VOGONS


First post, by bjwil1991

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I've had this sound card for over a year now, an Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro, which has the following specifications:

Yamaha YMF-262M OPL3 Chipset
Virtual LPT1 Port Extender
Panasonic and Sony CD Drive IDE Ports
Volume Potentiometer
Line-In, Microphone, and Line-Out Ports
GamePort/MIDI DB15 port (looks like a conflict with my Music Quest MIDI Clone card, and I cannot find a way to disable the MIDI port).
Jumpers to enable/disable certain features, such as the CD drive ports, Virtual LPT port, and having the changes saved to EEPROM or factory defaults, and the type of Microphone is hooked up.

The sound card belonged to a friend of mine that passed away almost 2 years ago that was in an old computer from the 1990's (should've taken it, but I decided not to, and I'll be amazed if it's still there, then I'll take the system).

The card is a Sound Blaster Pro clone (SB Pro 2, I believe), has Covox Speech Thing, and Disney Sound Source integrated into the sound card.

The only repairs I did was putting in a new potentiometer since the old one stopped working (crackling noises) and replaced the Mic and Line-In jacks (I need to re-repair the Line-In jack since it doesn't output any sound and it looks like it's loose again, so a re-flow of the solder is a must).

Pros:
Great for DOS gaming and for Windows 3.X
Genuine OPL3 Chipset
Can work with the SoftMPU Program without issues (I have to test this again)

Cons:
Cannot disable the MIDI port feature (conflicts with my Music Quest MIDI card), but there might be a TSR program somewhere.
Hooking up an external ZIP or LS-120 Parallel port drive causes the card to not get recognized when diagnosing the card.

Rating: 139.5dB out of 140dB since the Parallel port on the PC can conflict with the sound card's Virtual LPT and the MIDI portion on the Gameport/MIDI DB15 cannot be disabled for some odd reason, but I can test the port out to see if the MIDI does work on it on my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus within both Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and MS-DOS 6.22 running the diagnostic program.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 1 of 2, by j^aws

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IIRC, I tested this card and similar ones with SoftMPU, and they had non-standard MIDI ports, where I couldn't use port 330, which some games needed. They insisted on something like port 5xx for MIDI.

You can get around using other LPT devices by disabling Virtual LPT using its initialisation software, and enabling LPT ports in system BIOS, IIRC.

These cards were also noisier than expected - not sure why though. Overall, very versatile sound cards.

Reply 2 of 2, by bjwil1991

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j^aws wrote:

IIRC, I tested this card and similar ones with SoftMPU, and they had non-standard MIDI ports, where I couldn't use port 330, which some games needed. They insisted on something like port 5xx for MIDI.

You can get around using other LPT devices by disabling Virtual LPT using its initialisation software, and enabling LPT ports in system BIOS, IIRC.

These cards were also noisier than expected - not sure why though. Overall, very versatile sound cards.

Windows for Workgroups 3.11 does work with the MIDI port on the sound card (great for GM games), but DOS games require an MPU-401 card, which I have. You're right about the address for the sound card's MPU-401. I tried to play Doom with the sound card and it only played through the MPU-401 card, which has my Roland MT-32 hooked up.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser