Flare wrote:

I found a good deal on a Sound Blaster AWE64, but are there better cards I should keep an eye out for?

The AWE64 is a great card, with clean sound and bug-free midi, but you might also want to look out for one with *drumroll* true OPL.

If you look at another thread on this board, someone is selling MusicQuest clone cards that give you bug-free midi and a wavetable header, meaning you can go out and find the nastiest Sound Blaster with real OPL, use it for FM and the MQ card for Midi. That's what I am planing on doing when my MQ card arrives.

If you just want to save $$$ then look for cheap OPTi ISA sound cards....not true OPL but about as good as emulation as you can find, bug free Midi, and should cost about $5, even on certain rip-off auction sites.

Saving money isn't really my goal, I want games to sound good, not 'good enough'. 😜

Which card(s) would pair well with that MusicQuest for overall excellence?

Flare wrote:

Saving money isn't really my goal, I want games to sound good, not 'good enough'. 😜

Which card(s) would pair well with that MusicQuest for overall excellence?

AWE64 + OPL3 clone card connected to the AEW64's line-in.
The only thing this won't do is emulate an SBPro in stereo (in DOS) or anything beyond 2.0 stereo sound in Windows.

tpowell.ca wrote:

Flare wrote:

Saving money isn't really my goal, I want games to sound good, not 'good enough'. 😜

Which card(s) would pair well with that MusicQuest for overall excellence?

AWE64 + OPL3 clone card connected to the AEW64's line-in.
The only thing this won't do is emulate an SBPro in stereo (in DOS) or anything beyond 2.0 stereo sound in Windows.

The ASE64 isn't stereo?

The AWE64 is stereo, but emulation, such as SB Pro is impossible to have stereo since the SB Pro is meant for mono only.

bjwil1991 wrote:

The AWE64 is stereo, but emulation, such as SB Pro is impossible to have stereo since the SB Pro is meant for mono only.

Eh? The whole reason the original SBPro had two OPL2 chips (or later an OPL3) was for stereo, that was its selling point over the original SB...

I think the confusion is because the SB Pro has a method of digital stereo playback, which is not supported by later cards, such as the SB16 and AWE32/64.
So you can't get SB Pro digital stereo out of these cards. They have their own stereo modes though, which most games will support.
They are also compatible with the stereo OPL3 FM synthesizer found on the SB Pro 2.

Scali wrote:

I think the confusion is because the SB Pro has a method of digital stereo playback, which is not supported by later cards, such as the SB16 and AWE32/64.
So you can't get SB Pro digital stereo out of these cards. They have their own stereo modes though, which most games will support.
They are also compatible with the stereo OPL3 FM synthesizer found on the SB Pro 2.

Exactly.
OPL3 FM music will play in stereo (regardless of SBPro compatibility), however digital audio (as opposed to FM or synth) will play in MONO if you select Sound Blaster Pro in your software.
This is a know issue as stated above.

Now, for further confusion, the physical DIGITAL audio output (SPDIF) will nearly never work in DOS since it requires 44.1kHz/16bit source material to function.
The analog (RCA jacks) on the card will work fine though, and work well as this is one of the better/less-noisy ISA sound cards out there.

Scali wrote:

I think the confusion is because the SB Pro has a method of digital stereo playback, which is not supported by later cards, such as the SB16 and AWE32/64.
So you can't get SB Pro digital stereo out of these cards. They have their own stereo modes though, which most games will support.
They are also compatible with the stereo OPL3 FM synthesizer found on the SB Pro 2.

So the AWE64 and an OPL card will do until I get my hands on a SB Pro 2?

tpowell.ca wrote:

Exactly. OPL3 FM music will play in stereo (regardless of SBPro compatibility), however digital audio (as opposed to FM or synth […]
Show full quote

Scali wrote:

I think the confusion is because the SB Pro has a method of digital stereo playback, which is not supported by later cards, such as the SB16 and AWE32/64.
So you can't get SB Pro digital stereo out of these cards. They have their own stereo modes though, which most games will support.
They are also compatible with the stereo OPL3 FM synthesizer found on the SB Pro 2.

Exactly.
OPL3 FM music will play in stereo (regardless of SBPro compatibility), however digital audio (as opposed to FM or synth) will play in MONO if you select Sound Blaster Pro in your software.
This is a know issue as stated above.

Now, for further confusion, the physical DIGITAL audio output (SPDIF) will nearly never work in DOS since it requires 44.1kHz/16bit source material to function.
The analog (RCA jacks) on the card will work fine though, and work well as this is one of the better/less-noisy ISA sound cards out there.

I'll be using analog audio in my setup.

Flare wrote:

Scali wrote:

I think the confusion is because the SB Pro has a method of digital stereo playback, which is not supported by later cards, such as the SB16 and AWE32/64.
So you can't get SB Pro digital stereo out of these cards. They have their own stereo modes though, which most games will support.
They are also compatible with the stereo OPL3 FM synthesizer found on the SB Pro 2.

So the AWE64 and an OPL card will do until I get my hands on a SB Pro 2?

Why bother with an SBPro2?
If you ignore the stereo issue (which quite frankly, very few games use), the AWE64 uses higher quality lowpass filtering, so even at low sampling rates (eg: 11 or 22kHz), the AWE64 will sound far better.

Flare, I did want to say you that ISA card can't be the best for win but I though you will not believe me. Now see all previous messages, they all about DOS compatibility and no one word in this discussion about Windows. Just make your choice for ISA card(s) and add a PCI card for Windows, it may be EMU10k or Vortex.

I agree with PARUS that ISA cards are not really that great for Windows. I can't seem to get far without crackling even in the intro sound when you just boot into Windows. It's why I'm using a dual sound card combo in my current build (AWE32+YMF724). I just assign resources to the ISA card for DOS use, and install only the other card's driver so that Windows knows to use that one instead. Using a non-PnP ISA sound card works best for this because it's basically zero configuration if you boot straight into DOS.

But that's assuming you're gaming on 98SE at all as the topic suggests.

Honestly though, if you aren't using Waveblaster, you don't have anything to worry about if you use SB16 or later, they all behave the same in DOS for the most part. A couple games have special music code for AWE32 (Duke 3D) but by and large most games either support older sound cards which don't have stereo support or they already support the SB16 and those are super easy to come by. I've also had problems using SBPro2 on fast systems, and the SB16 and onward are immune to those problems. Depends on how fast your computer is though.

It might be of interest to know what type of speakers / headphones OP is using with this system. Some of our famed cards are known to have horrendous line noise that can drive a man insane.

I have had the mythical CT1600 in my possession for over 25 years now, while the stereo is nice, I've since pulled it out and placed a Vibra 16 with yamaha OPL in its place due to the line noise from the Pro 2. Granted, I have yet to recap the CT1600 to see if that helps, but honestly it always made that noise, I just didn't care back when it was hooked up to some cheapo creative powered speakers.

After tinkering with tons of cards, I ultimately went with a Vibra 16S (genuine OPL3) + Sound Blaster 32 CT3600 (32MB added) for my 9x rig, and it sounds very, very nice. In close second are a few of the Aztech cards I've collected over the past couple years. I could barely tell the difference between the Pro II and the FM from the sound galaxy (aside from the far superior line noise filtering, the galaxy sounded way better using headphones). I would like to try out an Awe64 (value or gold) eventually but I have to grab the simmconn since I can't leave the "Masterpiece" sound font behind, but I'd like to see how the Awe64 soudns. Right now I'm totally content with what I have though. I do highly suggest a combo of two cards, one of which being PnP for 9x games since Win9x can get a little annoying dealing with non-PnP cards.

Re: Above post, We're in agreement on the configuration of dual cards. I'd just like to add that I think Duke 3D sounds atrocious in it's Awe 32 mode, and highly suggest using GM with a nice soundfont (mmm masterpiece) to really bring that game to life 😎

SaxxonPike wrote:

I agree with PARUS that ISA cards are not really that great for Windows. I can't seem to get far without crackling even in the intro sound when you just boot into Windows. It's why I'm using a dual sound card combo in my current build (AWE32+YMF724). I just assign resources to the ISA card for DOS use, and install only the other card's driver so that Windows knows to use that one instead. Using a non-PnP ISA sound card works best for this because it's basically zero configuration if you boot straight into DOS.

But that's assuming you're gaming on 98SE at all as the topic suggests.

Honestly though, if you aren't using Waveblaster, you don't have anything to worry about if you use SB16 or later, they all behave the same in DOS for the most part. A couple games have special music code for AWE32 (Duke 3D) but by and large most games either support older sound cards which don't have stereo support or they already support the SB16 and those are super easy to come by. I've also had problems using SBPro2 on fast systems, and the SB16 and onward are immune to those problems. Depends on how fast your computer is though.

Yes, I'll be using the Second Edition of 98, but most of the games I want to play are pure DOS. I'll be using separate CF cards to hold them though, so having each ignore a card is a good idea.

If I don't upgrade later, the computer will run a 450 or 500 MHz AMD K6-2 CPU. Will that be too fast?

BeginnerGuy wrote:

It might be of interest to know what type of speakers / headphones OP is using with this system. Some of our famed cards are kno […]
Show full quote

It might be of interest to know what type of speakers / headphones OP is using with this system. Some of our famed cards are known to have horrendous line noise that can drive a man insane.

I have had the mythical CT1600 in my possession for over 25 years now, while the stereo is nice, I've since pulled it out and placed a Vibra 16 with yamaha OPL in its place due to the line noise from the Pro 2. Granted, I have yet to recap the CT1600 to see if that helps, but honestly it always made that noise, I just didn't care back when it was hooked up to some cheapo creative powered speakers.

After tinkering with tons of cards, I ultimately went with a Vibra 16S (genuine OPL3) + Sound Blaster 32 CT3600 (32MB added) for my 9x rig, and it sounds very, very nice. In close second are a few of the Aztech cards I've collected over the past couple years. I could barely tell the difference between the Pro II and the FM from the sound galaxy (aside from the far superior line noise filtering, the galaxy sounded way better using headphones). I would like to try out an Awe64 (value or gold) eventually but I have to grab the simmconn since I can't leave the "Masterpiece" sound font behind, but I'd like to see how the Awe64 soudns. Right now I'm totally content with what I have though. I do highly suggest a combo of two cards, one of which being PnP for 9x games since Win9x can get a little annoying dealing with non-PnP cards.

Re: Above post, We're in agreement on the configuration of dual cards. I'd just like to add that I think Duke 3D sounds atrocious in it's Awe 32 mode, and highly suggest using GM with a nice soundfont (mmm masterpiece) to really bring that game to life 😎

For now I'm using the speakers built into my flatscreen monitor, I might get a pair of external speakers later, but they'll still connect to the analog output.

I found some more cards locally that I can try using, including a 'Windows Sound System' and a one with an 'ESS AudioDrive ES1868F' chip.

I wouldn't mind getting that memory expansion and a MIDI/OPL chip for the AWE64, it will need to wait until I save up some more cash though.

I also still have the Yamaha AW744L card, perhaps it will like my new motherboard better, I'll toy with it this weekend.

Flare wrote:

If I don't upgrade later, the computer will run a 450 or 500 MHz AMD K6-2 CPU. Will that be too fast?

No, a AWE64 will run happily on any machine with an ISA slot, even late model PIII in excess of 1GHz.
Also, it has been shown that in Windows 98, there is a negligible performance gain going to PCI from an AWE64 card.

Flare wrote:

For now I'm using the speakers built into my flatscreen monitor, I might get a pair of external speakers later, but they'll stil […]
Show full quote

For now I'm using the speakers built into my flatscreen monitor, I might get a pair of external speakers later, but they'll still connect to the analog output.
I found some more cards locally that I can try using, including a 'Windows Sound System' and a one with an 'ESS AudioDrive ES1868F' chip.
I wouldn't mind getting that memory expansion and a MIDI/OPL chip for the AWE64, it will need to wait until I save up some more cash though.
I also still have the Yamaha AW744L card, perhaps it will like my new motherboard better, I'll toy with it this weekend.

Try the AWE64, maybe the CQM (OPL3 implementation) isn't so disagreeable to you.

Of course, if you're open to having 2-3 cards simultaneously, then I'd go a different route. But I really do think that given your requirements, this one fits the bill.

Let's ignore Windows 98 for a while, I want to get DOS going properly first.

I have the AWE64 card and a game installed, but the audio still doesn't sound quite right compared to DOSBOX.

The AWE64 has OPL3, right? Does that mean that it's not doing MIDI correctly?

The AWE64 does not have a real OPL3, it has Creatives CQM. For Win9x the AWE64 should have full directsound acceleration with the VxD driver according to Microsoft MSDN.

Flare wrote:

Let's ignore Windows 98 for a while, I want to get DOS going properly first.

I have the AWE64 card and a game installed, but the audio still doesn't sound quite right compared to DOSBOX.

The AWE64 has OPL3, right? Does that mean that it's not doing MIDI correctly?

It's also a reality that DOSBox *may* not sound right compared to the Awe64 or a true OPL card, just to point that out 😊

The AWE64 does OPL3 through the integrated CQM chip I believe, but it 100% does not have the Yamaha OPL3 synthesis chip that is known for "genuine OPL3". It should be quite accurate, but most enthusiasts are able to tell the difference.

I suggest you grab a cheap secondary card that does have a YMF-262 (yamaha) and use that in series with the Awe64 - you can run the line out into the line in of the awe64 if you like. There are tons of cheap cards with genuine OPL3, I personally settled on a vibra 16 with the YMF-262 as it sounded the cleanest to me, paired with an Awe32. This will get you the best of both world between FM synth and GM / AWE.

Edit: It's hard to say what it's not doing right unless you tell us what game you're playing and which sound settings you've chosen as many games e.g, DOOM can be played through Sound Blaster (OPL3/FM) or GM.

BeginnerGuy wrote:

I suggest you grab a cheap secondary card that does have a YMF-262 (yamaha) and use that in series with the Awe64 - you can run the line out into the line in of the awe64 if you like. There are tons of cheap cards with genuine OPL3, I personally settled on a vibra 16 with the YMF-262 as it sounded the cleanest to me, paired with an Awe32. This will get you the best of both world between FM synth and GM / AWE.

Edit: It's hard to say what it's not doing right unless you tell us what game you're playing and which sound settings you've chosen as many games e.g, DOOM can be played through Sound Blaster (OPL3/FM) or GM.

I have an AOpen AW744L card that has a Yamaha YMF744B-R chip. Would that do?

The only game i have currently that doesn't use the PC's onboard speaker is called Metal & Lace. (Don't judge me, it was free)