I've been thinking of building a computer with an AWE32. I wonder which revisions fullfill the following demands:
1) Non-PnP
2) Genuine OPL3-chip
3) No hanging note-bug
It would be a bonus, but not required for it to have an onboard IDE-port. The AWE64 is disqualified because it doesn't fulfill demand no 1 and 2.
Is there any other bugs or "features" I should know about and avoid?
I believe all AWE32's have the hanging note bug.
As for which ones are PnP, have a look here http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=10846 and search for AWE32.
I think that most of them have a real OPL3 in them, either in a Yamaha chip in the card or integrated into one of the Creative chips. I have a CT3990 and it has a Yamaha chip.
I found that AWE32's have pretty average sound quality though, no better than an SB16.
If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.
Since the SB16 is pnp, is it possible to disable the opl3 portion of it and use another card?
"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium
wrote:Since the SB16 is pnp, is it possible to disable the opl3 portion of it and use another card?
No, not reliably at least.
As the sound blaster base address (default 220h) is used by some games as the base address for FM too (instead of 388h).
--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul
wrote:Since the SB16 is pnp, is it possible to disable the opl3 portion of it and use another card?
Not needed. Both cards will simply output FM 😀
For the hanging note bug, just focus on separating the speech component.
So one goes to IRQ 7 and DMA 1 and the other one to some "off values". Then you should be gold.
By the way, why CQM is so disliked by you?
Asus P4P800 SE/Pentium4 3.2E/2 Gb DDR400B,
Radeon HD3850 Agp (Sapphire), Catalyst 14.4 (XpProSp3).
Voodoo2 12 MB SLI, Win2k drivers 1.02.00 (XpProSp3).
wrote:Not needed. Both cards will simply output FM 😀
But is that desirable?
I suppose some SB16's/AWE's can have their FM disabled reliably by desoldering the FM chip from the board.
--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul
there are 4 models of awe32: 2760, 3900, 3980 and 3990, from oldest to newest.
if you hate that pnp shit that you should go to 2760 and 3900, but later models may probably have improved sound quality.
wrote:But is that desirable?
It shouldn't do any harm. The configuration I have in mind goes:
Card # 1: 220 / 7 / 1 / 5 / 300
Card # 2: 240 / ? / ? / ? / 330
Card # 1 will be the FM and speech card.
Card # 1 + card # 2 will be the MIDI and speech cards.
You will need a mixer to manage this, but that shouldn't be too hard.
wrote:By the way, why CQM is so disliked by you?
CQM is hated because it doesn't sound like OPL3. If you were to do a direct comparison with a SoundBlaster that has OPL3, be it with a discrete YMF262 or YMF289 or the CT1747 combo OPL3/ISA interface ASIC, and a SoundBlaster that has CQM, you'll hear the difference right away. The differences between CQM and OPL3 are VERY noticeable, more so in some games than others, especially Doom(though that's a game you should play with General MIDI music, not OPL2/OPL3 music).
As for Paddan's criteria:
wrote:1) Non-PnP
The CT2760, CT3780 and CT3900 meet this criteria.
wrote:2) Genuine OPL3-chip
The same 3 models meet this criteria as well. They don't have discrete YMF262s or YMF289s, but they do have true OPL3 inside the CT1747 ASIC.
wrote:3) No hanging note-bug
I'm afraid all AWE32s fail to meet this criteria. You would be best off having a secondary sound card with your AWE32 as Mau1wurf suggested.
Creator of The Many Sounds of:, a collection of various DOS games played using different sound cards.
