OpenAL and Vista: Device is always 'Generic Software'

I'm writing the audio part of a game, and I'm using OpenAL. I want to use some extensions, but the tests always fail:

TRACE: AudioManager - Sound device: 'Generic Software'
TRACE: AudioManager - Enabling OpenAL extensions...
TRACE: AudioManager - Compressor support: NO
TRACE: AudioManager - Reverb support: YES
TRACE: AudioManager - Chorus support: NO
TRACE: AudioManager - Distortion support: NO
TRACE: AudioManager - Echo support: NO
TRACE: AudioManager - Flanger support: NO
TRACE: AudioManager - Frequency shifter support: NO
TRACE: AudioManager - Vocal morpher support: NO
TRACE: AudioManager - Pitch shifter support: NO
TRACE: AudioManager - Ring modulator support: NO
TRACE: AudioManager - AutoWAH support: NO
TRACE: AudioManager - Equalizer support: NO
TRACE: AudioManager - EAX Reverb support: YES

This is because I only get the Generic Software driver, which only supports reverb and EAX reverb. And not just on my machine, but others as well.

Here's how I detect the drivers for OpenAL to use:

ALchar device[256];
ZeroMemory(device, 256);
if (alcIsExtensionPresent(NULL, "ALC_ENUMERATE_ALL_EXT"))
{
    strcpy_s(device, 256, alcGetString(NULL, ALC_ALL_DEVICES_SPECIFIER));
}
else if (alcIsExtensionPresent(NULL, "ALC_ENUMERATION_EXT"))
{
    strcpy_s(device, 256, alcGetString(NULL, ALC_DEVICE_SPECIFIER));
}

TRACE_AUDIOMANAGER("Sound device: '%s'", device);

g_System = alcOpenDevice(device);

According to the specification, the device specifier should return two drivers: 'Generic Hardware' and 'Generic Software', separated by a NULL terminator.

My sound card is an "NVIDIA High Definition Audio" device which is using the nvhda32v.sys driver (version 1.0.0.63, updated on 11-11-2009).

Why doesn't OpenAL detect my hardware?

Solution

OpenAL should always return the default audio device, unless you are using a Creative audio card. The extensions are all Creative-specific. It's the same as expecting to get Intel-specific OpenGL extension on an NVIDIA videocard.

For the record, here's how you set up OpenAL:

// create a default device
ALCdevice* device = alcOpenDevice("");
if (!device)
{
    LOG_ERROR("Could not create OpenAL device.");
    return false;
}

// context attributes, 2 zeros to terminate 
ALint attribs[6] = {
    0, 0
};

ALCcontext* context = alcCreateContext(device, attribs);
if (!context)
{
    LOG_ERROR("Could not create OpenAL context.");
    alcCloseDevice(device);
    return false;
}

if (!alcMakeContextCurrent(context))
{
    LOG_ERROR("Could not enable OpenAL context.");
    alcDestroyContext(context);
    alcCloseDevice(device);
    return false;
}

LOG_INFO("[OpenAL] Version: %s", alGetString(AL_VERSION));
LOG_INFO("[OpenAL] Vendor: %s", alGetString(AL_VENDOR));
LOG_INFO("[OpenAL] Renderer: %s", alGetString(AL_RENDERER));