literal>,
745 <literal>fdwSupport</literal> are the same values as the
746 ones returned from <function>acmDriverDetails</function>
753 <title>MS Video Dlls</title>
756 <title>Contents</title>
759 The MSVFW32 (and its 16 bit sibbling MSVIDEO) provide
760 encode/decode video streams. Those DLLs only implement the
761 proper switch between a caller and a driver providing the
762 implementation of the requested format coding/decoding
767 There's nothing specific in Wine's implementation compared
768 to Windows' one. Here's however a list of the builtin
771 <title>Wine VIDC drivers</title>
772 <tgroup cols="2" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
776 <entry>Provides</entry>
781 <entry>msrle32</entry>
782 <entry>Microsoft's RLE (Run-Length encoded)</entry>
785 <entry>msvidc32</entry>
786 <entry>Microsoft's Video-1</entry>
789 <entry>iccvid</entry>
790 <entry>Radius Cinepak Video Decoder</entry>
798 Note that Wine also supports native video codecs as well.
802 All builtin VIDC drivers are 32 bit Unicode DLLs
810 <title>Multimedia configuration</title>
813 Unfortunately, multimedia configuration evolved over time:
817 In the early days on Windows 3.x, configuration was
818 stored in <filename>system.in</filename> file, under
819 various sections (<literal>[drivers]</literal> for low
820 level drivers, <literal>[mci]</literal>
821 (resp. <literal>[mci32]</literal>) for 16 bit (resp. 32
822 bit) MCI drivers...).
827 With the apparition of the registry, in Windows 95,
828 configuration as been duplicated there, under the key
830 HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\MediaResources
836 Windows NT also adopted the registry, but decided to
837 store the configuration information under another key
840 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
842 And with a different layout of keys and values beneath
850 Currently, Wine tries to load first a driver (low-level or
851 MCI) from the NT registry settings. If it fails, it will try
852 the <filename>system.ini</filename> configuration.
856 An out-of-the-box configuration is provided in
857 <filename>wine.inf</filename>, and shall be stored in registry
858 and <filename>system.ini</filename> at Wine installation
859 time. It will setup correctly the MCI drivers' configuration
860 (as well as the wave and MIDI mappers). As the low-level
861 drivers depend on hardware, their setup will be handled by
862 <filename>winecfg</filename>.
866 <title>Wine multimedia configuration scheme</title>
867 <tgroup cols="5" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
870 <entry>Driver</entry>
871 <entry>Read from NT registry</entry>
872 <entry>Read from <filename>system.ini</filename></entry>
873 <entry>Setup by <filename>wine.inf</filename></entry>
874 <entry>Setup by <filename>winecfg</filename></entry>
879 <entry>MCI drivers</entry>
880 <entry>Yes (1)</entry>
881 <entry>Yes (2)</entry>
886 <entry>Wave and MIDI mappers</entry>
893 <entry>Hardware-bound low level drivers</entry>
900 <entry>ACM and VIDC drivers (audio & video codecs)</entry>
911 This will allow most settings to be correctly loaded and
912 handled. However, it won't if an app tries to search directly
913 the registry for the actual configuration, as the three
914 potential configuration places may not be in sync.
918 It still lacks a correct installation scheme (as any
919 multimedia device under Windows), so that all the correct
920 keys are created in the registry. This requires an advanced
921 model since, for example, the number of wave out devices can
922 only be known on the destination system (depends on the
923 sound card driven by the OSS interface).
927 The following sections describe which type of information
928 (depending on the location) Wine's multimedia DLLs understand.
932 <title>NT configuration</title>
937 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
939 key, are stored the names of the DLLs to be loaded for each
942 "cdaudio"="mcicda.drv"
943 "sequencer"="mciseq.drv"
944 "waveaudio"="mciwave.drv"
945 "avivideo"="mciavi.drv"
946 "videodisc"="mcipionr.drv"
948 "MPEGVideo"="mciqtz.drv"
954 <title><filename>system.ini</filename></title>
957 Wine will read the MCI drivers from the
958 <literal>[mci]</literal> or <literal>[mci32]</literal>
959 section. Wine won't make any difference between the two.
963 Here's a sample configuration:
968 waveaudio=mciwave.drv
970 videodisc=mcipionr.drv
977 ACM drivers' configuration is read (only so far) from the
978 <filename>system.ini</filename> (and setup at Wine
979 installation from the <filename>wine.inf</filename> file).
982 MSACM.imaadpcm=imaadp32.acm
983 MSACM.msadpcm=msadp32.acm
984 MSACM.msg711=msg711.acm
985 MSACM.winemp3=winemp3.acm
990 Video (aka vidc) drivers' configuration is read (only so
991 far) from the <filename>system.ini</filename> (and setup at
992 Wine installation from the <filename>wine.inf</filename>
996 VIDC.MRLE=msrle32.dll
997 VIDC.MSVC=msvidc32.dll
1003 See also the configuration part of the User's Guide for
1004 other information on low level drivers.
1010 <title>Per driver/DLL configuration</title>
1013 <title>Midi mapper</title>
1016 The Midi mapper configuration is the same as on Windows
1019 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\MIDIMap
1021 if the <literal>UseScheme</literal> value is not set, or
1022 is set to a null value, the MIDI mapper will always use
1023 the driver identified by the
1024 <literal>CurrentInstrument</literal> value. Note: Wine
1025 (for simplicity while installing) allows to define
1026 <literal>CurrentInstrument</literal> as
1027 <literal>#n</literal> (where n is a number), whereas
1028 Windows only allows the real device name here. If
1029 <literal>UseScheme</literal> is set to a non null value,
1030 <literal>CurrentScheme</literal> defines the name of the
1031 scheme to map the different channels. All the schemes are
1032 available with keys like
1034 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\MediaProperties\PrivateProperties\Midi\Schemes\%name_of_scheme%
1036 For every scheme, under this key, will be a sub-key (which
1037 name is usually a two digit index, starting at 00). Its
1038 default value is the name of the output driver, and the
1039 value <literal>Channels</literal> lists all channels (of
1040 the 16 standard MIDI ones) which have to be copied to this
1045 To provide enhanced configuration and mapping
1046 capabilities, each driver can define under the key
1048 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\MediaProperties\PrivateProperties\Midi\Ports\%driver_name%
1050 a link to and <filename>.IDF</filename> file which allows
1051 to remap channels internally (for example 9 -> 16), to
1052 change instruments identification, event controllers
1053 values. See the source file
1054 <filename>dlls/winmm/midimap/midimap.c</filename> for the
1055 details (this isn't implemented yet).
1066 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
1069 sgml-parent-document:("wine-devel.sgml" "set" "book" "part" "chapter" "")