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HOW do we tell the "on board sound card" that computer memory XXX is talking to it!
many thanks
esdel

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Short answer: the on-board audio device will not autonomously fetch an arbitrary RAM address. The bytes that reach the sound hardware are supplied through the operating system and the audio driver stack. asked how to send the contents of memory location xxx to the motherboard sound device; was right that this is an OS-level task — but it is practical by writing code that reads the memory buffer (with proper privileges) and feeds it to the OS audio API as audio samples.

Important constraints and cautions: the buffer must contain valid audio (raw PCM) or be decoded first (MP3/AAC etc. need decoding). The sample format (sample rate, bit depth, channels, endianness) must match the audio stream parameters. Reading another process’s memory or physical memory requires elevated privileges and platform-specific APIs (ReadProcessMemory on Windows, ptrace or /proc/<pid>/mem or /dev/mem on Linux) and can crash or compromise the system if done incorrectly. Test with low speaker volume.

Practical approach (same-process PCM buffer): open an output stream with the OS audio API and write the bytes from the memory buffer. A minimal cross-platform example using PyAudio (assumes the buffer is 16-bit little-endian mono at 44.1 kHz):

import pyaudio

pcm_bytes = my_buffer  # bytes/bytearray containing PCM16LE samples
p = pyaudio.PyAudio()
stream = p.open(format=pyaudio.paInt16, channels=1, rate=44100, output=True)
stream.write(pcm_bytes)
stream.stop_stream()
stream.close()
p.terminate()

If the intent is to “listen” to live speech, use the OS capture APIs (WASAPI/WinMM/DirectSound on Windows, ALSA/PulseAudio on Linux, CoreAudio on macOS) or a library wrapper and route the capture stream to output. Example pass-through (capture -> playback) with PyAudio:

import pyaudio

p = pyaudio.PyAudio()
in_s = p.open(format=pyaudio.paInt16, channels=1, rate=44100, input=True, frames_per_buffer=1024)
out_s = p.open(format=pyaudio.paInt16, channels=1, rate=44100, output=True)
try:
    while True:
        data = in_s.read(1024)
        out_s.write(data)
finally:
    in_s.close(); out_s.close(); p.terminate()

This outlines the correct workflow: obtain or map the bytes legally, ensure they are in the right format, and hand them to the OS audio API rather than trying to bypass the driver stack.

Member Avatar for mechbas

If it doesn't know already it probably never will.
You might rephrase the query.

Member Avatar for esdel

How do we get the content of memory location xxx sent to the motherboard sound?

Not "turn it on"
Get it to listen to what WE are saying!

Member Avatar for mechbas

Unless you're into re-writing your OS code it's mission impossible. This is NOT a hardware issue. What sound byte that goes to the sound card is determined by the OS, hardware, and the apps available to play it.
Lastly, you wanna get SNOTTY it's best you take your business somewhere else like some other site.

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