Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-13, 20:14

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Right. So you don't want to back up your points with numbers, yet complain when I do? Well, first of all, as someone else already pointed out, your own prices prove that the SBs are not exactly the most affordable options. Secondly, I'm not sure why you are throwing in random Yamaha MIDI devices …

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Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-13, 20:10

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Not as far as the available comparisons have yet shown. That's sort-of the main contention for this entire thread - while not best-in-class, the Sound Blaster 16 isn't nearly as bad a 16-bit performer as it's often made out to be. Well, SNR alone doesn't tell the whole story. While I do not have an …

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Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-13, 18:06

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

This is precisely what older DACs do. Like, exactly. Look at the schematic for the MT-32. It has a one-channel DAC and IIRC 6 channels of audio. The DAC outputs a fixed voltage via an analog switch into a S&H latch, which holds that voltage until the DAC comes back around to service that channel …

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Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-13, 18:04

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

To that end, I'm of the opinion that the SB16 was, and is, better suited to Windows than DOS. I guess that exactly is the nail in the SB16's coffin: There's only one reason why you'd buy a Sound Blaster: 100% hardware compatibility. The SB16 could not provide that. There were various clones that …

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-13, 14:50

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

First time that I realised that a game for both Amiga and x86/Dos were more beautiful on the x86/Dos platform was Syndicate. Around 1992 it was not only how good games looked, that the games review took notice at. Some games were deemed as having better music on one platform, and better gfx on the …

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-13, 08:55

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Most people including me actually thought that Commodore was a German company. It kind of was. That is, Commodore had a big department in Germany, which is where the Amiga 500 and 2000 were developed. A lot of Commodores were also manufactured in Germany, I believe my C64 also came from there. The …

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-13, 08:10

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm trying to remember when the likes of Lemmings, Cannon Fodder and The Chaos Engine were ported over, but I remember the VGA graphics being generally equivalent. With Lemmings, the most awesome feature on the Amiga was the two-player mode. The PC didn't have that mode, nor did most other ports. …

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-13, 07:58

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

PC gaming really starts to shine around 1989-1990 in my opinion. Funny, I'd say the golden age of Amiga games is around 1988-1993. Early Amiga games were generally quite poor, sometimes even worse than their C64 counterparts, because developers were not familiar with the machine yet, and tools were …

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Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-13, 07:36

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

The waveform is stair-cased. Digital audio is quantized in the X and Y axis, so I don't even understand how anyone can fathom it as anything else. The lower the resolution on either axis, the more stepping occurs. Perhaps you need to look at the videos again. The waveform is sampled, which indeed …

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-12, 11:48

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Perhaps to put it another way... In the 70s, 80s and early 90s, arcade machines were the state-of-the-art when it came to realtime computer graphics and sound. Companies like Atari and Sega would develop special hardware to push the limits, because that's what brought in the money. The Amiga was …

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-12, 08:33

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The Amiga was, and is, pretty much unique. Where a PC had a 'dumb' chipset, where the CPU has to move around every byte to get something on screen or out of the speaker, the Amiga had a very advanced chipset to take care of this. Programming an Amiga is very similar to a modern multi-core PC with a …

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Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-12, 07:58

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

None the less - those tones can be found and corrected away using DSP filters. Not sure what your point is though. Earlier you were talking about remastering CDs recorded in the 80s and 90s. Where I assume you were talking about commercial CDs. Which do not suffer from this problem, since they were …

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Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-11, 19:46

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

This is pretty pointless. Do your own homework.

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Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-11, 14:47

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Creative marketed their products towards the normal PC owner*, while other manufacturers aimed at a more limited public with higher expectations. The latter translated to things like smaller production runs, confidential distribution (only available at PC enthusiast shops), and higher prices. The …

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Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-11, 08:48

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

as an 8-bit DAC cannot somehow smooth the "coarse resolution of the staircase waveform". Well, it can, actually. That is, the transition is not 'instant' in the analog domain, and can be filtered to make it smoother. You should try playing an 8-bit sample and recording it with a high-resolution ADC …

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Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-11, 08:10

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Are you suggesting they should have used professional-grade audio components? Not sure where you got that idea from, but no. I mean that other computers used the same (or at least similar) chips, but offered their solution at lower prices, and often with higher quality. Which is just the result of …

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Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-11, 08:04

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

If we assume that that the noise profile for a given model of audio card is roughly the same (as opposed to each card having a unique profile), then we can model or measure that noise using a working model of that card today, and then 1D-deconvolve out that noise in those old recordings. I hate to …

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Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-10, 22:00

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

The same way Starbucks didn't break new ground with their urban franchised "fast-coffee" business model in the 70s and 80s, because early middle eastern shops predate them by 500 years - and their coffee is still vastly superior? I see both points. That is not an analogy to what I was talking about …

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Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-10, 19:55

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Couldn't agree more. The early sound card industry was literally breaking new ground, and was very affordable for what it offered. I couldn't disagree more. PC hardware was way overpriced, and underperforming (as I said before, I paid 600 guilders for my Sound Blaster Pro 2, same as I paid for my …

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Re: The "12-bit" Sound Blaster 16 Myth

Posted on 2019-05-10, 19:45

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I wanted those 8.3kHz samples mixed to the highest quality possible, to bring out all the nuance of the source audio samples, which were mostly recorded via a potato (that is, an Amiga.) Allow me to straighten some facts: 1) There is no 'fixed' samplerate for instruments in Amiga mods. Sure, early …

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