Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) is an initiative unveiled in 2002 by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

to standardize the hardware and

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architecture for audio devices in modern

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

s. Three classes of audio devices are supported by default:

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

, IEEE 1394 (

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), and

Intel High Definition Audio Intel High Definition Audio (IHDA) (also called HD Audio or development codename Azalia) is a specification for the audio sub-system of personal computers. It was released by Intel in 2004 as the successor to their AC'97 PC audio standard, but it ...

, which supports

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and

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. Starting with

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

, Microsoft requires all computer and audio device manufacturers to support Universal Audio Architecture in order to pass Windows Logo certification.

Overview

The goal of the Universal Audio Architecture is to solve a very common problem in older 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 Creative Technology Ltd., or Creative Labs Pte Ltd., is a Singaporean multinational electronics company mainly dealing with audio technologies and products such as speakers, headphones, sound cards and other digital media. Founded by Sim Wong ...

Realtek Realtek Semiconductor Corp. () is a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company situated in the Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan. Realtek was founded in October 1987 and subsequently listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1998. Realtek has manu ...

, Turtle Beach 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

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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, codenamed "Whistler Server", is the sixth major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft and the first server version to be released under the Windows Server brand name. It is part of the Windows NT ...

. 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 (WMA) is a series of audio codecs and their corresponding audio coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. Audio encoded in WMA is stored in a digital c ...

audio streams can be played without special driver support. UAA is intended to be a complete replacement for developing WDM 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.Getting Started with WDM Audio Drivers
provides further information on when it is appropriate to develop a custom audio driver.

History

In 2004, Microsoft provided the first version of UAA as an update to Windows 2000 Service Pack 4,

Windows XP Service Pack 1 Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

and

, but is only available by contacting Microsoft support directly.MSKB 835221
describes the initial driver release, an
MKSB 888111
describes the 1.0a update. However, almost all manufacturer supplied drivers contain the UAA class driver. Windows XP Service Pack 3 also includes the updated driver, as well as

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is an edition of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system that supports the x86-64 architecture. It was released on April 25, 2005, alongside the x86-64 versions of Windows Server 2003. Windows XP Profession ...

with Service Pack 1 and 2. In

, the Windows Logo program requirements state that any machine shipped with Vista must include a UAA-compliant audio device that works without additional drivers. In

Windows 11 Windows 11 is a version of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released on October 5, 2021, as the successor to Windows 10 (2015). It is available as a free upgrade for devices running Windows 10 that meet the #System requirements, Windo ...

SoundWire MIPI Alliance is a global business alliance that develops technical specifications for the mobile ecosystem, particularly smart phones but including mobile-influenced industries. MIPI was founded in 2003 by Arm, Intel, Nokia, Samsung, STMicro ...

is supported by UAA.https://www.mipi.org/press-releases/new-mipi-sdca-specification-simplifies-audio-software-architecture-and-driver-requirements

References

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
{{Windows Components Device drivers Windows audio

Overview

History

See also

References

External links