The Best ISA Sound Card?
Great Hierophant
Soundblasters, up to the Pro, are too primitive for later games. The AWE
32s and 64 have high memory requirements. What about a SB16, or perhaps a
Roland card? As they are cheap and easily available on eBay, what sould I
pick up to get the best combination of sound quality, compatibility, and low
memory overhead?
GH
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Ashikaga
> What would be the best ISA sound card for DOS games? The Adlibs and early
> Soundblasters, up to the Pro, are too primitive for later games. The AWE
> 32s and 64 have high memory requirements. What about a SB16, or perhaps a
> Roland card? As they are cheap and easily available on eBay, what sould I
> pick up to get the best combination of sound quality, compatibility, and
low
> memory overhead?
For compatibility, I would say SB16. I personally love the sound quality of
AWE64 better, but since they do have high memory requirements, but a tweak
to fix that is not entirely impossible, but they are quite a hassle.
> GH
>
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Ashikaga
Daniel Tonks
news:ni3U8.71107$UT.49...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> "Great Hierophant" wrote...
> > What would be the best ISA sound card for DOS games? The Adlibs and
early
> > Soundblasters, up to the Pro, are too primitive for later games. The
AWE
> > 32s and 64 have high memory requirements. What about a SB16, or perhaps
a
> > Roland card? As they are cheap and easily available on eBay, what sould
I
> > pick up to get the best combination of sound quality, compatibility, and
> low
> > memory overhead?
>
> For compatibility, I would say SB16. I personally love the sound quality
of
> AWE64 better, but since they do have high memory requirements, but a tweak
> to fix that is not entirely impossible, but they are quite a hassle.
With proper upper memory inclusions, it's possible to get everything AWE64
related, plus SCSI drivers, plus CDROM drivers, plus a bunch of other
drivers, all with about 615kb free memory in DOS. At least I used to *way
back when*.
- Daniel
Ashikaga
> "Ashikaga" wrote...
<snip>
> > For compatibility, I would say SB16. I personally love the sound
quality of
> > > AWE64 better, but since they do have high memory requirements, but a
tweak
> > to fix that is not entirely impossible, but they are quite a hassle.
>
> With proper upper memory inclusions, it's possible to get everything AWE64
> related, plus SCSI drivers, plus CDROM drivers, plus a bunch of other
> drivers, all with about 615kb free memory in DOS. At least I used to *way
> back when*.
I don't remember how, but I remember you could eliminate some AWE64
utilities that are not required to run games. But if you want the game to
run in GM mode, then that might use some extra memory. I hate that 640k
conventional memory limitation. CD-ROM drivers varies from brand to brand;
some drivers are notorious big. And remember that mscdex thing? That might
able to be loadhighed (one word...), but some CD drivers insists to use
conventional memory.... DOS nightmare. (I hate showing my age)
> - Daniel
Ashikaga
Daniel Tonks
> "Daniel Tonks" wrote...
>
> I don't remember how, but I remember you could eliminate some AWE64
> utilities that are not required to run games. But if you want the game to
> run in GM mode, then that might use some extra memory. I hate that 640k
> conventional memory limitation. CD-ROM drivers varies from brand to
brand;
> some drivers are notorious big. And remember that mscdex thing? That
might
> able to be loadhighed (one word...), but some CD drivers insists to use
> conventional memory.... DOS nightmare. (I hate showing my age)
Hmm, most could be loaded high -- and as long as you're using a standard IDE
CD-ROM drive, almost any driver would do (I think Win98 came with a good
generic one that could load high).
Does anyone have a full set of *ready to use* latest-version DOS drivers for
the AWE64 Gold? I remember it was a real pain to get them to install and I
don't think I have the original disks anymore -- but I've got an old system
built out of obsolete parts I plan on using for old games (such as
Toonstruck, which refuses to work on my new system).
- Daniel
Ashikaga
> X-No-Archive: yes
> Ashikaga wrote:
> >
> > For compatibility, I would say SB16. I personally love the sound
quality of
> > AWE64 better, but since they do have high memory requirements, but a
tweak
> > to fix that is not entirely impossible, but they are quite a hassle.
>
> AWE64. Both do 44.1 kHz Stereo.
>
> Also see
>
> http://www.epanorama.net/documents/soundcardtest/awe32.html
>
> for a comparison between the SB16 and the AWE32, which has little
> difference to the AWE64.
For MIDI, there is a major difference. One sounds cheesy (FM synthesizer),
the other sounds much more acceptable (GM Wavetable). AWE64 Gold's sound is
higher in fidelity because of the gold conductor. Having that said, if you
do care, buy Gold, not Value.
> Marco
> --
> http://www.pp-forum.de/
>
> Delete the "george" from my address to mail me.
Ashikaga
MaryJ
news:3d20b...@corp.newsgroups.com...
> What would be the best ISA sound card for DOS games? The Adlibs and early
> Soundblasters, up to the Pro, are too primitive for later games. The AWE
> 32s and 64 have high memory requirements. What about a SB16, or perhaps a
> Roland card? As they are cheap and easily available on eBay, what sould I
> pick up to get the best combination of sound quality, compatibility, and
low
> memory overhead?
>
> GH
I have a plain Creative Labs SB16 and it works fine with all games old and
new. I bought a SbLive about a year ago thinking it might have better sound
than my SB16, but I did not like the SB Emulator for DOS games on the SB
live, and since I play older DOS games now and then, the SB16 sound is much
better for them, and for newer games, I couldn 't see that SbLive was any
better at all.
MaryJ
Pascal Schwinn
> and for newer games, I couldn 't see that SbLive was any
> better at all.
You should play System Shock 2 and see, how EAX does affect atmosphere. It's
scary.
Pascal
--
"Once you think you are someone, you stopped becoming somebody" - Dieter Nuhr
MaryJ
news:3D218A60...@gmx.de...
> MaryJ wrote:
>
> > and for newer games, I couldn 't see that SbLive was any
> > better at all.
>
> You should play System Shock 2 and see, how EAX does affect atmosphere.
It's
> scary.
I took my Sblive out of my machine quite a few months ago. I am not into
System Shock type games, so probably thats why I haven't noticed any
difference with my SB16. Maybe the games I play don't utilize the Sblive as
much as the games you play. The thing I found with the Sb Live was the SB
Emulation for DOS based games is not too good with sounds in DOS games which
I like to replay now and then. I got tired taking out the sblive and
putting the sb16 back in. I might go back to the sblive sometime, but not at
the moment.
MaryJ
Great Hierophant
64 for compatibility.
The good of the SB 16 is its compatibility and its supposedly low memory
footprint. The bad is its using FM Synth to play midi.
The good of the AWE64 is its excellent midi sound due to Wavetable Synthesis
Soundfonts and 4MB of sample memory. The bad part is its drivers like
conventional memory and some games don't like AWE cards too much.
Is FM Synth so bad? Do many games sound better with wavetable synthesis?
GH
"Great Hierophant" <great_hi...@beld.net> wrote in message
news:3d20b...@corp.newsgroups.com...
Daniel Tonks
> So, according to the consensus, I should either get the SB 16 or the SB
AWE
> 64 for compatibility.
>
> The good of the SB 16 is its compatibility and its supposedly low memory
> footprint. The bad is its using FM Synth to play midi.
>
> The good of the AWE64 is its excellent midi sound due to Wavetable
Synthesis
> Soundfonts and 4MB of sample memory. The bad part is its drivers like
> conventional memory and some games don't like AWE cards too much.
>
> Is FM Synth so bad? Do many games sound better with wavetable synthesis?
In my opinion some games actually sound better with OP3 (stereo FM Synth;
Sam & Max comes to mind) but others, such as Tex Murphey, sound much better
with wavetable (it directly supports the AWE64).
- Daniel
Ashikaga
> "Great Hierophant" wrote..
> > So, according to the consensus, I should either get the SB 16 or the SB
> AWE
> > 64 for compatibility.
> >
> > The good of the SB 16 is its compatibility and its supposedly low memory
> > footprint. The bad is its using FM Synth to play midi.
> >
> > The good of the AWE64 is its excellent midi sound due to Wavetable
> Synthesis
> > Soundfonts and 4MB of sample memory. The bad part is its drivers like
> > conventional memory and some games don't like AWE cards too much.
> >
> > Is FM Synth so bad? Do many games sound better with wavetable
synthesis?
>
> In my opinion some games actually sound better with OP3 (stereo FM Synth;
> Sam & Max comes to mind) but others, such as Tex Murphey, sound much
better
> with wavetable (it directly supports the AWE64).
Because some ealy games are designed for FM synthesizer since GM was not
common (they were only available in expensive professional soundcards such
as Roland Sound Canvas). In that case, a game could possibly sounds better
with OPL3.
But FM is very electronic sounding because it emulates real instruments'
sound with computer on/off beeps instead of real instrument sampling (that
is, a recording of a real instrument's sound).
For example, MIDI map #0 is Acoustic Piano. With GM wavetable, the computer
reproduces the sound of an Acoustic Piano from a wave sample (hence the
name, wave table). With FM synthesizer, the maps would use series of beeps
that would produce a frequency that sounds kind of like an accoustic piano
to our ears. But the quality is not good enough that we can't tell the
difference. In fact, badly mapped FM stuff would sound very unpleasing.
Think this way, if a song is designed for hitting on a trash can, it'll
naturally sounds better with that instument that is composed for. But if
the person is using trash can as a substitute for a steel drum, then you
know what would happen.
> - Daniel
Ashikaga
Lasse Reinikainen
> What would be the best ISA sound card for DOS games? The Adlibs and early
> Soundblasters, up to the Pro, are too primitive for later games. The AWE
> 32s and 64 have high memory requirements. What about a SB16, or perhaps a
> Roland card? As they are cheap and easily available on eBay, what sould I
> pick up to get the best combination of sound quality, compatibility, and low
> memory overhead?
SB16 + Roland SCC-1 is great combination (as long as that SB16 is not
some pnp garbage).
Roland SCB-55 daugterboard is great too - it fits onto SB16 (not all
models) and you can fit two good DOS sound cards into one ISA slot.
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