In my experience, yes.
I tried an Opti 82C929 card and I found it had very limited polyphony. Like it could only play one sound at a time, other sounds would get cut short if you had more than one sound playing at once. I think I also couldn't get it to work at all in Doom/Hexen IIRC.

I tried a few ESS cards as well, a 688 and 1869 plus some others, but at the moment I can't remember what I didn't like about them. I got rid of all my ESS and Opti cards last year after I'd finished testing them.

My impression of the best overall sound card for DOS gaming, based on reading these forums, would be any of the AWE32 variants with the ASP/CSP and a genuine OPL3.

-AWE32 because some games like Eradicator make special use of the EMU8000 for sound effects instead of MIDI, sort of like a proto-EAX.
-ASP/CSP because TFX needs it for QSound. (It's the only game I know of that even uses it, though.)
-Genuine OPL3 should be self-explanatory.
-The default MIDI samples may not be spectacular, but it's still better than an FM synth being used as a General MIDI device.

Of course, that still leaves out anything geared toward Roland LA synths (MT-32, CM-32L, CM-64, LAPC-I) or the Gravis Ultrasound, so if you want anything near 100% perfect capability across all DOS games, you'll need space for more sound devices.

Great Hierophant wrote:

DonutKing wrote:

Duke Nukem II uses 8-bit to 3-bit or 8-bit to 2-bit ADPCM capabilities of the Sound Blaster cards for sound effects that the YMF cards do not emulate.

That's interesting, I wasn't aware of that, will have to look into this. Can you give an example of particular sounds that are noticably affected?

The issue does not affect all sound effects. If you blast a door in Episode 1, I recall that the effect is not heard.

Might I ask if these '8-bit to 3-bit or 8-bit to 2-bit ADPCM capabilities' are present, working and preserved in the SB AWE series?

As I remember it the SB16/AWE series lost the 100% SB Pro compatibility. But how about this particular feature?

Having the right sound card for the specific game means there is not one best card.

My inventory book says:
P166MMX: EWS64XL with Roland SC55B/MT32 + GUS (EWS64XL has 2 Midi Out)
K6 233: Maxi Sound 64 Home Studio with DB60XG clone + GUS
386DX-40: EWS64S+GUS
386DX-40: SB16 CT1740 + Waveblaster CT1900 + GUS PnP

In the beginning I had a AWE32 with the EWS64XL+GUS in the P166MMX, but after I noticed I never used it I removed the AWE32.
If you need real OPL2/3 you can plug any card with it in addition. All cards that have OPL at 388h will play (at the same time).

Well thats a bit more wavetable oriented.

I think one of "the best" for dos is the ct 1600 (Soundblaster Pro) - you will get nearly anything to sound.
... if only one card is allowed.

As elianda said, each game might have its own "best" sound card.

Lets approach this by getting to what the Ideal all around card would do.
The ideal OPL3 based sound card for DOS would be

1. Good sounding, obviously ( with real OPL3 )
2. Have Clean signal and sound.
3. Highly compatible with various standards and games.
(Sb 16, sb pro, sb, Wss )
4. Have a Wavetable header, well placed on the board.
5. Mpu-401 compatibility without bugs.
6. Have good set of drivers that are packed with features, easy to install and will not use much memory.
7. Will work equally well on a fast computer and a slow computer.
8. Digital output? Ok no big deal imo but can be nice.

Any other point you can think of ??

So far from what i hear the ymf719 card is as close to fulfill all of this than any other cards. A shame my own ymf719 cards are defective.

There is really no one true "best" sound card for DOS, but I would honestly have the following in a DOS PC:

-SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 CT1600 or AWE32 CT3900 (someone tell me if the AWE32 CT3900 has as much low-pass filtering in the OPL3 output as the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 CT1600?)
-Roland MPU-401

That's it. I don't like the Gravis Ultrasound, so I won't even consider it.

Ace wrote:

There is really no one true "best" sound card for DOS, but I would honestly have the following in a DOS PC: […]
Show full quote

There is really no one true "best" sound card for DOS, but I would honestly have the following in a DOS PC:

-SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 CT1600 or AWE32 CT3900 (someone tell me if the AWE32 CT3900 has as much low-pass filtering in the OPL3 output as the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 CT1600?)
-Roland MPU-401

That's it. I don't like the Gravis Ultrasound, so I won't even consider it.

For me it will all come down to how nice and pleasant the FM output of the CT1600 is.
I very recently acquired a CT1600 😁
Did not have a chance to try it yet but im looking forward to it. It may change my views but from what i tried so far here's what i would consider.

For the older Dos machine (286 to slow 486) I consider the following
-Mpu-401 interface with intelligent mode.
-OPL2 compatible sound card with CMS support ( Likely that badass and stellar sounding ATI stereo F/X, first generation sound blasters would be also considered as they offer better compatibility than the Stereo FX but the Stereo FX ( when it works) sounds better than any SB thank you.)

For the Later dos machine ( fast 486 to P2)
-A good OPL3 based card with bug free MPU-401 support. ( Ymf719 ? )
- Possibly a second Wavetable based card.

Now for a possible alternative to the Ymf719,
I have a card named "rock16" , has a genuine OPL3 and looks like its Media chip based. Its my favorite sounding opl3 sound card so far. Its warm, crisp and clean, and the compatibility is pretty good, its the closest thing i have so far to being nearly as good sounding as the stereo F/X FM sound wise. Problem is that it does not have MPU-401 support.

I have spotted some similar cards that are potentially more advanced and offer midi compatibility, will be featured eventually on the Grand OPL3 comparison run, stay tuned 😁

Maxwar: If you are interested in a brand new Ymf719 card, there are very cheap ones available on Ebay. Even worldwide shipping is reasonable.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/200804071840?ssPageNa … 9#ht_500wt_1414

MaxWar wrote:

For the Later dos machine ( fast 486 to P2)
-A good OPL3 based card with bug free MPU-401 support. ( Ymf719 ? )
- Possibly a second Wavetable based card.

I say SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 CT1600/SoundBlaster AWE32 CT3900 and an Ensoniq Soundscape Elite or older for a setup like this. My main DOS PC uses a SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 CT1600 for digital audio and OPL3 while an Ensoniq Soundscape (not sure what variant it is) drives my CM-64, CM-300 and 1st-generation MT-32 (and is sometimes used for digital audio when the sound quality of the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 is inferior to the Soundscape).

The best combo would be: GUS Extreme + Roland MPU401/AT -> Roland SC-55, CM32-L, Yamaha MU50. It works the best with almost any game.

Menkau_ra wrote:

The best combo would be: GUS Extreme + Roland MPU401/AT -> Roland SC-55, CM32-L, Yamaha MU50. It works the best with almost any game.

No fm sound?! 😮

Ok, I "finally got around to it" and here is a list of isa sound cards that I happen to have. I could have sworn I had a soundblaster with scsi, but its apparently playing hide-and-seek.

in no particular order:
1: YAMAHA YMF719E-S
2: SB CT2940 V16FPNP
3: ESONIQ MARK5-RO
4: SB CT3600 32PNP
5: SB CT3930 SB32
6: SB CT2770 16 VALUE
7: SB CT4520
8: SB CT4540 AWE 64 GOLD
9: REVEAL SOUND FX RV82C929KT

I just finished recording the CT1600 ( SB pro 2 ) for the grand OPL3 comparison run. It is a good sounding card. Noise is very low and has clear sound and a particularly fat sounding bass. There is no way I can say its a bad card however i find it a bit lacking in brightness. Its kind of boomy and muffled compared to my current best sounding cards ( Rock16, first generation SBs and ATI stereo FX). Arguably you could EQ it and get away with both a great sound and great compatibility so no bit deal but my research goes on 🤣

I will update the GOPL3CR very soon if you want the CT1600 recordings.

MaxWar wrote:

Menkau_ra wrote:

The best combo would be: GUS Extreme + Roland MPU401/AT -> Roland SC-55, CM32-L, Yamaha MU50. It works the best with almost any game.

No fm sound?! 😮

All GUS soundcards have FM (I'm using my GUS classic only for FM) furthermore GUS Extreme have an ESS ES1688F chip also for SBpro compatibility.

Gona wrote:

MaxWar wrote:

Menkau_ra wrote:

The best combo would be: GUS Extreme + Roland MPU401/AT -> Roland SC-55, CM32-L, Yamaha MU50. It works the best with almost any game.

No fm sound?! 😮

All GUS soundcards have FM (I'm using my GUS classic only for FM) furthermore GUS Extreme have an ESS ES1688F chip also for SBpro compatibility.

You are right about the ES1688F on the extreme and I admittedly did not know it had it but to the best of my knowledge all other gus cards only do FM through emulation and it sounds horrible.

That's correct, other GUS cards emulate FM with their wavetable. In my experience it doesn't sound very good. Try bio menace for one of the worst examples.
It might be a moot point though, if you don't play any games that only support FM music. If you only play games that support the GUS natively, or support GM/MT32 and work with MEGAEM then having real FM synth may not be a big deal.

Yes, it seems I was wrong with GUS and FM (as I remember, I have seen GUS in some game FM setup menu so I thought it). I'm using my GUS classic only for games that have native GUS support and have not MT-32 or General MIDI support (for these I'm using Roland devices).

I don't know if you could tell, but I still have the deer-in-the-headlights look on my face. There seems to be a lot of love for the GUS, there are 3 on ebay right now, I cant tell by looking but which one has this es1688f chip?

Only the GUS Extreme model has the ESS chip, for native SB/FM emulation. All the other models use a TSR program to emulate SB/FM, for games that don't support the GUS natively.

TBH since most games that support GUS also support GM, I prefer to just use GM as it often sounds just as good or better on my Yamaha MU10XG. But its personal preference really.