What motherboard are you using?

Are you looking for good FM support? Planning for MIDI modules/daughterboards or all in one?

Choose one of Vortex2 and YMF7x4. First is easy to get stable proper work on a lot of mobos, has wt connector which is working in pure DOS through mpu uart interface, but it hasn't fm. Second has real fm opl3 which sounds in pure DOS perfect but it got problems with mpu through its game/midi port in pure DOS (may be freezes), and YMF is often making you headache on some mobos, won't work as sound blaster.
In Windows 9X dosbox both cards are perfect. And remember that you never reach 100% compatibility with any PCI sound for DOS games.

Another vote for the Vortex2 here - just make sure to get one with a wavetable header and slap something on there to save yourself from some pretty awful FM as mentioned above. It'll also do sound fonts in Win9X.

AU8830 MASTER RACE!

cyclone3d wrote:

What motherboard are you using?

This is the primary concern. DOS PCI sound compatibility is heavily chipset dependent.

When we talk about AU8830 it's more no than yes. Vortex in many cases works on mobos without DDMA support. Yamaha via TDMA too but in specs. In fact Yamaha is very unpredictable even on mobos with DDMA.

My recommendation isn't always going to be a Vortex 2 card for DOS.
1) They're more expensive than some alternatives.
2) Inferior OPL3 implementation.
3) TSR is quite heavy.

I'm using an Axiomtek SBC86807 2.0 board.

Manual: http://www.axiomtek.com/Download/Download/SBC … 07/SBC86807.pdf

firage wrote:

Are you looking for good FM support? Planning for MIDI modules/daughterboards or all in one?

I'm willing to get whatever card (and add-ons) are necessary for good audio quality.

Flare wrote:

I'm willing to get whatever card (and add-ons) are necessary for good audio quality.

I applaud. Finally at least one man here said adequate words about DOS sound. Usually if you talk to people about this one or that one card they at once say "oh! it has not proper FM, it's terrible!" Sometimes I got feelings that almost all go mad about "true OPL" as if nothing exist more.

About motherboard: ICH4 bridge supports DDMA. Of course BIOS should also realize this chipset feasibility.

The moment you say DOS and PCI I think the best option is a good ESS Solo-1 card like the Terrated 128i. Everything else has crappy OPL3 emulation.

Ok, so with the chipset in mind, the Yamaha YMF7x4 sound cards should work just fine. You may need to use a modified setupds.exe to get it fully working, but it should work.

appiah4 wrote:

The moment you say DOS and PCI I think the best option is a good ESS Solo-1 card like the Terrated 128i. Everything else has crappy OPL3 emulation.

The Yamaha cards have genuine OPL3 built in.

cyclone3d wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

The moment you say DOS and PCI I think the best option is a good ESS Solo-1 card like the Terrated 128i. Everything else has crappy OPL3 emulation.

The Yamaha cards have genuine OPL3 built in.

They also have worse compatibility with DOS games on pretty much any PCI bus out there.

The SOLO-1 just works, and ESFM is a very accurate OPL3 substitute.

After looking up the options given so far, a YMF744 seems to be the most convenient. Can't be any worse than the Ensoniq card I tried anyway.

If that doesn't work out for me, would a Vortex 2 combined with a SerdaShop 'DreamBlaster X2' do the job?

I'm not seeing any Solos for sale...

You need a few things:

- ISA bus emulation
- EAX
- A3D2.0

No one card does all that, and only a specific chip does the last. Ideally you would have a SB Live 5.1 for EAX and DOS compatibility, and a Vortex2 for A3D2 (which doesn't do EAX/DOS). As you have an ITX case with a single PCI slot, you are buggered for choice. Either build a second computer for A3D2 or build a mATX at least that you can stick 2 sound cards in - although you will need to play device manager wackamole every time you switch between them.

My advice - build a second system. This also gives you the option of using different variants of graphics cards. E.g. a popular breakdown would be a Geforce/Live! for D3D/EAX in one, and a Voodoo[35]/Vortex2 for Glide/A3D2 in another.

Basically, out of EAX, A3D and OPL FM, you pick one. EAX and A3D cards can do DOS, although not optimally.

With good MIDI, you won't miss FM too much.

Flare wrote:

I plan to run both DOS 6.22 and Windows 98SE on the system, so I'll need the card to have drivers for both and still sound good.

As I always ask - why do you want to use DOS 6.22? Do you plan to run Windows 3.11?

For running games in pure DOS, just use the pure DOS mode of Windows 98 SE.

firage wrote:

Basically, out of EAX, A3D and OPL FM, you pick one. EAX and A3D cards can do DOS, although not optimally.

I think it may be worth it to use two cards then - one for maximum DOS compatibility, one for Windows (with your choice of EAX or A3D).