VOGONS


First post, by Bancho

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Hi Board,

I'm currently in the process of building a 386 DX40 machine and i'm stuck on what sound card to use. The machine has a MQ MPU401 for a MT-32.

These are some of the cards I have available to put use in it.

Various SB16s
PAS 16
Jazz 16
Sound Blaster Pro
Sound Blaster 2.0
Sound Blaster Pro 2
ESS 688 with OPL3 Clone

Fair few wavetable/midi cards

What would be your recommendations and why. Can use more than one for a bit of variety. Thanks for your input

Reply 1 of 18, by chinny22

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Games from that era will be aimed at SB Pro and adlib standards. So you want good sounding OPL, having 16bit sound isn't really a concern

I'd go with the SB Pro if you want to play around with the duel OPL 2
SB Pro 2 is later with a OPL3 chip, but IMHO the duel OPL2 is cooler

Don't know much about the ESS, could be fun for something different

Reply 3 of 18, by Tenorman

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Any of them will work. I'd agree that a 386 would be under-powered to worry about 16-bit sound, so maybe not bother with the PAS16 or SB16. The JAZZ 16 and ESS 688 are 16-bit, but only when used in Windows with their native drivers. In DOS they are just SB Pro clones.

[Compaq Presario 633 | DOS 6.22 / Win 3.1 | DX4 100 Overdrive | 28M RAM | SB16 CT2770A | SPEA Media FX (Soundscape S2000) ]
[GA-6BXC R2.0 | Win98SE | Via C3 Ezra 866 | 384M RAM | TNT2 32M | Voodoo2 8M | SB32 CT3670 | Ensoniq Soundscape Opus]

Reply 6 of 18, by badmojo

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Sb Pro 2 is perfect for a 386 but too easy IMO, the PAS16 is more of a challenge but no “stereo” in Wolf3D - arg I’m out! Choosing ISA sound cards is too hard 🤣

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 7 of 18, by suntac

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If you intend to use it for retro gaming, then I'd recommend getting an original SB Pro (2) or an ESS AudioDrive based card.
Terratec Gold 16/96 is a good choice as it has a well-placed WaveBlaster header.

Reply 8 of 18, by Bancho

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badmojo wrote:

Sb Pro 2 is perfect for a 386 but too easy IMO, the PAS16 is more of a challenge but no “stereo” in Wolf3D - arg I’m out! Choosing ISA sound cards is too hard 🤣

Maybe run both? 🤣 🤣 🤣

Thanks for the input guys. I'm going to give the Sound Blaster Pro a try. For one i need to test it out and two dual OPL2 seems pretty cool. I had kinda earmarked the SB Pro 2 for my Pentium Slowdown machine.

I might try the ESS card down the line. Seems to be a nice card

NHJJLzel.jpg

Reply 9 of 18, by AlaricD

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Back when, I got my 386DX40 and added the SB2.0 a few weeks later, but then finally skipped the SBPro range to go up to the SB16 MultiCD (since Best Buy had a deal for it and free speakers (the ones that took two C-cells each)). Excluding a particular card from a build today as "period correct" or not seems to miss out on the feeling of "I upgraded the system". It was in '93 or so, so that was still decently within a 386's usable lifetime even if newer games might be more challenging for it. Also, it let me remove the Sony controller card and connect my 1x Sony drive to the SB16.

There are many ways to make a period-correct build!

Reply 10 of 18, by gdjacobs

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badmojo wrote:

Sb Pro 2 is perfect for a 386 but too easy IMO, the PAS16 is more of a challenge but no “stereo” in Wolf3D - arg I’m out! Choosing ISA sound cards is too hard 🤣

We need a clone of the dual OPL2 PAS!

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 11 of 18, by cyclone3d

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gdjacobs wrote:
badmojo wrote:

Sb Pro 2 is perfect for a 386 but too easy IMO, the PAS16 is more of a challenge but no “stereo” in Wolf3D - arg I’m out! Choosing ISA sound cards is too hard 🤣

We need a clone of the dual OPL2 PAS!

Where would we source the ICs from? OR maybe we could reverse engineer and use FPGAs... sounds like it would get complicated and expensive.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 12 of 18, by appiah4

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ES688 card becausenof perfect SB Pro2 compatibility, genıine OPL3, wavrtable header and ESS support in many games.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 13 of 18, by suntac

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appiah4 wrote:

ES688 card becausenof perfect SB Pro2 compatibility, genıine OPL3, wavrtable header and ESS support in many games.

As far as I know, the ES688-based cards don't have fully functional wavetable headers.
On the other hand, the ES1688 or later chips are fine.

Reply 14 of 18, by appiah4

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suntac wrote:
appiah4 wrote:

ES688 card becausenof perfect SB Pro2 compatibility, genıine OPL3, wavrtable header and ESS support in many games.

As far as I know, the ES688-based cards don't have fully functional wavetable headers.
On the other hand, the ES1688 or later chips are fine.

They do if you use the mpu401 TSR.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 17 of 18, by suntac

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appiah4 wrote:
suntac wrote:
appiah4 wrote:

ES688 card becausenof perfect SB Pro2 compatibility, genıine OPL3, wavrtable header and ESS support in many games.

As far as I know, the ES688-based cards don't have fully functional wavetable headers.
On the other hand, the ES1688 or later chips are fine.

They do if you use the mpu401 TSR.

The only such card I have has the wavetable header connected only to the DB15 connector.
The MPU401 TSR doesn't help in my case.

Reply 18 of 18, by matze79

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CT1600 😀

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