Pros? Some basic A3D and EAX support. Short and very available. Full duplex. Clean sound output.

Cons? Obviously, no actual FM 😀 the ensoniq ECW approximation of OPL2/3 is an acquired taste. (to be fair this wasn't important when this card came during the redbook/ADPCM/MP3 music period)

also your favorite BUILD engine games will crash unpatched.

leileilol wrote:

Pros? Some basic A3D and EAX support. Short and very available. Full duplex. Clean sound output.

Cons? Obviously, no actual FM 😀 the ensoniq ECW approximation of OPL2/3 is an acquired taste. (to be fair this wasn't important when this card came during the redbook/ADPCM/MP3 music period)

also your favorite BUILD engine games will crash unpatched.

I knew that it would misbehave with build engine, but didn't knew that it also would crash,thank you for warning me about that.
About the patches, they can be easily found on internet?(for DN3D and DOOM).
it has mpu 401 compatible midi ports rights? if it has the lack of FM Synth wouldn't not be a big deal because i plan to use my main computer with emulation of MT-32 and the Roland Sound Canvas VA so i this issue would be kind of not to annoying on my part.

Doom is not made with the build engine, it is made with id tech 1 or better known as the, well, doom engine. Build is the direct competitor.

The General MIDI quality is pretty low because of the ECW format and synth being simplistic. Even if you use the 8MB patch set.
http://johnengelmann.net/technology/ecw/

The chip has minimal hardware acceleration. Of MIDI, 3D audio, etc. Meant to be cheap and rely on CPU processing.

I had the SB PCI128 and it was OK for retro gaming for MS-DOS (there were TSR programs and drivers for it), but the GM emulation was terrible for MS-DOS, and the MIDI/Gameport never worked with my real MT-32 as it used the sound card's integrated MPU-401 in the card.

I have the Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 (both regular and platinum versions) SB0100 and SB0060 that has GM support across the board and MT-32 emulation (close to the real thing) for MS-DOS.

Koltoroc wrote:

Doom is not made with the build engine, it is made with id tech 1 or better known as the, well, doom engine. Build is the direct competitor.

Well when i saw PhilsComputerLab video about this sound card, Doom audio wasn't right.

bjwil1991 wrote:

I had the SB PCI128 and it was OK for retro gaming for MS-DOS (there were TSR programs and drivers for it), but the GM emulation was terrible for MS-DOS, and the MIDI/Gameport never worked with my real MT-32 as it used the sound card's integrated MPU-401 in the card.

I have the Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 (both regular and platinum versions) SB0100 and SB0060 that has GM support across the board and MT-32 emulation (close to the real thing) for MS-DOS.

Finding a real SB Live! 5.1 in my country is tougher than finding <insert here the rarest hardware>.
Now that you mentioned that the game port/midi never worked with the real mt-32 it kind of made my mind.
I will end buying one card with the Aureal Vortex2 on ebay(which means import the card).

I can imagine the S&H charges are going to be a whole heck of a lot, plus the customs from another country/province & taxes (if any). I paid big money for a Live! 5.1 on eBay (outbidded so many times, but I eventually won the card) and getting a free Platinum 5.1 card with the full bundle (software, drivers, games, I/O bay, the whole 9 yards). I also got a box that said it was a Sound Blaster PCI128 card, but the box contained 2 ESS AudioDrive cards (ES1688F and ES1868F), 2x 100 free hrs (AOL and CompuServe), and the drivers for the ES1868F card, which is amazing to get 2 old ISA cards for a good price.

The Aureal Vortex2 sounds like a great sound chip as well.

.legaCy wrote:

Well when i saw PhilsComputerLab video about this sound card, Doom audio wasn't right.

Not surprising considering the OPL emulation of those cards is shit.

Personally i don't consider any of this soundblaster 128-512 cards actual soundblaster cards. They are merely rebranded ensoniq audiopci chips. They are fine for windows, but a dumpster fire for dos.

bjwil1991 wrote:

I can imagine the S&H charges are going to be a whole heck of a lot, plus the customs from another country/province & taxes (if any). I paid big money for a Live! 5.1 on eBay (outbidded so many times, but I eventually won the card) and getting a free Platinum 5.1 card with the full bundle (software, drivers, games, I/O bay, the whole 9 yards). I also got a box that said it was a Sound Blaster PCI128 card, but the box contained 2 ESS AudioDrive cards (ES1688F and ES1868F), 2x 100 free hrs (AOL and CompuServe), and the drivers for the ES1868F card, which is amazing to get 2 old ISA cards for a good price.

The Aureal Vortex2 sounds like a great sound chip as well.

I have seen some with internacional free shipping coming from russia, the customs fee is a box of surprise, i may or may not be charged by the tax( i think it is dependent on the humor of the person dealing with it).
Yeah i think the a3d sound amazing, and the compatibility is rather nice, for the sound i will go with my roland um one and sound canvas va , and munt.

leileilol wrote:

Pros? Some basic A3D and EAX support. Short and very available. Full duplex. Clean sound output.

Cons? Obviously, no actual FM 😀 the ensoniq ECW approximation of OPL2/3 is an acquired taste. (to be fair this wasn't important when this card came during the redbook/ADPCM/MP3 music period)

also your favorite BUILD engine games will crash unpatched.

Can this hardware emulate Ensoniq ISA cards by TSR?

The Ensoniq version of the DOS driver, used for the AudioPCI, emulates the Ensoniq Soundscape. That is the 16bit audio option with the driver. Creative changed the driver to emulate SB16. They also changed how FM emulation works. Originally it was FM to GM translation which sounds quite strange. Creative implemented awful OPL emulation because I suppose somebody thought it was better. Neither is something you want to listen to.

It's not really emulation of the Soundscape. Just digital audio support. The MIDI is quite different and somewhat inferior to a real 2MB Soundscape card.

swaaye wrote:

The Ensoniq version of the DOS driver, used for the AudioPCI, emulates the Ensoniq Soundscape. That is the 16bit audio option with the driver. Creative changed the driver to emulate SB16.

Do you know if Creative ever released a DOS driver for the ES1370? Only seen Creative drivers for the ES1371/ES1373.

swaaye wrote:

They also changed how FM emulation works. Originally it was FM to GM translation which sounds quite strange. Creative implemented awful OPL emulation because I suppose somebody thought it was better. Neither is something you want to listen to.

Creative's FM emulation are better than the Ensoniq one, it actually sound something closely related to a FM synth.

ES1370 - Doom E1M1
Audigy 2 ZS - Doom E1M1 & E1M2

More sound card recordings.

Kamerat wrote:

Do you know if Creative ever released a DOS driver for the ES1370? Only seen Creative drivers for the ES1371/ES1373.

Creative released a driver for the AudioPCI that renames it to SBPCI64 and adds features. I think it has a new DOS driver.
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid= … menustate=44,35

We had a VOGONS sound card recording thread years ago with some AudioPCI and many other cards you might like to hear.
Re: Sound Card Recordings

swaaye wrote:

They also changed how FM emulation works. Originally it was FM to GM translation which sounds quite strange. Creative implemented awful OPL emulation because I suppose somebody thought it was better. Neither is something you want to listen to.

I don't know, i've only ever heard the ECW approximation in every SBPCI driver I tried 😖

I know the OPL emulation part of the latter's in the Live 5.1 though

Maybe it is the Live! driver that does the first OPL emulation then.

swaaye wrote:

Creative released a driver for the AudioPCI that renames it to SBPCI64 and adds features. I think it has a new DOS driver.
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid= … menustate=44,35

Doesn't contain any DOS drivers and the Windows driver still does Soundscape and Sound Blaster Pro emulation.

swaaye wrote:

We had a VOGONS sound card recording thread years ago with some AudioPCI and many other cards you might like to hear.
Re: Sound Card Recordings

Thank you for the link!

Interesting. Well I haven't used one significantly since 1999. 😀

I managed to unearth a partial archive of Walter Lord's Unofficial AudioPCI Site. This was a great resource. Unfortunately most of the site is missing.
https://web.archive.org/web/19991022021131/ht … om:80/audiopci/