KCompRoom2000 wrote:

*sigh* Should I just leave this forum now and go head to VCF instead?

What? Not seeing anything in this thread that would make you think that unless you really don't like answering questions.

Thanks for all the feedback. There seems to be reasons to use either sound card. I have a choice of more period correct or better quality really. I might go with the Live! I think. I can always switch later.

I have to admit that I have very fond memories of gaming with a SB Live! installed in my K6-2 300MHz back in the late 90's.
EAX in Unreal was just that: Unreal.
I am sure the Audigy does it just as well though, but either would be a good choice.
In my system, I am currently using a Yamaha Waveforce 192XG. While it isn't as good for gaming as the Live!, it has some interesting features if you're into midi sequencing and such. They show up on eBay from time to time for relatively low prices. Worth a look if you're into that sort of stuff.

I use 256MB for Windows 98, and it is totally fine for anything I can think of.

KCompRoom2000 wrote:

The SB0200 is a stripped down OEM version and the SB0220 had no official drivers for 9x.

I keep reading that even though it's not true. My old Pentium III had a SB Live! SB0220 and it came with a normal Creative install disc - this was in July 1999 so before Windows XP was released. I never even knew it was called a third party card - this was the last PC I got built by a store so I don't know where they got it but it does seem they went with the cheaper version of the card. Still, it came with an official CD and that worked flawlessly.

Late Windows 98 gaming I use the Live! SB0100. Early to mid Windows 98 I go for Aureal Vortex 2. My Audigy ZS is in my Early XP PC with AthlonXP 3200+. Mind you, and correct me if I am wrong, but Audigy ZS requires DirectX 9 and my Late Windows 98 build sticks with DirectX 8 and my early Windows 98 sticks with DirectX 7. I like to have all my bases covered.

rodimus80 wrote:

Late Windows 98 gaming I use the Live! SB0100. Early to mid Windows 98 I go for Aureal Vortex 2. My Audigy ZS is in my Early XP PC with AthlonXP 3200+. Mind you, and correct me if I am wrong, but Audigy ZS requires DirectX 9 and my Late Windows 98 build sticks with DirectX 8 and my early Windows 98 sticks with DirectX 7. I like to have all my bases covered.

For early Windows 98 I go with my AWE64 (ISA) for the simple reason that there's a lot of late DOS games that are quite demanding so I want a card that has great DOS support which the AWE64 has. I don't believe there's any PCI card that has authentic OPL music in DOS?

It's funny but the few times I used a non-Creative card in the 90's, I had really bad experiences. First was the Aztech Galaxy sound card which would crash my entire PC when playing games that used DirectX 5 or higher. Then I had the Crystal CX4235 which I bought for my 386 (my grandfather wanted a PC and I wanted to add sound to it since it originally came with no soundcard) and the FM music was terrible or broken.

red_avatar wrote:

I don't believe there's any PCI card that has authentic OPL music in DOS?

Yamaha YMF724/YMF744 chipset cards like the XWave and Aztech AZF3328 chipset cards like the PCI168 do have authentic OPL3 music in DOS.

red_avatar wrote:

rodimus80 wrote:

Late Windows 98 gaming I use the Live! SB0100. Early to mid Windows 98 I go for Aureal Vortex 2. My Audigy ZS is in my Early XP PC with AthlonXP 3200+. Mind you, and correct me if I am wrong, but Audigy ZS requires DirectX 9 and my Late Windows 98 build sticks with DirectX 8 and my early Windows 98 sticks with DirectX 7. I like to have all my bases covered.

For early Windows 98 I go with my AWE64 (ISA) for the simple reason that there's a lot of late DOS games that are quite demanding so I want a card that has great DOS support which the AWE64 has. I don't believe there's any PCI card that has authentic OPL music in DOS?

It's funny but the few times I used a non-Creative card in the 90's, I had really bad experiences. First was the Aztech Galaxy sound card which would crash my entire PC when playing games that used DirectX 5 or higher. Then I had the Crystal CX4235 which I bought for my 386 (my grandfather wanted a PC and I wanted to add sound to it since it originally came with no soundcard) and the FM music was terrible or broken.

For my DOS games I use 4 different machines. My K6-III 400 is paired with my AWE64 Gold (CT4390), my Pentium MMX 233 is paired with a AWE64 Value, my Cyrix 6x86 P166 is paired with a Sound Blaster Pro 2 (CT1600) and a MPU-401 card for MIDI, and my 486 DX2 66 is paired with a ESS1868f. I have other sound cards, but I find myself going back to these pairings a lot.

Why not swap the Pro 2.0 and ES1868F around? As the 6x68 has a MIDI card for GM and MT32 it will rarely use authentic OPL3.

appiah4 wrote:

red_avatar wrote:

I don't believe there's any PCI card that has authentic OPL music in DOS?

Yamaha YMF724/YMF744 chipset cards like the XWave and Aztech AZF3328 chipset cards like the PCI168 do have authentic OPL3 music in DOS.

Nice to know - I don't know where I got the idea only ISA had proper MIDI sound, or maybe it's because Creative's PCI cards didn't? (at least I don't think they did - all my Soundblaster PCIs sounded dreadful in DOS).

Also, discovered something fun yesterday. On my IBM Aptiva 486SX, I always had the sound popping loudly every second or so in certain games (especially Sam & Max and Day of the Tentacle during speech). I even replaced the Soundblaster 16 Value with the full version but nope, same popping. So two days ago, I removed the hard drive (it was too noisy for me) and hooked up a Compact Flash IDE adapter to use as hard drive (which works great - Windows hangs for a few seconds when opening File Explorer though but other than that it's a great silent replacement) and ... the popping is gone. I suspect that reading data off the hard drive while playing sound caused the popping - interference most likely.

Sounds like there is poor filtering on the 12V lane, check for swollen capacitors in your PSU or on your motherboard near the PSU connector

appiah4 wrote:

Sounds like there is poor filtering on the 12V lane, check for swollen capacitors in your PSU or on your motherboard near the PSU connector

I'll do that, thanks for the tip. It's always done this though - it just bugged me now because years of clean DOSBOX sound made it stand out more. I haven't really used this one for gaming in a loooong time because of limited hard drive space which is now fixed with the compact flash.

appiah4 wrote:

Why not swap the Pro 2.0 and ES1868F around? As the 6x68 has a MIDI card for GM and MT32 it will rarely use authentic OPL3.

Because it powers the DVD-ROM installed in it. 🤣 I've tried other cards on the 486 but no dice. Mind you I can't say I've given it even 50% effort.