AlessandroB wrote on 2023-04-10, 06:32:

There is a slight nuance that I don't understand though, if the various ess or yamaha cards only set to simulate an AWE32, we might as well take an awe32 directly! so much the difference in price will be, looking closely, 50€, a spendable amount.

Sound blasters are buggy and expensive, which is why cards like crystal/ess/aztech/ymf are highly regarded for being largely bug free, either genuine opl or acceptable clone, and cheap.

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-04-10, 06:32:

There is a slight nuance that I don't understand though, if the various ess or yamaha cards only set to simulate an AWE32, we might as well take an awe32 directly!

The suggested cards have the following relevant advantages over the various AWE32 models for many people in the retro community:

• MPU UART mode implementation that is independent of the SB logic (thus no hanging note bugs)
• genuine OPL3 FM synthesis (there are AWE32 with OPL3, but they are expensive due to the high demand on "genuine OPL3")
• Wavetable header (again, there are some AWE32 with it, too, but the cheap ones are the non-gold AWE64 and the CT3600 and CT3620, those don't have the wavetable header)
• SB Pro stereo compatibility

The AWE32 cards on the other hand have these advantages

• Wavetable-based music synthesizer (not MPU401 compatible, needs a software-implemented MIDI parser, emulation for real-mode games provided in AWEUTIL)
• SB16-like 16-bit audio (the competitors usually have their own 16-bit modes, often WSS, but e.g. the ESS series uses proprietary commands)

Especially if you target games from the SB Pro / GM era, and you want to invest in a waveblaster-type module (e.g. the Dreamblaster) anyway, the pros of the non-Creative cards outweigh the cons.

mkarcher wrote on 2023-04-10, 09:26:

[*]SB Pro stereo compatibility

Some of those cards (e.g. ESS and OPTi) also have a SBPro style low-pass filter.

This can be beneficial when playing older titles with digitized speech recorded at low sample rates. The early 90s "talkie" adventure games are good examples of this, and they would sound a bit nicer on a SBPro card than on a SB16, thanks to the different filter. James-F posted a comparison here.

mkarcher wrote on 2023-04-10, 09:26:

The suggested cards have the following relevant advantages over the various AWE32 models for many people in the retro community: […]
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AlessandroB wrote on 2023-04-10, 06:32:

There is a slight nuance that I don't understand though, if the various ess or yamaha cards only set to simulate an AWE32, we might as well take an awe32 directly!

The suggested cards have the following relevant advantages over the various AWE32 models for many people in the retro community:

• MPU UART mode implementation that is independent of the SB logic (thus no hanging note bugs)
• genuine OPL3 FM synthesis (there are AWE32 with OPL3, but they are expensive due to the high demand on "genuine OPL3")
• Wavetable header (again, there are some AWE32 with it, too, but the cheap ones are the non-gold AWE64 and the CT3600 and CT3620, those don't have the wavetable header)
• SB Pro stereo compatibility

The AWE32 cards on the other hand have these advantages

• Wavetable-based music synthesizer (not MPU401 compatible, needs a software-implemented MIDI parser, emulation for real-mode games provided in AWEUTIL)
• SB16-like 16-bit audio (the competitors usually have their own 16-bit modes, often WSS, but e.g. the ESS series uses proprietary commands)

Especially if you target games from the SB Pro / GM era, and you want to invest in a waveblaster-type module (e.g. the Dreamblaster) anyway, the pros of the non-Creative cards outweigh the cons.

it seems to me that my awe32 has none of the disadvantages listed above.

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-04-10, 14:41:

mkarcher wrote on 2023-04-10, 09:26:

[ Advantages of competing cards include ] […]
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[ Advantages of competing cards include ]

• SB Pro stereo compatibility

Especially if you target games from the SB Pro / GM era, and you want to invest in a waveblaster-type module (e.g. the Dreamblaster) anyway, the pros of the non-Creative cards outweigh the cons.

it seems to me that my awe32 has none of the disadvantages listed above.

It might well be possible that missing SB Pro stereo compatibility for digitized sound is not relevant for you, but in fact no SB16 card, no SB (AWE)32 card and no SB AWE64 card is able to play back digital stereo sound if the software tries it in the only way that works on an SB Pro. Your card definitely has this property, too. Admittedly, the list of games that actually use digital stereo sound on an SB Pro, but do not support the SB16 way of playing back stereo is quite short.

I think you have to look at this PC a bit different.

You have your "main collection" and in this collection you have chosen the optimal parts to cover the Creative cards.
Because this is kind of a "backup" PC you no longer have a missing part of the Creative family.

I agree the AWE32 has the most advantages of any of the ISA cards So you can either get another.
Or if you prefer not having the same card twice. Get a AWE64 and enjoy the difference of CQM knowing you have true OPL on another PC.
Or break the Creative rule and enjoy the difference of a totally different brand.

chinny22 wrote on 2023-04-11, 12:02:

I think you have to look at this PC a bit different. […]
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I think you have to look at this PC a bit different.

You have your "main collection" and in this collection you have chosen the optimal parts to cover the Creative cards.
Because this is kind of a "backup" PC you no longer have a missing part of the Creative family.

I agree the AWE32 has the most advantages of any of the ISA cards So you can either get another.
Or if you prefer not having the same card twice. Get a AWE64 and enjoy the difference of CQM knowing you have true OPL on another PC.
Or break the Creative rule and enjoy the difference of a totally different brand.

Yes, i agree, in my mind i reach the exact plain...

but:
1)awe64 gold is extremely overpriced, i not want to buy it. awe64 non gold can be ok? have you ever tested in dos?
2)i have not much time to read all the vogons post about all the card during the years, raw suggestion??

tnks a lot.

1) The Gold is overpriced and over hyped, the non gold aka value is perfectly fine, Its a PNP card with CQM, apart from that it'll act just the same as your AWE32.

2) I also default to creative cards as this is what I dreamed about 20 years ago but it is hard not to like the Yamaha YMF cards with XG Midi, basically a cutdown Yamaha MU10
Despite doing everything and doing it well Yamaha feel cheap OEM which is the market they were chasing. ESS feel a bit more like Creative cards but that's just personal impressions which don't count for anything as even I have a Yamaha card in a build while 2 ESS cards sit in a box unused.

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-04-11, 14:44:

awe64 non gold can be ok? have you ever tested in dos?

The "64" in the AWE64 does not refer to any hardware improvement over the SB AWE32. An AWE64 card still has exactly the same EMU8000 synthesizer as the AWE32 with technically 32 voices, some of them reserved for system functionality. It also has the same architecture for digital sound and the MIDI port for external devices as the SB16, just as the AWE32 does, too. So in DOS, an AWE64 is just the same as an SB (AWE)32.

The feature distinction between the AWE32 and AWE64 is that the AWE64 is shipped with a software MIDI synthesizer using a physical modelling approach called "WaveGuide", that can provide 32 software voices in addition to the 32 hardware voices. The output of the software synthesizer and the digital sound played back by (other) MIDI applications are mixed by Microsoft's generic kernel mode audio streaming system provided with Windows 98 and newer.

From the hardware perspective, a AWE64 is a higher integrated (and thus lower cost) variant of the SB AWE32. It misses some features of the better AWE32 models like the waveblaster header, or the expandability of the sample RAM using standard 30-pin SIMMs. If you look at the AWE64 as a late budget edition of the AWE32, and are fine with the cost-cutting methods Creative applied, there is nothing wrong with it.

As a final note, there is no technical limitation preventing to use the 32-voice software synthesizer with an SB16 card that does not contain a EMU8000-based hardware wavetable synthesizer. In the end, Creative did just that, and sold a relabelled SB16 vibra variant bundled with the WaveGuide synthesizer as SB16 WavEffects.

The AWE64 has the 4.16 DSP which doesn't have single cycle DMA clicking or type two hanging note bug, these are the hardware improvements over the AWE32

Awe 64 arrived, is the one with the colored jack. Just a quick test, no driver, running Doom from win98 and the music seem similar to the one i remember played with the OPL3, probably a one to one compare sound different... Monekey2 instead is really different from what i remember, very different.

Unplayable different or just different?

Like you said Doom is fine and I'm not denying differences to exist but I think CQM gets far more criticism then it deserves. For the untrained ear or even the trained one unless listing side by side how many games are you really going are you really going to notice the difference?