hardware vs software

right now, ogreAL uses the default device for sound.
in my case its the hardware device.
i changed it to use generic software as device, which allows me to
use 256 sources. with hardware i just have 30 sources.

to my question:
whats the advantage in using the hardware device?
does it cost a lot of memory, cpu and so on using software device?

sorry for this newbish question, but i can't figure out the differences...

greets, kampfgnu

It does cost more of those things, but the truth of the matter is that I just haven't thought up a clean way to allow the user to choose between the available devices. There is a comment in the code to that effect, it's on the todo list. I didn't realise though that there would be more sources available form software, very interesting find...