Limitations

The following are limits primarily due to DirectX limits and restrictions.

Playback audio file formats - See the Audio File Format and Restrictions section on the Quick Start page.
Audio File size limit - There is physical limit to the Wav file size that can be played and will vary by your system configuration (memory on the audio card, memory size of the computer, how much computer RAM is available when the program is run, bit depth of the Wav file, etc). In our testing, we got "Insufficient memory" errors with file sizes around 130 Megabytes in size (about 12 minutes of music, PCM, 16 bit, sample 44Khz, bit rate 1411Kbps) . Most music recording will not be that large and will play fine, but it is best to load and test the tracks. Memory errors are reported as soon as the file begins to play.

Wav File Supported Attributes

PCM Wav type only - Pulse Code Modulation (PCM uncompressed 8bit or 16bit) Wav format is the supported format of DirectSound. If you are getting errors trying to load and play a Wav file, it may have been created with a compression algorithm other than PCM. Some other bit depths Wavs have worked in our testing but are not officially supported by DirectX. DirectSound does NOT support compressed WAV formats. (non PCM)
Samples per second - The Samples Per Second should be a common value such as 8.0 kHz, 11.025 kHz, 22.05 kHz, or 44.1 kHz.
Channels - Must be either monaural (mono data uses one channel) or stereo (data uses two channels). More than two channels is NOT supported.
Bits per sample - All Fx effects and 3D effects ( except Waves Reverb) require audio files of 8-bits or 16-bits (Bits Per Sample) at any sample rate . 24bit or 32bit MAY work but DirectX does not specify these in its documentation. If it does not play, try reformatting at a lower BPS.

Viewing Wav File Attributes

To view Wav file attributes, open Windows Explorer and browse to the folder where the audio file resides. Click on the file to select it, then Right mouse click. From the resulting context menu, pick Attributes. A attributes dialog will popup. The audio file format attributes are on the Summary tab.