Thread: Making a fake soundcard

I would like to make a fake soundcard driver, so i can capture the sound from every program with my application. The idea is that when an application plays the sound to my fake soundcard, i can capture it without any quality loss.

The problem is that im unknow in the area of making drivers. I read that i need ddk (driver development kit) from ms, but i wonder if i can do it without the ddk. I already have acces to msdn, which also includes some documentation of the ddk, but AFAIK there arent any examples included with this msdn. I read there is an example soundcard driver that can be used as a startingpoint, but i cant find it in the msdn installation directory.

Am i trying to do the impossible? Or is it absolutely necessary to pay ms 200 bucks for the ddk before i can make a simple driver. If someone has some code i can use, it would be greatly appreciated .

I found out there are two different version of the DDK which can be ordered @ ms. The driver suit 3 DDK is $200 and is way to expencive for me. The other one is "free" and only costs $25 shipping and handling. Im thinking about getting the cheaper one, but i dont know
a) if that is enough to get me going
b) if i can do it witouth the ddk. (On an other forum someone suggested to use a "Installable Driver" which is described in the psdk)

Can someone with some inside knowlegde about driver development please help me out a little?

As far as I know, you cant do this sort of thing with using the DDK. The good news is that you dont need to create an entire new driver for your sound card. All you need to do is create a filter driver, and install in on top of your sound card's driver. This will give you access to all the data that is passed to your sound card.

I have tried to find some sollid info on this all, but so far i havent been very succesfull. If i made a filter on top of MY soundcard, would this filter still be usable for other soundcards?

I dont want to make a fake soundcard for myself. Its something i want to do for my freeware program. So the solutiong must not be soundcard specific