PsychPortAudio('GetDevices')

Psychtoolbox › PsychPortAudio.{mex*,dll} subfunction

Returns 'devices', an array of structs, one struct for each available PortAudio
device.

If the optional parameter 'deviceIndex' is provided and the optional parameter
'devicetype' is set to [], then only returns a single struct with information
about the device with index 'deviceIndex'.

Each struct contains information about its associated PortAudio device. The
optional parameter 'devicetype' can be used to enumerate only devices of a
specific class:
1=Windows/DirectSound, 2=Windows/MME, 3=Windows/ASIO, 11=Windows/WDMKS,
13=Windows/WASAPI, 8=Linux/ALSA, 7=Linux/OSS, 12=Linux/JACK, 5=MacOSX/CoreAudio.

On OS/X you'll usually only see devices for the CoreAudio API, a first-class
audio subsystem. On Linux you may have the choice between ALSA, JACK and OSS.
ALSA or JACK provide very low latencies and very good timing, OSS is an older
system which is less capable but not very widespread in use anymore. On
MS-Windows you'll have the ''choice'' between up to 5 different audio
subsystems: If you buy an expensive sound card with ASIO drivers, pick that API
for low latency, it should give you comparable performance to OS/X or Linux. 2nd
best choice would be WASAPI (on Windows-Vista) or WDMKS (on Windows-2000/XP) for
ok latency on good days. DirectSound is the next worst choice if you have
hardware with DirectSound support. If everything else fails, you'll be left with
MME, a premium example of system misdesign successfully sold to paying
customers.

<<=====See also:===== Open GetDeviceSettings <<