I meant the hardware with audio codec, though technically it would be the audio controller which has the buffers and control registers (which may/may not be the

I meant the hardware with audio codec, though technically it would be the audio controller which has the buffers and control registers (which may/may not be the same chip, depending on the exact make, e.g. in HD Audio the controller is in the chipset, and the codec is a separate chip). Sorry for the confusion.