Help with sound program

[ultratoke]

I need ideas on what to start researching in order to write a driver(doesn't have to be a driver) that will give me the ability to choose a running process ie: chrome or firefox, and force it to use a selected output device rather then only using your default.

Basically so i can play my music from browser through speakers and my game through my headset. Its kind of like VAC(virtual audio cable). I just want to write a program that gives me the ability to choose what output device to use with each program. (mainly because most programs do not support the option in settings for default sound device like vent or most media programs do.)

I just don't have the slightest on where to start my adventure of research to get an idea on how to code a program to do this. I know it's possible, just have to know the right starting point.

This would be for a windows 8.1 system 64bit atm but once i got it working I would most likely write it to work for linux, mac, and all windows systems. I feel a lot of people would love to have a program that does this and is user friendly.

edit: added line in paranthesis 1st paragraph. Because im not sure if it would matter if programmed as a driver(ring0) or userend (ring3) program.
Would perfer ring3 but have a feeling I might have to get into ring0 level.

Thanks for your help!

[ultratoke]

No one can offer me any advice on where to start? I;ve never dealt with sound drivers before or the programming of it and have no clue where to start really.

[coder777]

look at msdn multimedia reference:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd742890%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

[ultratoke]

That's perfect! Thank you. Now I can spend the next several nights trying to figure out how to manipulate these functions. :)