Generating noise-like sound effects

How do I generate noise-like sounds... explosions, rain, waves, etc., on a Windows system?

I know how to play MIDI notes, and how to play a wave sound, but I don't know how to generate non-musical sound effects. And, I do want to generate the sounds in real-time, I don't want to create a wave file.

Can anyone recommend resources (books or web)?

Years ago, I worked on a system where you could generate white noise, and then you could program ADSR and various high-pass & low-pass filters, etc. I assume that all modern sound cards can do this too.

They can but coding it requires much more, and why code it when you can purchase these?

Sony's Sound Forge 7.0
Sony's Sound Forge Audio Studio 7.0 (Sound Forge Lite).

The only other way I know how to do it is to setup DirectMusic and then setup an empty sound buffer. Grab a pointer to the IDirectSound interface for the buffer and put the values into the buffer that will create your effects.

White noise can be generated using Perlin noise and instead of plotting the values for graphics you simply send the values to the buffer to be played. However you will want a looping algorithm or an algo that loops at set periods so you can loop the sound effect with minimal clicking.