The cs4231 DAC output should be better. The other "sonic" difference would be the enhanced SBOS for the max.

The MAX, PnP and some OEM and non Gravis made models use a different version of the Forte GF1 known as the InterWave. AMD made the InterWave and it's more capable of high rate sampling than the original GF1 which will dynamically lower the sample rate from 44.1khz per channel down to 19.2khz, depending on how many channels are in use at the time. The AMD InterWave does not need to do this and so all channels always can run at the peak sample rate. The instrument patches reflect this for the MAX and other IW-based cards so when using Playmidi you will get cleaner brass, atmospheric and woodwind sounds (these are generally the larger samples) on complicated midis. In gaming terms it rarely makes much difference as the developers use of middleware meant that they included the .pat files and relevant .ini 'set lists' with their games which were made with the original GUS limitations in mind, so the music sounds the same as it would on GF1 based soundcards.

Sorry, but GUS MAX has no Interwave chip, it's still the GF1 by Forte/ICS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravis_Ultrasound

http://www.crossfire-designs.de/index.php?lan … undcards&page=9

Main difference is the CS4231 codec chip onboard, that allowed 16-bit recording. I doubt that it did add SBpro compabitlity (in hardware), as far as I know the only fully SBpro compatible GF1 based card is the GUS Extreme (with GF1 synth & ESS codec). I wonder if the AMD Interwave based cards are SBpro compatible.
Some people say, that snr and general sound quality of the MAX are better than of the GUS Classic, but I'm not sure about that. Comparing the two cards playing Star Control 2, I liked the Classic sound more... if there was any difference at all.
I've also heard that it its possible to program the MAX somehow (GF1 & CS4231?) but I don't know more about this.

Silent Loon wrote:

Sorry, but GUS MAX has no Interwave chip, it's still the GF1 by Forte/ICS: […]
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Sorry, but GUS MAX has no Interwave chip, it's still the GF1 by Forte/ICS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravis_Ultrasound

http://www.crossfire-designs.de/index.php?lan … undcards&page=9

Main difference is the CS4231 codec chip onboard, that allowed 16-bit recording. I doubt that it did add SBpro compabitlity (in hardware), as far as I know the only fully SBpro compatible GF1 based card is the GUS Extreme (with GF1 synth & ESS codec). I wonder if the AMD Interwave based cards are SBpro compatible.
Some people say, that snr and general sound quality of the MAX are better than of the GUS Classic, but I'm not sure about that. Comparing the two cards playing Star Control 2, I liked the Classic sound more... if there was any difference at all.
I've also heard that it its possible to program the MAX somehow (GF1 & CS4231?) but I don't know more about this.

Agree, have done some recording from both my PnP, Classic and Max and there's no difference between the Classic and Max in terms of sound or stereo quality
The Max was just a name because it had the extra bling-bling on the card for recording in 26-bit and cd-rom headers for Panasonic, Sony and Mitsumi cd-rom's

😎 guys, thanks.

Also, I would love to know if there's any sonic difference between a GUS PnP Pro revision 1 board, and a revision 3 board? (Does anyone know what differences were made from revision 1 to revision 3?)

Many thanks! 😀

The main thing the max brought was full-duplex, which was a sought after feature at the time.

GUS PnPs are rare. It's easier to find other interwave cards, including ones with memory slots.

Silent Loon wrote:

Sorry, but GUS MAX has no Interwave chip, it's still the GF1 by Forte/ICS:

Yeah I remembered this later but didn't get around to editing my post, oopsie.

Comparing the two cards playing Star Control 2, I liked the Classic sound more... if there was any difference at all.

Well Starcon2 used only 8 channels of audio in total - 4 for the (essentially modtracker) music, and 4 for sound effects (engine sounds, object collision, primary fire, secondary fire) that could be heard simultaneously, so neither card would've been stressed by the game in terms of playback rates per channel.

The interwave can be configured to be seen as a Max, there's a utility for it. You can also cobble together a max by using a classic + cs4231 based sound card, piping the gus output into the cs4231 card and setting the gus env vars to point to the cs4231 base address for max dac output.

Well, back in the days when I was a games journo, I actually got one of the first GUS PnP beta boards and it was delivered as a Max in the larger purple box (most probably due to the fact that the PnP software set wasn't completed at that stage). This was a gift from Advanced Gravis for me putting them in contact with JLS, author of Mega-Em who they consequentially employed and had him migrate to Canada. Sadly, I don't have any of my old GUS hardware anymore - gave it all away.

It's good to hear interesting stories like that from the past. Ah...sounds like good memories. 😁

Yeah, good times. He went to become a game developer and I think he's still pretty active in the industry these days.