The Sound Blaster 16 support built into the Cyrix MediaGX SOC is actually pretty good. It even initializes with UNISOUND just fine. OPL3 emulation is pretty good too as shown in this YouTube video:
I have one and testing it at present moment. I'll say it very good platform for retro gaming - compact and have enough power. In DOS integrated SB16 can be easy configured via Unisound util. And DOS games well work with this SB16 clone - tested with Wolfenstein 3D
Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-04-18, 11:02:Avance Logic ALS100 (not plus) is pretty much a SB16 without the bugs.
Those cards tend to be quite noisy though, at least mine is.
I've had a few of those pass through, think I still own 2, and same for ALS4000s.... the hissyness seems to depend on the individual card... identical looking cards, one hissy, one quiet... IDK if they're sensitive to precise capacitor values, or slight varying component quality or something, but it seems to be luck of the draw.
Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.
Hello. I had an ALS100 with quite a bit of hissing interference. Replacing capacitors has helped.
Paddy
Ulfenknulfen wrote on 2021-05-30, 13:18:Hello. I had an ALS100 with quite a bit of hissing interference. Replacing capacitors has helped.
Paddy
Same values or different? It didn't really help in my case...
TechieDude wrote on 2021-06-06, 18:52:Ulfenknulfen wrote on 2021-05-30, 13:18:Hello. I had an ALS100 with quite a bit of hissing interference. Replacing capacitors has helped.
Paddy
Same values or different? It didn't really help in my case...
Hi, did you check my older thread already ? 🙂ALS120, ALS100 Plus audio fix ?
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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TechieDude wrote on 2021-06-06, 18:52:Same values or different? It didn't really help in my case...
I´ve replaced with same values
Jo22 wrote on 2021-06-06, 19:38:Hi, did you check my older thread already ? 🙂ALS120, ALS100 Plus audio fix ?
Pretty nice thread!
best regards
Paddy
You're welcome. ^^
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
//My video channel//
jasa1063 wrote on 2021-05-13, 02:15:The Sound Blaster 16 support built into the Cyrix MediaGX SOC is actually pretty good. It even initializes with UNISOUND just fine. OPL3 emulation is pretty good too as shown in this YouTube video:
The Cyrix solution has pops and clicks in games like Warcraft at the start of each sample that is being played. It does Sound Blaster Pro as well but stereo is reversed in that case. OPL3 is pretty bad, it sounds like emulation with a low samplerate (which probably is the case). It does work with Creative drivers and works as a Sound Blaster 16 in all the software I tried except for SEA 1.3.
I have both ALS120 and ALS100+. To me OPL3 sounds the same on both of them just like on my Yamaha. There are no issues with sound volume if a3init is used as you can crank up volume up to 31 (using a3config or manually in configuration file by setting it to ~31600). However both cards require PnP OS set to No in BIOS setup for a3init to work as it doesn't seem to be capable of configuring IRQ/DMA - BIOS (or Windows) needs to do that. In Windows installation this will very likely require booting to Windows first, then restarting to DOS. Alternatively you will have to use another tool to configure IRQ/DMA in PnP OS mode. A3config seems to be constantly complaining about selected DMA not being available, yet sound works in games including music. Hwinfo confirmed that the given IRQ/DMA was assigned to sound card. I used ASound driver disc from vogons drivers.
They do not seem to be 100% Sound Blaster Pro compatible. In most games I tested everything worked fine, but not in all of them. Fifa 97 has no sound with ALS100+, but works fine with ALS120. With ALS100+ there are no sound effects in Transport Tycoon, but they do work in the Deluxe version. Tyrian seems to be having problems detecting Sound Blaster for both ALS cards and menu effects don't work initially, however they do work in game. Once I return back to main menu they start working. Exiting Tyrian hangs my computer. I tested also other games like Rott, Doom, Duke Nukem 3d, Settlers 2, Arkanoid (late version with sound card support), Wolfenstein 3d, Winter/Summer games, Prince of persia, One must fall 2097 and all is working fine.
Both sound cards are definitely usable and play authentic OPL3 music, however don't expect 100% compatibility in games.
Pentium III 900E, ECS P6BXT-A+, 384MB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 128MB, Voodoo 2 12MB, 80GB HDD, Yamaha SM718 ISA, 19" AOC 9GlrA
Athlon 64 3400+, MSI K8T Neo V, 1GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT 512MB, 250GB HDD, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Finally I snagged a ALS100 non plus last night out of curiosity. Also not able to find any matching pictures of that exact card online. In general though just the ALS100 non plus sees to have become a rare card. I waited months to see one pop up, and checking sold listings maybe 1-2 have sold all year. Which makes this card more rare than a gravis ultrasound.
This card has a sticker on the back that says ASOUND Plus, but notice closely on the front silkscreened is AS003. Has a ALS100 chip. The other ASOUND PLus cards says AS004 and notonly have different layouts and a plus chip. It also have very late batch number on the chip I think is what that number is, with super fake OPL3.
The Layout of the card looks decent, I wonder if this is the magical sound card I've been waiting for.
Sellers picture.
Warlord wrote on 2021-09-23, 18:05:The Layout of the card looks decent, I wonder if this is the magical sound card I've been waiting for.
Upside: it's a SB16 without the bugs and with proper SBPro stereo compatibility. Downside: it's super noisy. Headphones seem to amplify the noise even further. Speakers are more or less fine at 60% volume.
My ALS100 looks a bit different though. Probably an earlier revision.
Well I've seen a lot of differn't PCB designs of als100. I wouldn't assume that all the PCB designs have the same noise. Most of the ALS 100 cards I've seen have IDE, while this one doesn't. This card must be an example of a very late ALS100 design.
My ALS120 is also such a small PCB, however with different layout. I wonder if it shares the same issues I reported for ALS100+ and ALS120 above. They may be fixable. I didn't invest too much time in it as my motivation was just to evaluate these sound cards briefly.
Pentium III 900E, ECS P6BXT-A+, 384MB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 128MB, Voodoo 2 12MB, 80GB HDD, Yamaha SM718 ISA, 19" AOC 9GlrA
Athlon 64 3400+, MSI K8T Neo V, 1GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT 512MB, 250GB HDD, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
I've had a somewhat recent experience with ALS100 chips sourcing: they are both rare and expensive.
Which makes no sense because this was a chip on the budget side - unless maybe the whole stock was depleted and you can hope for is a small quantity here and there...
About noise, on these cards it is pretty bad... I had a couple of generic cards like the ones pictured here and none was satisfactory. On a properly designed card the chip maxes out and has the same quality as a good SB16 model.
Mine ALS100 has a bit different PCB design and it is not noisy.
keropi wrote on 2021-09-24, 20:52:About noise, on these cards it is pretty bad... I had a couple of generic cards like the ones pictured here and none was satisfactory. On a properly designed card the chip maxes out and has the same quality as a good SB16 model.
I recieved the one I bought today. It is not noisy at all. It has no hiss or anything and Is one of the most quiet cards I own. It's quieter than the sb16 I own by a long shot, I can't even hear any noise from it.
It does exhibit the same problem as been reported by other people that it's extreemly picky about what motherboard it wants to play ball with. If you have ACPI on I'm not sure the card will even be detected. I tried 3 differn't boards before I found one it wanted to work with. idk though. didn't get detected with pnp os on either.
Id be willing to make a recording just to prove its not noisy.
No need to make recordings to prove anything 😀
Ofcourse there are good cards out there, it's just that the majority of als100 cards are indeed very cheaply made , I should have phrased that better.
I don't keep up with this stuff, or my eyes do but my brain doesn't file it, but if there's not a set of "gold standard" ALS100 recordings of "the classics", Doom, Duke3D, Descent etc then maybe you'd like to do that sometime if it's a particularly good card.
Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.
BitWrangler wrote on 2021-09-26, 13:32:I don't keep up with this stuff, or my eyes do but my brain doesn't file it, but if there's not a set of "gold standard" ALS100 recordings of "the classics", Doom, Duke3D, Descent etc then maybe you'd like to do that sometime if it's a particularly good card.
If you mean FM synth music from those games, I made some ALS100 recordings a while ago.
My card has an 1:1 OPL3 copy on board. To my ears, it sounds the same as the real thing.
