Duffman wrote:the CMI8738 cards are the only pci-e cards with DOS drivers that i know of
As far as DOS is concerned, these card are not only interesting for PCI-E, but also for PCI in general. 😀
Depending on the model or manufacturer, the CMI series is as good as it gets.
Here's a quote of an old amateur radio program's (intercom) text file:
With CMI8738 chipset (ASONIC 8738-2C, DSP version 4.13)
Sampling is good.
Choice of input microphone/line/cd
Morse/FSK tone is good.
BPSK tone is good.
Conclusion: seems to be a perfect card.
This is the only PCI-based card which works perfect!
(In contrast, the DT 0398, CT4810 and VIBRA 16C based cards got poor ratings.)
Speaking of the CMI8738, it not only depends on the chip, but also the firmware, if there is any.
The chip apparently supports an external EEPROM.
In 2010 or so, I wrote a little bit about these cards.
Not all were DOS compatible, it seemed.
And even those who were, didn't support DOS4GW games.
The TT-Solo (ESS Solo 1) cards are the second best choice, I guess, if the board supports PCI and SB-Link (or DDMA, etc).
Their OPL3 core is usable from within Win98/XP, as far as I know, and is more enhanced also.
Also good are the more exotic Yamaha cards from what I heard recently at Vogons.
No idea if all those can work with PCI-bridges, however. I haven't experimented with these kind of things for years! 😅
I guess it depends on how they provide the legacy (ISA) adresses. Via emulation (a TSR driver) or natively.
Emulation via TSR might be limited to Real Mode stuff only, but has higher chance to work with modern systems,
since they likely don't rely on PCI (PCI-E) to pass-through the legacy adresses (pure speculation).
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