SB-128 are not for Dos games. You need something else that has real OPL on it.
Nothing is wrong with the 128, as such, it is just the wrong card for any Dos-OPL games.

Hmmm I see... and is there no way to emulate OPL in DOS games with Windows 98, such as VDMSound ?

Depending on the specs of your machine you'll be able to run DOSBox on it, but that kind of defeats the purpose.

Some of those games support MIDI music as well, you could try that. But I didn't think music and effects would sound as bad as you're describing, even with the crappiest PCI card... yes, some recordings would be nice.

Ok, I'm editing the video now, will upload soon.

If your PC still has an available ISA slot, then I would rather swop out the PCI card for an OLP3 based ISA card, especially if you intend on playing old DOS games using FM synthesis for music playback.

There are some PCI sound cards (with the Yamaha YMF7xx chipset) that has OPL3 synthesis built into the chip.

Personally, when it comes to playing DOS games, I stay away from PCI sound cards.

Isn't that a Audio PCI type card? Those just used the wavetable for FM, really bad.

The ASUS A8V-XE, which is the motherboard I used to make this Windows 98 PC, doesn't have any ISA slot, unfortunately 😢

I wonder if some kind of "adapter" (PCI to ISA) exists... but no way I'm gonna remove my beloved CT3670 from the DOS PC to put it in there, I'll probably add the Sound Blaster CT29xx (forgot the last 2 digits) I put in the 486 PC.

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Here's the video for the brave ones who are so corageous to listen to them, I tested DN3D, Blake Stone and Commander Keen 4 (the last one has glitches even in SOUND EFFECTS other than just music like the other ones).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD42SeYVTe0 (I dunno how to embed it...)

Elia1995 wrote:

I wonder if some kind of "adapter" (PCI to ISA) exists...

They do, yet they are really expensive and there is no guarantee that it will work.
I would say, looking at the spec's, to get and Vortex or an YMF-724.

Wow... that's the weirdest music I've ever heard.

From the sound of it and what people were saying earlier it might be trying to use the wavetable to emulate OPL synthesis. Weird. Yeah, I would get a different card, even a lot of cheap PCI cards from early 2000's I think have some kind of FM synthesis chip. I have a Turtle Beach Riviera which works great in DOS for OPL music.

And Keen 4 is the only one that has weirded out sound effects because, I think, it's the only one that you tested that doesn't use digital sound effects. It actually has one FM channel set aside for effects.

As discussed in one of your other threads, you might get better music if you load one of the other ECW wavesets. (It's something I've been meaning to test further myself one of these days.)

I only have 2MB, 4MB and 8MB ECW wavesets in my system folder, can I load .sf2 soundfonts somehow or get some better ECW files ?

Elia1995 wrote:

I only have 2MB, 4MB and 8MB ECW wavesets in my system folder

Exactly. Have you tried them? I understand they sound substantially different.

can I load .sf2 soundfonts somehow or get some better ECW files ?

No, you can't load .sf2 soundfonts without an SB Live (EDIT: or an AWE32/64 with enough onboard RAM), and I don't think anyone ever made new ECW sets. (I vaguely recall reading that someone did get around to reverse-engineering the format, but that was a long time ago.)

See also http://www.flaterco.com/kb/audio/PCI/ , which suggests that the Ensoniq synth can be skipped as long as you're running Windows.

Elia1995 wrote:

no way I'm gonna remove my beloved CT3670 from the DOS PC

Then no way to get good FM, as your "beloved" is based on shitty CQM.

Ho ho, did you listen to his YouTube video? It makes CQM sound like heaven in comparison. But of course nothing sounds as good as a real OPL3 chip.

keenmaster486 wrote:

It makes CQM sound like heaven in comparison.

CQM may sound too wrong sometimes to think it as acceptable OPL replace. While there are accessible SB16 cards with 262/CT1747/289 and YMF cards. So to use CQM is senseless if you are interested in authentic hardware.

The CT3670 is the only AWE32 capable sound card I have for my DOS machine at the moment 😐

keenmaster486 wrote:

From the sound of it and what people were saying earlier it might be trying to use the wavetable to emulate OPL synthesis. Weird.

That's exactly what it does 😊

When thinking about it, it kind of sounds a bit like the pc is trying to feed the card too fast.
Can something like that ever happen?

Doom's E1M1 actually sounds quite epic imho...

I actually like the drums in there

I didn't try it yesterday 🤣