I would like to add some observations of mine to this older topic.
Starting with some general info on the different variants:
From Yamaha YST 1996: […]
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From Yamaha YST 1996:
Yamaha OPL3SA (YMF701)
The OPL3SA was designed as a Plug-and-Play device for PC95 requirements. It is currently found on motherboard solutions by various manufacturers as well as on add-in cards.
Yamaha OPL3SA2 (YMF711)
The OPL3SA2 was designed as a Plug-and-Play device for PC95a requirements and beyond. In addition to the features of the original OPL3SA, The OPL3SA2 adds address decoding for the full 16-bit address space. Any logical device of this part may be located within the full 64K of I/O address space. More flexible DMA and IRQ capabilities are also built into this device. Nine pins are of flexible use, allowing for both motherboard solutions and add-in cards. It is the first Yamaha single-chip device suitable for PC-97 requirements.
Yamaha OPL3SA3 (YMF715)
The OPL3SA3 is a drop-in replacement for the OPL3SA2, with all of the features of the 'SA2. This device has enhanced power-management capabilities, making it suitable for portable PCs. It also includes Yamaha's exclusive "YMersion" 3D Stereo Enhancement Technology.
From Linux Drivers v 2.4 readme:
Up until recently (December 2000), I'd thought the 719 to be a different chipset, the OPL3-SAx. After an email exhange with Yamaha, however, it turns out that the 719 is just a re-badged 715, and the chipsets are identical.
I have a YMF719E-S based card myself, bought it almost a year ago. I thought it would be wise to buy the latest chip revision, but in hindsight anything YMF715/718/719 would probably be similar. I have it installed in the spare retro P-III/Via Apollo Pro system, and I cannot really find much reason to swap it with one of my other soundcards, as it is actually quite a useful little thing.
It came without the OPL4 wavetable addon chip on the PCB, neither did it came with the OPL4-ML daughterboard addon. Lacking a midi daughterboard small enough to fit on that oddly placed header I made me a flatcable-assembly which allows me to fit a full size midi daughterboard, as shown on the picture. This setup works very well. Looking at the card of the Topic Starter it seems like that one has a better placed header.
I had some trouble with the configuration utility at first, in regard to WSS resource settings. It looks a bit different then the screenshot of the Topic Starter, As I had DMA 0, 1 and 6 selectable. But by manually editting opl3sa.ini I managed to put it at DMA 3 which works better, also one can edit the WSS capture DMA from there and there is a mention of a 16-bit DMA? I am still a bit in doubt about these DMA settings...
Now be sure to turn of all 3D, Ymersion, bass and treble 'enhancements'. Put them all at 0. Also turn off any Amplifier with the jumpers. With that settled I am very content with the sound quality. It really is not a noisy or loud chip when configured properly.
Unlike what is written above the config utility does not seem to leave anything resident in memory, not even for the MPU-401.
Of course the FM music sounds very nice, as it uses genuine yamaha OPL3 circuitry. SB-Pro and MPU-401 work fine too. WSS does not work in Tyrian, but that game is very picky in regard to WSS. WSS does work in games based on the Miles sound drivers.
The card works without any trouble in Windows 2000.