Windows WASAPI exclusive mode

[Björn Melinder]

Hello,

does anyone know if Google Chrome or Firefox plan to support low-latency Windows audio input using getUserMedia()?

On Mac with Google Chrome, I can successfully get audio from getUserMedia(), route it through a web audio graph (e.g. reverb) and get excellent latency through the speakers. This makes it suitable for live audio, such as playing an electric guitar or singing, without noticeable delay. It's really amazing to get the same performance and quality using HTML5 as if using traditional, native programming.

However, when trying Google Chrome on Windows, the latency is not nearly as good. As far as I understand, WASAPI is used in non-exclusive mode. It seems to me, what would be needed is either exclusive mode WASAPI, or ASIO. See also:

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=271521

In my opinion, reducing latency on Windows would open up the live audio aspect of the platform to a much broader audience. It would also lead to even lower end-to-end latency in WebRTC audio sessions. I'm guessing there are plans for this - if any can shed some light, I'd appreciate it!

Thanks,

Bjorn

PS cross-post: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-audio-dev/2013Sep/0000.html

[Henrik Andreasson]

Today it is possible to enable exclusive mode for audio output in Chrome using the command-line flag enable-exclusive-audio. Similar support could be added to the input side but this activity has not yet started. In any case, official Chrome would not be able to run by default in exclusive mode. Instead such support would most likely always be behind a flag. The WebAudio backend for live-audio has a special backend today (will be changed) and the exclusive mode flag has no effect there in any direction today.

I currently don't see ASIO support in Chrome either due to license reasons.

To summarize: the components for adding exclusive mode support behind a flag for live-audio input exists but I don't think it will get a high priority in the near future to integrate it. And if it is added, it will probably be behind a flag.

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