So, now I'm the one asking the obligatory question...

Will I be able to access the raw contents of a sound buffer in XNA 3.0 for streaming music?

I know of a pure C# Ogg Vorbis decoder which would allow me to stream music, if only XNA 3.0 allowed me to write the decoded data into a sound buffer for playback. I've been keeping my current game project on hold because I could not find a satisfactory solution for music playback and I'm hoping XNA 3.0 will finally solve this issue!

 

Nö, no access to 'em sound buffers in 3.0, at least not in the current CTP and I rather doubt it will be added before 3.0, if at all.

i think i saw a msg from someone at msft saying that this was a feature they were considering for xna...   ???

There was a thread in the audio forum where the XNA Framework team asked what people would do with raw sound buffer access and were considering it for XNA GS 3.0.  However, I think they were leaning more towards just giving you the ability to play .wav/.wma/.mp3 files without having to go through XACT.

I wish I could find the link, but all of my searches just end in HTTP 500 errors. :(

It is most likely mentioned in Raw Sound Buffer Access in XNA 2.0. The general messages from the XNA Team is to write a Windows game that uses sound buffer modifications that are impossible with the vanilla XNA FX to proof the usefullness. The major complain seemed to be the lack of decent audio compression for backgorund music and the requirement to use XACT for simple SFX anyway, which 3.0 does mitigate with XACT3 (which supports xWMA compression on both platforms) and the simple SoundEffect class and WMA playback through the Song class.

Cygon4:

Will I be able to access the raw contents of a sound buffer in XNA 3.0 for streaming music?

No.

But if streaming music is your goal, you won't need this, because we're building that directly into the 3.0 framework. In fact you can play around with this today if you download the CTP.

Will I be able to access the raw contents of a sound buffer in XNA 3.0 for sound synthesis?

Let me answer an infinite set of questions:

"Will I be able to access the raw contents of a sound buffer in XNA 3.0 for * ?"

Answer: No. :)

It is a bad new and it isn't funny. I am not interested in different possibilities of using the access to raw contents of a sound buffer (e.g. own streaming of the music). I understand that the Microsoft isn't interested in the existence of different solutions to codecs than own on Xbox 360 (added new api in 3. 0 partly is solving a problem streaming of music, what was said above)

but therefore I have the second question:

Will I be able to access to the raw contents of a sound buffer for sound synthesis in next version of XNA?

xaudio2:

Will I be able to access to the raw contents of a sound buffer for sound synthesis in next version of XNA?

Nobody knows and it likely won't be announced for quite a while even if it is (considering the next version is like 12+ months away since 3.0 isn't even out yet). You'll simply have to wait and see what they announce for 4.0 whenever they make those announcements.

xaudio2:

Will I be able to access to the raw contents of a sound buffer for sound synthesis in next version of XNA?

Just join us hopelessly naive voters on the connect issues for raw audio buffer access :)