Sound Blaster: From best to worst

songoffall wrote on 2023-04-08, 15:23:

And the reason I'm going for a SB16 is because I had that card, so I know what to expect of it. If you have better options that will work with Dreamblaster and can play The Secret of Monkey Island, Doom, Duke Nukes 3D, Blood, Quake etc. on DOS, I'm all ears.

You might want to read this as well: Sound Blaster 16 Bugs and Deficiencies Summary

In short, Sound Blaster 16 cards are not a great choice if you want to use a wavetable daughterboard or an external MIDI device. For that reason, many people here either pair a SB16 with a secondary sound card for those tasks, or don't use a SB16 at all. The secondary card could be a Yamaha YMF719 or an ESS AudioDrive 1868F for example.

You might also take a look at cheap ALS100-based SB16 clones. They usually have a (unlicensed) copy of the OPL3, and do not have the MIDI issues ("hanging note bug") that is common on SB16 cards. There are threads on VOGONs about those cards. Analog quality of the cheapest ALS100 cards might be inferior to the SB16, but a decent ALS100 card should fit your needs. Be aware that the "ALS100 Plus" chip does not implement 16-bit DMA, like later cheap SB 16 Vibra cards, which will cause compatibility issues, e.g. with Duke Nukem 3D, which is in your list. Alas, I couldn't find a non-plus ALS100 on ebay, but if you can get one locally, that could be the cheapest option for you.

For my computer i have taken CT1740 and CT3900, i think the two best isa creative to have.

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-04-08, 18:05:

For my computer i have taken CT1740 and CT3900, i think the two best isa creative to have.

Well, I'm not sure non-ISA sound cards would do the job in DOS (maybe in DOS mode in Windows 98SE or something, but I remember PCI cards in pure DOS being suboptimal). I actually have a PCI-E SB X-Fi Titanium on my XP machine, and a Focusrite Scarlett for my modern setup, but those are other beasts altogether.

I also remember CT174o being quite buggy with faster CPUs. Could you confirm it's not the case?

CT3900 is a sweet card, I might consider it a backup option.

mkarcher wrote on 2023-04-08, 17:02:

You might also take a look at cheap ALS100-based SB16 clones. They usually have a (unlicensed) copy of the OPL3, and do not have the MIDI issues ("hanging note bug") that is common on SB16 cards. There are threads on VOGONs about those cards. Analog quality of the cheapest ALS100 cards might be inferior to the SB16, but a decent ALS100 card should fit your needs. Be aware that the "ALS100 Plus" chip does not implement 16-bit DMA, like later cheap SB 16 Vibra cards, which will cause compatibility issues, e.g. with Duke Nukem 3D, which is in your list. Alas, I couldn't find a non-plus ALS100 on ebay, but if you can get one locally, that could be the cheapest option for you.

Thanks, I'll look at the ALS100 thread. It might be a good workaround.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-04-08, 16:56:

songoffall wrote on 2023-04-08, 15:23:

And the reason I'm going for a SB16 is because I had that card, so I know what to expect of it. If you have better options that will work with Dreamblaster and can play The Secret of Monkey Island, Doom, Duke Nukes 3D, Blood, Quake etc. on DOS, I'm all ears.

You might want to read this as well: Sound Blaster 16 Bugs and Deficiencies Summary

In short, Sound Blaster 16 cards are not a great choice if you want to use a wavetable daughterboard or an external MIDI device. For that reason, many people here either pair a SB16 with a secondary sound card for those tasks, or don't use a SB16 at all. The secondary card could be a Yamaha YMF719 or an ESS AudioDrive 1868F for example.

I'm kinda split on using multiple sound cards, I mean I can set them up but 640k base RAM is just it, and in pure DOS I'd be worried about losing too much of It to drivers. Maybe a PnP option might work.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-04-08, 15:26:

Sound Blaster: From best to worst

Thanks, friend. I'll take a look at the list.

Guys, you're awesome. Thank you for taking your time! Now I at least know where to start looking.

The saddest part is, I suspect the retro tech market is so empty in my country because people scrapped a lot of it for gold, which is a bit barbaric for things that work or could be repaired. But nobody asked me for my opinion, so what can I do.

I'll start reading the threads you mentioned here, I now realize one of the non-SB, yet compatible cards might be the right call.

Thanks once again, and have a nice day.

songoffall wrote on 2023-04-08, 23:15:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-04-08, 16:56:

In short, Sound Blaster 16 cards are not a great choice if you want to use a wavetable daughterboard or an external MIDI device. For that reason, many people here either pair a SB16 with a secondary sound card for those tasks, or don't use a SB16 at all. The secondary card could be a Yamaha YMF719 or an ESS AudioDrive 1868F for example.

I'm kinda split on using multiple sound cards, I mean I can set them up but 640k base RAM is just it, and in pure DOS I'd be worried about losing too much of It to drivers. Maybe a PnP option might work.

You don't need to worry about RAM: All sound cards suggested in this thread do not require any resident drivers permanently loaded into RAM, especially not the 640K base RAM. Oftentimes, those cards need initialization tools to set up the mixer as well as DMA and IRQ channels, and possibly even some ports, but those tools do not stay resident in memory asfter the card is initialized. Furthermore, a game doesn't care whether the wavetable daughterboard and the digital sound playback is located on the same physical card ord not. The game needs to have a driver for Soundblaster-compatible digital sound and General MIDI playback in RAM whether the Dreamblaster is mounted on the SB16 or on an ESS AudioDrive.

mkarcher wrote on 2023-04-09, 06:48:

songoffall wrote on 2023-04-08, 23:15:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-04-08, 16:56:

In short, Sound Blaster 16 cards are not a great choice if you want to use a wavetable daughterboard or an external MIDI device. For that reason, many people here either pair a SB16 with a secondary sound card for those tasks, or don't use a SB16 at all. The secondary card could be a Yamaha YMF719 or an ESS AudioDrive 1868F for example.

I'm kinda split on using multiple sound cards, I mean I can set them up but 640k base RAM is just it, and in pure DOS I'd be worried about losing too much of It to drivers. Maybe a PnP option might work.

You don't need to worry about RAM: All sound cards suggested in this thread do not require any resident drivers permanently loaded into RAM, especially not the 640K base RAM. Oftentimes, those cards need initialization tools to set up the mixer as well as DMA and IRQ channels, and possibly even some ports, but those tools do not stay resident in memory asfter the card is initialized. Furthermore, a game doesn't care whether the wavetable daughterboard and the digital sound playback is located on the same physical card ord not. The game needs to have a driver for Soundblaster-compatible digital sound and General MIDI playback in RAM whether the Dreamblaster is mounted on the SB16 or on an ESS AudioDrive.

That's great to know. Thanks, man.

Just a heads up; I eventually decided to go with a ESS AudioDrive ES1869. Aureal Vortex and Aztech SoundGalaxy cards are also in my backlog.

I still have all the respect in the world for SB16, but getting a more practical card with FM synthesis so good Yamaha sued ESS for it, and for peanuts - isn't an opportunity I was willing to pass.