: The natural degradation of sound over distance.
While your computer will still "work" without it, removing OpenAL can cause certain games to lose sound entirely or crash on startup. Since it is a lightweight, free utility that only runs when a specific app calls for it, there is no performance penalty for leaving it installed. Is it actually free? entirely free
Use OpenAL Soft for compatibility; use Steam Audio for performance.
: Seamless integration with legacy Linux-descendant systems.
: The natural degradation of sound over distance.
While your computer will still "work" without it, removing OpenAL can cause certain games to lose sound entirely or crash on startup. Since it is a lightweight, free utility that only runs when a specific app calls for it, there is no performance penalty for leaving it installed. Is it actually free? entirely free
Use OpenAL Soft for compatibility; use Steam Audio for performance.
: Seamless integration with legacy Linux-descendant systems.