Universal Audio Architecture
Encyclopedia
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
to standardize the hardware and class driver
Class driver
In computing, a class driver is a type of hardware device driver that can operate a large number of different devices of a broadly similar type....
architecture for audio devices in modern Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s. Three classes of audio devices are supported by default: USB, IEEE 1394 (Firewire), and Intel High Definition Audio
Intel High Definition Audio
Intel High Definition Audio refers to the specification released by Intel in 2004 for delivering high-definition audio that is capable of playing back more channels at higher quality than previous integrated audio codecs like AC'97...
, which supports PCI
Peripheral Component Interconnect
Conventional PCI is a computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer...
and PCI Express
PCI Express
PCI Express , officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a computer expansion card standard designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP bus standards...
.
Starting with Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
, Microsoft requires all computer and audio device manufacturers to support Universal Audio Architecture in order to pass Windows Logo
WHQL Testing
Windows Hardware Quality Labs testing or WHQL Testing is Microsoft's testing process which involves running a series of tests on third-party hardware or software, and then submitting the log files from these tests to Microsoft for review...
.
Overview
The goal of the Universal Audio Architecture is to solve a very common problem in modern Microsoft Windows products, that of inconsistent support for audio. Due to the lack of a common system by which audio devices could describe their capabilities to the operating system, not to mention a lack of ability to control those capabilities, audio device manufacturers (such as Creative Labs, RealtekRealtek
Realtek Semiconductor Corp. , a fabless IC design house situated in the Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan, was founded in October 1987, and subsequently approved as a listed company on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1998...
, Turtle Beach
Turtle Beach Systems
Turtle Beach Systems is a sound card and headphone manufacturer and direct competitor with Creative Labs-branded Sound Blaster. In 1995, the company merged with Voyetra, a company that made custom software for sound cards, to form Voyetra Turtle Beach Inc which is headquartered in Elmsford, New...
and others) have had to provide a series of control panels and custom interfaces to let a user control the device. This, in turn, requires kernel-mode drivers so that the user's actions can be communicated to the hardware itself. Poorly-written audio drivers have been a common source of system instability in Windows, especially with games that make use of extended audio card capabilities. These concerns prompted Microsoft to disable the audio stack entirely by default in Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...
.
UAA seeks to resolve problems by putting forth a standardized interface which audio devices can follow, ensuring that the device's capabilities will be recognized and used effectively by Windows, without the need for additional drivers or custom control panels. It also provides a reasonable assurance that an audio device will still be able to work many years down the road, without requiring vendor-supplied drivers for a newer version of Windows.
Another goal of UAA is to provide better support for multi-channel audio in Windows so that, for example, multi-channel WMA Pro
Windows Media Audio
Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...
audio streams can be played without special driver support.
UAA is intended to be a complete replacement for developing WDM
Windows Driver Model
In computing, the Windows Driver Model — also known at one point as the Win32 Driver Model — is a framework for device drivers that was introduced with Windows 98 and Windows 2000 to replace VxD, which was used on older versions of Windows such as Windows 95 and Windows 3.1, as well...
Audio Drivers; however, in some cases it may be necessary for an otherwise UAA-compliant audio device to expose capabilities that cannot be done through UAA. Windows will continue to fully support audio drivers that use the PortCls and AVStream drivers.
History
In 2004, Microsoft provided the first version of UAA as an update to Windows 2000 Service Pack 4Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
, Windows XP Service Pack 1
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
and Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...
, but is only available by contacting Microsoft support directly. However, almost all manufacturer supplied drivers contain the UAA class driver. Windows XP Service Pack 3 also includes the updated driver.
In Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
, the Windows Logo program requirements state that any machine shipped with Vista must include a UAA-compliant audio device that works without additional drivers.
External links
- Audio Device Technologies for Windows — Windows Hardware Developer Center web site
- Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) High Definition Audio class driver (Q888111) for Windows XP with Service Pack 1
See also
- Windows Vista audio architecture
- Windows legacy audio componentsWindows legacy audio componentsThis article describes audio APIs and components in Microsoft Windows which are now obsolete or deprecated.-Multimedia Extensions :The MME API or the Windows Multimedia API was the first universal and standardized Windows audio API. Wave sound events played in Windows and MIDI I/O use MME...