The SB effects sound quite good on this thing. Here is 1 minute of Doom's sound effects. And here is 1 minute of Monkey Island 2 FM music. I quite like this sound card.

I'm guessing, but I think the on board wavetable ROM is 2 meg. It just sounds better than a typical 1 meg budget wavetable sound, but not as good as a 4 meg sound. And apart from the unfortunate weirdness (recording found in previous thread), it sounds OK.

I found the correct driver for this thing. It's here. I bought 2 of these cards, and both of them sound weird, when I test the General Midi music. I've tried 2 mobos so far, and I can't resolve this problem. One mobo had a P233 MMX chip in it, and the other had a Palomino 1.3 GHz chip.

The card is dated 1994, and has Windows 95 driver, as well as W3.1 and DOS. I guess the P233 chip shouldn't be too fast for it, just in case it's some kind of speed problem. Perhaps I could try it in an old 486 mobo?

I agree the midi recording is not all that pleasant, especially in the beginning.

Here is the midi daughterboard version of the midi part:
http://wavetable.web.fc2.com/qsonic.htm
I think Qsonic is actually the same one as this:
Opti 82C941 Midi Synthesizer 'QDSP', max 32 voices at 44.1KHz, Supports up to 16Mx8 sampling memory.

Them two LS245 are obviously for the CD-Rom interfaces.

Sorry not a clue on what is wrong here, or how to fix it.

Re: the "matching" wavetable daughterboard - well spotted! 😀

That wavetable has just go WAY too much reverb in it. Who thought this would sound good? Descent sounds bad with this sound card in General MIDI.

Now, Retro games, I don't mean to bother you, but since you've got a sound card with an OPTi 82C929A and a real Yamaha YMF262, mind recording what I keep asking you to record(X-Wing in FM Synthesis with all mixer settings maxed out except for the FM Synthesis, which is to stay at 85)?

Ace wrote:

That wavetable has just go WAY too much reverb in it. Who thought this would sound good? Descent sounds bad with this sound card in General MIDI.

Now, Retro games, I don't mean to bother you, but since you've got a sound card with an OPTi 82C929A and a real Yamaha YMF262, mind recording what I keep asking you to record(X-Wing in FM Synthesis with all mixer settings maxed out except for the FM Synthesis, which is to stay at 85)?

Yes, I totally agree with you. The GM music sounds awful. I'm sure it's not meant to sound that bad. I might email TeleVideo's tech support! Hehe.

Sure, I can do another X-Wing recording for you, with all the settings you request. I can't do it absolutely immediately, but I'll definitely get it done within the next 3 hours..

Done! 😀

http://www.mediafire.com/?gt9jsqjbp92ydeb (Telewave Audio 32, X-Wing, SB Pro + FM music, about 6 minutes)

Confirmed: the audio amp designed by OPTi was meant to be for the YMF262 clones rather than the real YMF262. The Telewave Audio 32 sounds just like my 82C929A with the same distortion I like in X-Wing's music using the same mixer settings like on my 82C929A. Pay close attention to the bass notes and you'll notice right away they're noticeably rougher than on any SoundBlaster with a YMF262. It really seems like the real YMF262 has stronger audio output than the LS-xxx and DSPxx YMF262 clones, which would explain the distortion since the audio signal is stronger on the YMF262 than the other clones used on anything with an 82C929A, and I believe the 82C930 uses the same amp, so theoretically the 82C930 should have the same sound as the 82C929A.

However, the real YMF262 isn't as clear as the LS-xxx and DSPxx clones. The FM Synthesis is noticeably more muffled on the YMF262 compared to the LS-xxx and DSPxx clones.

You should try to get more of the music that plays during a mission WITHOUT shooting anything, but I can already tell the sound is like my 82C929A with a real YMF262.

I can see why you like your Opti card. I like the Telewave card for the same reason. I also like its good digital effects sound. There are more of those Telewave cards on ebay, for just $10. Also, I entered an offer price of about $8, and it was accepted. Pity about the weird wavetable ROM music though.

Sorry for reviving such an old thread. I was about to buy one of those Telewave cards and looking for info I found this thread.
I can say I have listened carefully A LOT of wave table synths and there's nothing wrong with your Telewave WT synth although I agree that the Descent intro sounds weird is most likely due to the instrument used there from 80 to 95which sometimes varies the attack/sustain/decay from one manufacturer to another, so in this case you listen to a ball of sound because of the instrument. If it had reverb the drums would be affected as well and I don't think this cheap sound card has channelized midi effects. Try also loading a midi file in Cakewalk mute/unmute sounds and you can also check for reverb/chorus settings on Cakewalk for a particular midi file.

Can you try X-Wing intro with wavetable instead ?

vmunix, did you buy one of those TeleVideo TeleWave audio 32 sound cards? If so, how did you get on with it? Did you find its wavetable sounds OK/good in some DOS games? Thanks.

retro games 100 wrote:

I found the correct driver for this thing. It's here. I bought 2 of these cards, and both of them sound weird, when I test the General Midi music. I've tried 2 mobos so far, and I can't resolve this problem. One mobo had a P233 MMX chip in it, and the other had a Palomino 1.3 GHz chip.

The card is dated 1994, and has Windows 95 driver, as well as W3.1 and DOS. I guess the P233 chip shouldn't be too fast for it, just in case it's some kind of speed problem. Perhaps I could try it in an old 486 mobo?

If anyone is interested, that website is down but drivers archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20041228124445/ht … h/televideo.htm

I just tried out this card today, and I have to say it's one of the best sound cards I have tried so far. It has an Opti chipset that does a near perfect clone of an OPL3, has excellent digital sound and onboard midi that just works over the MPU port without any hassle or TSRs. DOS drivers are excellent, with a simple init program that takes BLASTER and configures the card accordingly. Pretty much every game worked flawlessly.

I found the MIDI OK, not great...played some DOOM and it actually sounded quite good. At times might have been a bit weird, but hard to tell if that was how the track was supposed to sound...midi often sounds very different to FM anyway. Tried another game that did sound very weird but I think it must have been expected a MT32.

But overall...it's the best card I have ever tried in DOS as far as the (reward,value)/(effort) ratio goes. You get 3-in-1 and the easiest driver setup I have come across. Although there was no mixer from what I could tell...

I got a similar card made by Diamond Multimedia. I can't find any official information for this card but seems it has the same components. The layout is a bit different too.
FCC ID: LN5ADM-CMB9405
Model: 929-0128 rev. 1.6

I just wanted to post a little tidbit of info I found regarding the "Telewave" wavetable devices.

As gerwin mentioned earlier, this page refers to the Televideo WaveImpact 32 daughterboard and it has pictures of it:
https://www.waveblaster.nl/

It says the QS501 is made by AdMos or Opti, which fits with the rest of the QSxxxx wavetable chips out there.

In the pictures, it definitely appears to have the same exact QS501, QS502 and QS503 chips as those found on the Televideo Telewave 32 and the Diamond card borichka posted.

I then found this article from 1995:
https://techmonitor.ai/technology/televideo_m … new_sound_board

San Jose, California-based TeleVideo Multimedia Inc – the new name for TeleVideo Systems Inc (CI No 2,498) has a new TeleSound Pro 16 sound board and waveImpact 32 wavetable synthesis daughterboard. The WaveImpact 32 daughterboard delivers high-end wavetable and MIDI upgradability for TeleVideo’s TeleSound Pro 16 and most 16-bit sound boards with a standard wave connector. The TeleSound Pro 16 features high fidelity 16-bit 44.1KHz CD quality stereo sound, Sound Blaster compatibility, and general MIDI compatibility. The WaveImpact 32 signal processor wavetable synthesis daughterboard features 16 MIDI channel and 32 note polyphony support, digital sound recording, full MIDI compatibility, Roland MPU-401 compatibility, wavetable ROM and professional-quality MIDI sequencer software. The WaveImpact 32 daughterboard gives TeleSound Pro 16 and other FM synthesis audio card users an upgrade path to wavetable sound. The card adds 128 instruments and 51 percussion sounds to existing 16-bit cards and is capable of 32 tone polyphony. The WaveImpact 32 daughterboard plugs into any 16-bit FM sound board with wave connector and features signal processor wavetable synthesiser, 16 MIDI channel and 32 note polyphony support, Roland MPU-401 compatibility, 2Mb Wavetable ROM, Voyetra MIDI Orchestrator Plus sequencing software. Both TeleSound Pro 16 and WaveImpact 32 list for $130 and are available immediately.

So, it seem that these cards not only support, but do in fact have 2MB sample memory. Not that the size necessarily makes it better than others, but I haven't found this information explicitly stated anywhere else so I figured I'd mention it. 😀