What? You are talking about MOD4WIN and 16Bit/44.1 ? Are there MOD's with that high sampling quality out there?

dr_st wrote:

Ahh... So Wolf3D supports stereo on an SBPro? And it does not support SB16? So a SB16 with Wolf3D will give you mono sound?

That is correct.

dr_st wrote:

I may have missed that; in what ways is SB16 buggy with SB (not SBPro) compatibility? Or are you referring to the sound quality bugs you mentioned above?

Yes, the clicking with SB1.x-targeted software. Or other quality issues, like with Jill of the Jungle: Jill of the Jungle Sound Effects
I believe there may even be extreme cases where the audio locks up because of the bugs in the DSP.

dr_st wrote:

That does sound good. I assume the MT-32/SC emulation on the GUS MAX is better / more reliable than that on the AWE cards?

I'm not sure, I haven't done a direct comparison. But if you're talking about hanging notes, I have never had those happen on the GUS.

Jo22 wrote:

For some reason, all my games supported my card.
Even natively in 16Bit mode (Descent comes to mind). Only the shareware/freewares games required ancient Sound Blaster.
But even then, no SBPro was required. Most of them were coded for SoundBlaster 1.0 and OPL2 anyway, something my PAS16 could do with ease.

Yea, that's what I figured as well, as I said above. I don't think there are many (if any) games that support the SB16, but not popular clones like the PAS16. And the PAS16 is just a better card, I think. I believe its SB compatibility is actually better than the SB16's, and its build quality is one of the best ever, giving you very crisp, noise-free 44.1 kHz 16-bit audio. True 'CD quality'.

I also love the PAS16's solution to capturing the PC speaker: they just sniff the data from the bus and generate the PC speaker signal on the card itself. No wires required.

Jo22 wrote:

But to this day, I haven't seen the need for a SB Pro. If I was a scener, then maybe. But even then,
a Gravis Ultrasound would have been be quite appealing. 😉

I was an early adopter of the SB Pro, as were many sceners I suppose.
When I bought it, it was basically the only OPL3 card on the market, and also the only SB-compatible card with a stereo option.
The SB Pro naturally became the first card that was widely supported in demos, trackers and mod players for stereo playback.
If you look at a demo like Future Crew's Unreal, it only supported Sound Blaster and SB Pro in its original release. The later 1.1 version added GUS. But those were your only options.
The scene seemed to jump from the SB Pro to the GUS, leaving the SB16 by the wayside. They never had any use for the AWE32 either. The GUS already gave them everything they needed for hardware accelerated tracker music.

dr.zeissler wrote:

What? You are talking about MOD4WIN and 16Bit/44.1 ? Are there MOD's with that high sampling quality out there?

Original MODs (SoundTracker, NoiseTracker, ProTracker etc) were made for/on Amiga, and only support 8-bit samples up to about 28.5 kHz sampling rate, as that is what the Amiga is capable of.
However, the Amiga had 4 hardware channels, so it could be played back without any mixing.
On PC, most sound cards only had a single channel (or two if they were stereo), so you had to mix multiple channels together, and perform resampling of the individual samples played to a fixed output frequency.
In that case, 16-bit and 44.1 kHz can give you better quality mixing (in theory, mixing 4 samples of 8 bits together will require 11 bits in total, so truncating it back to 8 bits results in loss of quality).

Basically, an SB Pro 2.0 costs the same as an Amiga 500 or 600 did back in the day, but it could not play back MOD files with the same quality. The Amiga sounded considerably better. Also, it didn't cost the Amiga much CPU time, where you'd needed a fast 386 so that it would be fast enough to mix a MOD file in the background during a game or demo. Anything slower, and the music would take all the CPU time, or you even had to reduce the sampling rate to even play it in realtime at all.

Later PC trackers, such as Scream Tracker 3 and FastTracker II would break free from the Amiga limits and add more channels, support for 16-bit samples, higher sampling rates, and also features that were not possible on Amiga, such as pingpong looping.

Scali wrote:

dr_st wrote:

Ahh... So Wolf3D supports stereo on an SBPro? And it does not support SB16? So a SB16 with Wolf3D will give you mono sound?

That is correct.

gdjacobs wrote:

Wolf3d's stereo effects work just fine with a SB16 as it isn't two channel PCM but rather balance controls that provide stereo separation.

So now I'm confused. 😀

Wolf3D uses the PAN function of the mixer to pan mono sounds left and right.
But it uses single-cycle DMA commands for the PCM audio which will be noisy on the SB16.

MOD samples could certainly be transposed higher than 11khz on playback. Similarly, dynamic range greater than 8 bpc is potentially handy for compositions with both loud and quiet passages. For the same reason, Crusader: No Remorse is better with 16/44.1 even if the MOD file samples and SFX are only 8/22.

Most games with SB16 support only output 22 khz/8 bit anyway, so there's no advantage, but for those that do it can be a definite plus.

dr_st wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

Wolf3d's stereo effects work just fine with a SB16 as it isn't two channel PCM but rather balance controls that provide stereo separation.

So now I'm confused. 😀

The point about Wolf3d stereo sound is contested. It doesn't use two channel PCM for playback but rather panning effects. Others have stated that it works fine with their SB16 card, enough to the point where I'd say that's the consensus. Scali obviously stated otherwise. I'll probably do a test later to day to clear this up one way or another and post the PCM captures so we have some hard data. He's certainly right that SB16 cards don't support SB Pro two channel PCM modes, but Wolf3d doesn't use those.

James-F wrote:

Wolf3D uses the PAN function of the mixer to pan mono sounds left and right.

Unless I'm mistaken, the SB16 mixer is not compatible with the SB Pro one, and as such, the panning will not work.

It is and it does. Same addresses and registers.
Creative made sure software that can control the SBPro mixer will do the same with the SB16.
The fact that the SB16 doesn't support SBPro interleaved stereo is a different issue.

James-F wrote:

It is and it does. Same addresses and registers.
Creative made sure software that can control the SBPro mixer will do the same with the SB16.
The fact that the SB16 doesn't support SBPro interleaved stereo is a different issue.

Ah yes indeed.
They are not the same chip... but the SB16 one at least has the same relevant command for voice volume left and right: 0x04. So that should be compatible.
It's the SB2.0 CD interface that has a totally incompatible mixer.

Scali wrote:

voice 0x04

Yep.
Not only that, but also Master, Midi, Cd, Line and Mic, all of them basically EXCEPT the "Stereo Switch".
No SBPro stereo switch means they actually intended NOT to include SBPro stereo mode in the SB16, there is not mistakes there.

It's stupid actually, the SB16 supports a mono SBPro with a pan function. 😐
It's like a SB 1.x or 2.0 with a stereo mixer... absolutely useless.
Well at least it does work in Wolf3D.

Jo22 wrote:

Okay, this perhaps doesn't apply to most users here, but.. I'm still an abidingly user of MOD4WIN and love to listen music to with it.
So 16Bit Stereo and 44.1 KHz sampling rate means a lot to me!
That's why I like to have an advanced soundcard even in my retro rig, as I did back in the day.

I also like MOD4WIN, despite its age.

MOD4WIN, as its name suggests, is a MOD based player for the Windows operating environment.
Most clone sound cards post 1992 were in fact full 16-bit stereo cards under Windows (with the correct drivers installed), despite many of these only offering Sound Blaster or Sound Blaster Pro support under DOS (and in some cases, only poor Sound Blaster emulation).

What I'm basically saying is that once you move onto Windows, then there are probably other factors to consider (like signal to noise ratio, mixing rate, etc.) as opposed to whether the card is Sound Blaster compatible. As a matter of fact, under Windows, it's irrelevant whether the card is or is not Sound Blaster compatible).

As such, by only looking at ISA sound cards, there are probably much better 16-bit stereo cards for Windows then any of the Sound Blaster 16 cards.

Didn't MOD4WIN come with CRYSTALS.669 or something? It rings a bell.

Scali wrote:

Another aspect is that I don't think the SB16 was ever a very popular card, and therefore didn't really establish a standard as much as the earlier SBs did.

IIRC SB/SBPro compatibility was licenced out by Creative to other soundcard companies, but not the SB16 interface as it was to remain a Creative exclusive. Only know about CMI and Avance Logic offering a cloned SB16 interface in hardware, seemingly illegally.

I remember a statement of an Aureal DOS Emulation programmer on this topic, but I cannot find it again...

gdjacobs wrote:

Didn't MOD4WIN come with CRYSTALS.669 or something? It rings a bell.

Yes, absolutely! And the other song was freedanc.mod..

At some point, MOD4WIN also had native support for GUS and OPL4 (removed in the latest "last beta"-s).
Though the latter required a generic soundcard card with OPL4 RAM (instead of the ROM).
The help file said, the Pro Audio Trixx was the only one at the time of its release.
A third card was apparently also inoffically supported, the EWS 64XL.

I would have bought that one a few years ago, if I could make sure it also had a Win 3.x driver.
Until now, I was only able to hunt down a Win95 driver for it.

By the way, MOD4WIN is interesting in the way it draws its own GUI.
The last beta has a "Windows 95" design even in Win3.x.
I assume it is using its own buttons instead of native elements.

Another interesting thing is that early versions (1.10?) did support 286 machines.
Unfortunatelly, they aren't so useful because of the lack IDO and other neat features.
Especially the support for math co-processors really helps weak machines.

jesolo wrote:

I also like MOD4WIN, despite its age.

Cheers! 😁 I really love that piece of software. I even hunted down the original CD release.
Not that it is anyhow better than the beta (in fact, that's the one I'm actually using),
but I really wanted to have that CD-ROM in my little collection (its now in a little box together
with a shrink-wrapped copy of DOS 6.22+WFW 3.11 and my WFW 3.11 CD-ROM; my treasure chest so to say! ^^)

MOD4WIN is one of the few programs that I'm using almost on a regular basis for almost 20 years!
The other one is the orginal Norton Commander I got from my dad.
I really wished I could at least use MOD4WIN without emulation now, but Windows x64 doesn't allow for that,
so I'm using DOSBox/Windows 3.1 for that now. But for some reason I can't select 16-Bit resolution there.
If I do attemp to do so, I get some nasty static sound. The GUS drivers doesn't work either.
I guess it is really a driver's issue here - there are too many of them! 😅

jesolo wrote:

What I'm basically saying is that once you move onto Windows, then there are probably other factors to consider (like signal
to noise ratio, mixing rate, etc.) as opposed to whether the card is Sound Blaster compatible. As a matter of fact, under
Windows, it's irrelevant whether the card is or is not Sound Blaster compatible).

I see, that makes sense. My point simply was that 44KHz and 16Bit are nice to have, even in old machines.
Ironically, the Windows Sound System (WSS) was the most popular secondary standard which clone cards supported, besides SB Pro.

It's also ironic that WSS was rarely used in Windows, which it was orginally designed for. But I'm speaking under correction here.
I grew up with the PAS16, which predated the WSS standard. Nevertheless, I have never seen a WSS-capable card running
in WSS-"mode" in Windows 98SE. They always showed up with their real names and native drivers.
Anyway, perhaps I'm seeing things to strict. WSS was also a specification (much like AC97), not just an audio interface.

Scali wrote:

I was an early adopter of the SB Pro, as were many sceners I suppose.

Cool! I believe this makes you a pioneer in stereo sound on the PC, as well! 😎
My dad recalls he had one for a short time, too. So I believe a SB Pro must have been a good choice at the time.
I wished I could say more about it, but I never had one of them, so..

Scali wrote:

The scene seemed to jump from the SB Pro to the GUS, leaving the SB16 by the wayside. They never had any use
for the AWE32 either. The GUS already gave them everything they needed for hardware accelerated tracker music.

Yes, I noticed this as well. There are only two scene-related programs that I know of.
But strictly speaking these are simply stand-alone music players for Amiga tracker formats:
Impulse Tracker and AMP for Windows v2.5. Both can make use of the EMU8000 (AMP does only use the synth, which would be nice for a Goldfinch card w/ SPDIF).
In a comparision with MOD4WIN's IDO I could not hear any improvements when using AMP, though.
But AMP also does support IT, XTM and PTM.

A lot of love for Mod4Win here, I see. 😀 I used ModPlug Player myself. Is anyone familiar enough with both to give us the rundown?

Jo22 wrote:

Cool! I believe this makes you a pioneer in stereo sound on the PC, as well! 😎
My dad recalls he had one for a short time, too. So I believe a SB Pro must have been a good choice at the time.
I wished I could say more about it, but I never had one of them, so..

In practice, I suppose yes.
The SB Pro was probably the first widely adopted stereo solution, and one of the first to be able to play MODs in stereo at least.
But there were various earlier sound cards that were stereo, including the Creative Game Blaster/CMS, the IBM Music Feature Card, and of course the Roland MT-32, Sound Canvas and related solutions.
Or even a double Covox setup 😀

I agree with Phil and Scali - the differences between SB Pro and SB 16 are overexaggerated. One can easily grab a Yamaha OPL3SA soundcard and live with it, enjoying both SB Pro sound and OPL3 music; for the rare titles (I can't even think of one) that really output 16-bit PCM sound in DOS, you can use OPL3SA's support of WSS standard.

Ultimately it comes to the thing - whether you are interested in playing DOS games, or in prowling Ebay searching for the 'very best' sound card that lacks any drawbacks. Not saying either is a bad thing, though.

bristlehog wrote:

or in prowling Ebay searching for the 'very best' sound card that lacks any drawbacks

One would fail miserably doing so.

James-F wrote:

bristlehog wrote:

or in prowling Ebay searching for the 'very best' sound card that lacks any drawbacks

One would fail miserably doing so.