appiah4 wrote:

AFAIK some releases of the AWE64 are considered the holy grail for Pentium/486 builds

Not really? It depends what you need. In some cases certain AWE32 models would be very much superior, especially since it is much easier to get RAM for those.

Jorpho wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

AFAIK some releases of the AWE64 are considered the holy grail for Pentium/486 builds

Not really? It depends what you need. In some cases certain AWE32 models would be very much superior, especially since it is much easier to get RAM for those.

Oh.. I'm misinformed then 🙁 Any of these cards worth owning for a Pentium MSDOS/W95 PC?

I run an AWE64 Gold in my 486...
The main advantage of the Gold is the better quality audio, and S/PDIF output - if you happen to have compatible amp or speakers. The S/PDIF cable is fairly hard to find too, so you might need to rig up your own.
However the normal AWE64 has decent audio as well, much better than the original noisy SB16's.
AWE32 are noisier, but have SIMM slots allowing you to upgrade RAM easier. Some AWE32 also have real OPL3 if that is important to you.
The extra RAM is practically useless under DOS as there few very compatible soundfonts.

My advice? Of the cards you picked, either of the $20 ones seem fine. If you feel like splurging or have S/PDIF amp/speakers go the AWE64 Gold.

Do you plan to run an external midi device or wavetable card? The gold has superior onboard midi that's the main difference, I would buy the gold if you don't want to purchase another midi device like the sc-55 and wont to use wavetable midi.

My personal opinion on this?

I definitely wouldn't use an AWE64 for a 486 machine. I would put an SBPro2, SB16 or MAYBE an AWE32 in that.

For Pentium stuff, definitely SB16 or AWE32. Games (in DOS, of course) that really take advantage of AWE32 I would want to run on a Pentium.

The AWE64 belongs in a Pentium II or III machine, for me. It isn't user-friendly at all in DOS (PnP drivers, MIDI emulation is absolute crap, CQM clone instead of OPL3, etc.). As a Windows 9x card the AWE64 Gold absolutely excels. This also goes for the AWE64 Value to a slightly lesser degree.

EDIT: By your signature I guess I can assume you're building a Pentium/166 MMX machine - OK. So you could get one of those AWE64 Values, and it would work OK - but remember the following:

1. In Windows 95/98 the card will perform the same as an SB16, with added MIDI capabilities. EDIT: DOS games will work perfectly with this card as long as you run them in Windows.
2. In pure DOS, the following issues will crop up:
-Forget about using the AWE as a MIDI device in DOS. The emulation drivers work with almost nothing.
-There are Plug and Play drivers that need to be loaded to get digital sound. They use up memory.
-The FM synthesis is Creative's CQM clone that sounds harsher and shallower than a real Yamaha OPL3, as found on many SB16 cards, some AWE32 cards, and all SBPro2 cards.

So I would really recommend finding yourself a real, non-Plug-n-Play Sound Blaster 16.

You need to outline what you want in a sound card when it comes to DOS as there's ups and downs for all of them. There's a few magic cards like the Acer Magic S23 and Turtle Beach Tropez that incorporate a codec with excellent quality, SB Pro support, no hanging note bug, and a genuine OPL3 chip, but these are quite rare. In general you either need to use multiple cards or accept compromises in features or sound quality.

Start here:
Best ISA sound card with wavetable header

More reading:
Sound Blaster 16 Clones
Picking the best DOS Sound Blaster(s)
ESS AudioDrive (ES1868) - a surprisingly good ISA sound card
Perfect ISA soundcard, in theory
YMF71x vs ES1688 Comparison Thread
YMF71x vs ES1688 Comparison Thread

keenmaster486 wrote:

EDIT: DOS games will work perfectly with this card as long as you run them in Windows.

eeeeerrrrrr... DOS games with native AWE support works fine in plain DOS as long as you initialized the card properly 😀

keenmaster486 wrote:

Forget about using the AWE as a MIDI device in DOS. The emulation drivers work with almost nothing.

AWEUTIL is crap, yes, but sometimes works with real-mode games (but fails in protected-mode titles, yep)

keenmaster486 wrote:

There are Plug and Play drivers that need to be loaded to get digital sound. They use up memory.

CTCM (PnP init utility, also sets BLASTER environment variable after init) + MIXERSET + AWEUTIL /S (note the "/S" command line key - it forces AWEUTIL to init wavetable part only, not to installing as TSR) = 0 KB memory used 😀

Plug'n'Pray is pretty buggy on AWE64 and sometimes even requires driver patching in order to reconfigure resources under MS-DOS 7.x, but otherwise AWE64 is a good and pretty cheap (in case of Value cards) choice for Pentium 1\2 rig 😀

keenmaster486 wrote:

It isn't user-friendly at all in DOS (PnP drivers, MIDI emulation is absolute crap, CQM clone instead of OPL3, etc.)

It is quite user-friendly in DOS. As user-friendly as any PnP Sound Blaster is, just as compatible as any SB16, with fewer bugs (no hanging note / DMA clicking). The only issue is that of quality, not user-friendliness, and that's the issue of the CQM FM synthesizer compared to a genuine OPL3 chip. But if your game has native AWE support, it will sound better than any FM chip.

keenmaster486 wrote:

Forget about using the AWE as a MIDI device in DOS. The emulation drivers work with almost nothing.

That is true. However, it's not like any other Creative card (SBPro/16/AWE32) can be used a General MIDI device in DOS.

keenmaster486 wrote:

There are Plug and Play drivers that need to be loaded to get digital sound. They use up memory.

as wbc pointed out, if you only use it to initialize the EMU8000, they don't use up memory. They only do if you want the buggy MIDI emulation. Buy why would you?

keenmaster486 wrote:

So I would really recommend finding yourself a real, non-Plug-n-Play Sound Blaster 16.

That may be true - depending which games one mostly intends to play. PnP vs non-PnP is a non-issue. SB16 with OPL3 gives you very good and authentic FM sound. AWE64 with CQM gives you less authentic FM sound (still good in most cases, quite bad in a few cases), plus richer MIDI sound for games with native AWE support.

There's no real issue in using an AWE64 on a 486. Except for one thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can't install the CPU-hoggy WaveSynth/WaveGuide driver. It demands for Pentiums minimum, but it's practically useless for DOS anyway 😀
The real question that should be asked is...... are you going to play Final Fantasy VII and/or Eradicator?

also awe32 has a terrible noise floor, even a non-gold AWE64 value beats it at that.