There is a large deviation in the quality of DirectX Audio plugins, some only process 16bit input, some only use integer math internally, while some take 32bit input, and internally rework it to 16bit. Unfortunately, there really wasn't any easy way to discern which plugin was doing a good job, and which one isn't - until now! AnalogX BitPolice displays the average utilization of all bits inside the data stream, plus BitPolice identifies the stream format (either 16bit or 32bit) that is being used. BitPolice does not effect the audio data in any way, it simply averages the bit utilization over the sampling time.

This plugin should be used BEFORE the plugin you're interested in, and then immediately after (for a total of two instances). Then simply play the audio stream, if the first BitPolice reads it as 32bit, and the second as 16bit, then the plugin only supports 16bit data. Any other analysis requires you to compare the actual average usage of a given bit... If all the inputs are consistently lower, or if there are consistently lower gaps (ie, ever other bit is lower), then it's more than likely not running internally using the same resolution as the source. Another point to make is that the ideal value for any of these bits is 50, any extremely high or extremely low values indicate that the bits are not being used. The highest bit (in 16bit mode it would be bit16, in 32bit mode it would be bit32) indicated the sign of the sample bit (+/-), and should in almost all cases be very close to 50%.

In order to use this plugin, you must have DirectX 6 or greater installed, as well as DirectX Media. You must also have a DirectX audio-compatible music application (like Paris, WaveLab, Cakewalk, etc) installed in order to use the plugin. It works with either a mono (1 channel) or stereo (2 channel) audio stream, at either 16bit or 32bit.

I'd like to take a second to thank Sakis Anastopoulos for giving me the idea for this nifty little plugin, as well Derek von Krogh for helping me test it, as well as thinking he came up with the name :)