Very cool!

I'll see if I can make a recording of an ESS based card for you in the near future (Terratec Gold 16/96). From what I remember the ESS OPL emulation sounds surprisingly like a real OPL. You can hear the differences here and there, but they are small.

I recorded a bunch of ES1869 audio yesterday. I bought a very basic generic board for about $3 the other day.

I think the ESFM sounds just like OPL3.
http://www.swaaye.com/retro

Exactly.

What is interesting is that Terratec made the Gold 16/96 with only the ESS chip onboard, but it also made another card, Sound System Gold 16, that has both an ESS chip and a REAL OPL onboard.

Now why would they do that if ESS OPL emulation is that good? Maybe people were willing to pay more for a card with a real opl chip no matter what?

Maybe there are some OPL3 soundtracks that show problems with ESFM? I'm not sure. But it sure sounds extremely similar to me in the games I tried.

Like I posted on another thread, I hear zero difference between the ESS AudioDrive ES1869 and my OPTi 929A when it comes to the FM Synthesis. In fact, it's so similar they both have the same extra roughness in the sound(and my OPTi 929A has a true Yamaha YMF262 on it)! I've seen several ESS AudioDrive ISA sound cards sitting in a bin at a family friend's pawn shop, so I'm gonna pick one up and test it out with all my DOS games.

Also, I should soon upload videos of the SoundBlaster Vibra128 used with Star Wars X-Wing. It sounds like crap.

EDIT: I've uploaded a video clip of the floppy disk edition of X-Wing played using a SoundBlaster Vibra128 model CT4810(I kept calling this thing a SoundBlaster AudioPCI, but it's actually a SoundBlaster Vibra128). WARNING: it will make you cringe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXObHZEY8u4

My thoughts are on the first post.

I have 2 cards with ESS1868. Not sure what the difference is between that and the ESS1876...

The cards are Pnp, but work without any software. The are SB Pro compatible, the driver allows changing the resources and there is a mixer utility as well.

One thing I noticed is the amp on the cards I have. They go really really loud. Be careful with headphones. They also make a loud POP when you reboot the machine.

They also seem to typically have DB connectors but the cards are frequently too small to fit the popular full-size DBs.

My generic ESS cards are also less noisy than my SBPro2 so they make great alternatives for those.

The shop's closed at this time, but tomorrow, I'll pass by and pick up the ES1869 and one of the ES1868s. If they both work exactly the same way, I'll return one and keep the one I like best or that's less of a pain in the *** to fit in my MS-DOS gaming PC. I do like my OPTi 929A, but I don't like that I have to cause a conflict at I/O range 388 just to be able to A) pump out music from the OPTi 929A's YMF262 and B) get digitized sound(this is all for the floppy disk edition of X-Wing, which is an absolute pain to get working correctly - I'm using a dual setup with my OPTi 929A and my SoundBlaster AWE64 for the floppy disk edition of X-Wing). If I can hear some of the music that plays during a mission(you could use X-Wing Historical Mission 1), I'll make up my mind whether to get those ESS AudioDrive sound cards, as I like my OPTi 929A's rougher FM Synthesis.

Added another video of the SoundBlaster Vibra128, this time with the Collector's CD-ROM edition of Star Wars X-Wing. Here's the clip(link also on the first post): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua4F7ebOSWI

That wavetable makes my ears hurt.

Updated the original post with a new sound from my SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 model CT4780 and with some new information on other sound cards. Have a look if you're interested.

swaaye wrote:

My generic ESS cards are also less noisy than my SBPro2 so they make great alternatives for those.

I can confirm that. I just compared a AWE64 (non GOLD) with one of my ESS AudioDrive cards. And the ESS has much less noise.

Quite amazing...

Some new sounds for you, one good and the other... not so good. The sounds were produced by my SoundBlaster Vibra128 and Crystal CS4235. Links on the first post.

Cool!

So far I like the AWE32+AWE32 video a lot. And yes the AWE64 should sound exactly the same!

Also in my recent GODS Intro music roundup I found that the ESS AudioDrive has FM played very loud vs. speech / sound effects.

For the recording I set the mixer to max for master, voice and FM and the ESS clearly had a balance issue. The FM was so loud it made my ears ring a bit...

None of the Creative cards have this issue. Out of a SB 1.5, Pro 2.0 and AWE64 GOLD I found that the Pro 2.0 is least noisy, but the AWE64 has the best voice / sound effects...

So for a OPL3 card I highly vouch for a SB Pro 2.0, but if you are using MIDI and looking for a speech / sound effects card the AWE64 GOLD is the way to go.

It even has SPDIF if you want to go 100% digital...

My one problem with the AWE64 is the use of Creative's YMF262 clone rather than a real Yamaha YMF262 or the CT1747 combined YMF262/I'm not too sure what. The FM Synthesis loses some of its authenticity.

I did notice the rather loud FM Synthesis from the ESS AudioDrive. It really overpowers the digital sound. It's the same thing with my OPTi 82C929A: if I max out the volume of the FM Synthesis and the digital sound, the digital sound is almost inaudible. I'm thinking of modifying the sound card to either make the output of the YMF262 quieter or make the output of the digital sound louder(this involves removing or replacing two resistor on the sound card's audio circuitry).

Right now, I've gone back to my SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 since I have no idea what happened to the rough sound I like so much from my 82C929A(demonstrated in Part 3). For some reason, ever since I tried something with the Collector's CD-ROM edition of X-Wing by lowering the volume of the music, no matter what I do, I can't get the FM Synthesis as rough as before without messing up the volume balance. I don't like the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0's digital sound, but I think it's better for me to just use the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 since it's a real SoundBlaster Pro and not a clone(it's inferior to my 82C929A, but I want 100% authentic sound). Even better would have been a SoundBlaster 16 with true OPL3(I only have a SoundBlaster 16 WavEffects, which uses the single-chip Vibra16XV chipset and contains Creative's YMF262 clone).

Finding a SB16 with real OPL chip shouldn't be hard, just look for the old / long cards. I'm sure there is a list with model numbers as well. There are even AWE32s with OPL chips and to top it off there is a version of the AWE32 which has a real OPL chip AND SPDIF 😀

But yea I don't know what model number and so forth...

And there is always General Midi instead of FM.

I'm more of a sucker for FM Synthesis, so I'd like to have a real YMF262 or, like some of the later SoundBlaster 16s and most SoundBlaster AWE32s(models CT3900, CT3980, CT3780, just to name a few - the simplified SoundBlaster AWE32, the SoundBlaster 32, has a real YMF262 in ti), a YMF262 integrated within Creative's CT1747 combined YMF262/*something*(I believe the something is the YAC512 DAC and some ISA interface or something like that) chip, or even like my C-Media CMI8738, Avance Logic ALS4000 or HP AZT1008 with Aztech AZT2320 chipset, which either use a real YMF262 integrated within the chips or a YMF262 cloned so well there's no difference in the sound output aside from the notes not being held as long(that's common for ASIC implementations of an FM Synthesis chip, which is especially true on the Genesis since Sega removed the YM2612 when they brought along motherboard revision VA7 on the Genesis Model 1. It was replaced with an ASIC implementation of the YM2612, which has a higher sample rate and doesn't hold its notes as long as the real YM2612).

Don't really care too much about General MIDI, but I did get an AOpen AW32 Pro which uses an integrated Crystal wavetable alongside a Crystal CS4236B(lousy for FM Synthesis, but very good for digital sound) and the wavetable produces some pretty good sound. The one problem I noticed is some glitchy output from the left audio channel where I hear some very faint garbage notes mixed in with the actual General MIDI output.

I should snag a Yamaha or Roland wavetable for my OPTi 82C929A. Since with that sound card I can adjust the level of distortion in the FM Synthesis to my liking(from heavy distortion to none at all) and has a wavetable header(which the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 lacks), a wavetable would make the sound card complete. Actually, I've found a few old computers for sale at a flea market. I might ask the booth owner to open up the computers so I can see what sound cards is in them(I'll exchange an AOpen PCI sound card for it since it's just a CMI8738 in disguise, which means really bad SoundBlaster compatibility). He let me see the insides of my newly-acquired Pentium 1 computer, so I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind letting me see the internals of the other computers he has.

Yamaha boards are 20 bucks shipped from ebay 🤣 I just ordered one recently.

For FM just try to develop some love for you SB Pro 2.0 because it's really quite a good card. Sure it's not perfect but it's as authentic as it gets. The SB Pro 2.0 does have some sort of adjustable pass filter, but I haven't played with them. Might be worth looking into, seeing you like FM sound so much.

I have the installation disks (2 disks) for the SB 2.0 if you ever need them. It installs a mixer app which has some quite unique looking options. Hmm thinking about I might just make a screenshot!

I highly doubt that Lucasarts was using Opti or ESS or Crystal cards to compose / tweak their music scores...

Here the images:

If you have any idea what the last 3 options do let me know:

Oddly it's under "ADC Input select" so I'm not sure where this selection applies. Or maybe it applies only to the digital portion?

I made a quick recording with each filter setting of DOOM and uploaded the results:

http://www.mediafire.com/?lbf8sjemkk6demm

So yea if someone can shed some light on this topic as I can't tell any difference. I have a hunch this applies to the inputs and not the output?

No idea what "hidden mode" is, but ADC means "Analog-to-Digital Converter" which refers to the card's ability to record from or pass-through Mic, Line In, and/or CD inputs.