DSP version is displayed when you run DIAGNOSE.EXE utility.

DIAGNOSE.exe, which is available on a lot of driver packs, is your friend 😀

bristlehog wrote:

DSP version is displayed when you run DIAGNOSE.EXE utility.

Thank you very much! (and to F2bnp as well)

I just had to ask because I can't believe how hard it was for me to find an answer to this even when I googled it.

Is there a way to find it by just looking at the chips on the card itself though?

Sometimes you can find DSP version by looking at the card. But you have to know where to look.

SB 2.0 CT1350 from Wikipedia

DSP 2.02, determined from CT1351V202 inscription on a square chip in left-upper PCB corner.

SB Pro CT1330

DSP 3.01, read from CT1341V301 inscription on a square chip under 'REV 3'.

SB 16 CT1740

DSP 4.05, determined from CT1741 V450 inscription on a square chip under empty CSP socket.

SB 16 CT2230 from Wikipedia

DSP 4.13, determined from CT1741 V413 inscription on a square chip under empty CSP socket.

SB AWE32 CT3990 from Wikipedia

DSP 4.13, determined from CT1741 V413 inscription on a square chip under 'CT3990'.

Sound Blaster models earlier than 2.0 have their DSP chips covered with stickers, you cannot read DSP version from them.

Thus, tactic to seek for DSP version (of a SB 2.0 or later) is: seek for a square chip containing 'CTxxxxVyyy' or 'CTxxxx 'Vyyy' inscription and y.yy is your DSP.

If you fail to find such a chip, then it seems your card has its DSP integrated (late Vibra cards like CT4170 being example) and you have to use DIAGNOSE.EXE.

bristlehog wrote:

Sometimes you can find DSP version by looking at the card. But you have to know where to look. […]
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Sometimes you can find DSP version by looking at the card. But you have to know where to look.

SB 2.0 CT1350 from Wikipedia

DSP 2.02, determined from CT1351V202 inscription on a square chip in left-upper PCB corner.

SB Pro CT1330

DSP 3.01, read from CT1341V301 inscription on a square chip under 'REV 3'.

SB 16 CT1740

DSP 4.05, determined from CT1741 V450 inscription on a square chip under empty CSP socket.

SB 16 CT2230 from Wikipedia

DSP 4.13, determined from CT1741 V413 inscription on a square chip under empty CSP socket.

SB AWE32 CT3990 from Wikipedia

DSP 4.13, determined from CT1741 V413 inscription on a square chip under 'CT3990'.

Sound Blaster models earlier than 2.0 have their DSP chips covered with stickers, you cannot read DSP version from them.

Thus, tactic to seek for DSP version (of a SB 2.0 or later) is: seek for a square chip containing 'CTxxxxVyyy' or 'CTxxxx 'Vyyy' inscription and y.yy is your DSP.

If you fail to find such a chip, then it seems your card has its DSP integrated (late Vibra cards like CT4170 being example) and you have to use DIAGNOSE.EXE.

Thank you again! This is perfect. Those were some of the cards I was looking for! I have a CT2230 and a CT1740 that I have been wondering about.

Its written on that little DSP chip.. Just read it.. You will see like 411, 412, 413, 415.. thats actually 4.11, 4.12, 4.13, 4.15

All the SB16 Cards I own have DSP v4.13: CT2950, CT2290, CT2800 (Vibra 16S), CT3600 (SB32 Vibra Pro) and Several CT2940 (Vibra Pro).
Among these cards, only the CT2290 is noticeably less prone to giving hanging notes, similar to AWE64 Gold, despite the whole DSP theory. It is easy to confirm with 'Hexen -warp 02'. The shared Midi Buffer of the SB16/AWE cards is rather small in any case, so depending on the user it may be advisable to use another soundcard to offload the midi music interfacing.

Besides that, Vibra Pro seems to have the clearest output. On a PnP machine it requires Diagnose /s just once, but initializes without diagnose or ctcm at the subsequent bootups.

This is the lineup of the SB16/SB32 Vibra chipsets:
1) Vibra 16 (CT2501 chipset, paired with OPL3)
2) Vibra Pro (CT2502 chipset, paired with either CQM or OPL3-L chip)
3) Vibra 16S (CT2504 chipset, paired with either CQM or OPL3 or OPL3-L chip)
4) The later Vibra 16C, 16XV etc... with the CQM part integrated.

Excerpt from IT's manual:

Sound Blaster 16 driver (ITSB16.DRV, ITSB16B.DRV, ITSB16C.DRV) […]
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Sound Blaster 16 driver (ITSB16.DRV, ITSB16B.DRV, ITSB16C.DRV)

The Sound Blaster 16 has a mixing range of 12000->45454 in either mono
or stereo modes.

If you specify this driver ( IT /s5 or IT /sITSB16.DRV ) AND an IRQ
or DMA, IT will try to *FORCE* the SB16 to use the IRQ/DMA.

eg. On my system, I have my SB16 configured to IRQ 2, DMA 5, but I
can force it to use IRQ 7, DMA 0 with IT /s5 /i7 /d0

Hardware detection routines are used for all Address, IRQ and DMA.

Note: If you select either of the 32-bit mixing modes, then volumes
between 0->32768 are used internally instead of 0->128.

The second driver, ITSB16B.DRV is a cut down version of the main
driver which does NOT have the advanced mixing options - the only
benefit of this is that it requires less memory. To use this, type:
"IT /sITSB16B.DRV". If you want to have this file automatically used
just copy it over ITSB16.DRV.

To get MIDI input, I had to do this in Win95:

Goto "My Computer", right click -> properties -> device manager ->
sound, video and multimedia -> SB16/AWE32 DSP

Now go to the "resources" tab, and unclick "Use automatic settings"

Either:
1) Change your MIDI port from 300h to 330h or
2) Select a 'basic configuration' which doesn't include the MIDI port

( 3) Get an updated driver from Creative Labs, if they've fixed it )

Click OK, then click OK on the warning message.

There is a good chance that it should work now. I believe this is a
bug in the older Win95 SB16 drivers. (I *know* that the SB16 driver
I have prevents MIDI in DOS boxes and is the cause of these problems
because if I remove it, MIDI works flawlessly in DOS boxes in in Win95)

It says if you implictly try to assign IRQ DMA to the command it "FORCES" the card to use that setting... That has nothing to do with how the card is PnP does it? I'm not sure how that works... Though I obviously don't plan to use a SCSI harddrive I don't want to run into problems with how IT might try to detect and use the VIBRA16.