Rincewind42 wrote on 2023-01-20, 05:36:

I really like how the ESFM sounds, but my slight disappointment with this solution is that I wouldn't be able to utilise the true OPL3 chip of the AWE32 in older games, then in newer games I'd use MIDI or direct AWE32 support anyway. The other cool thing is that I could add reverb & chorus to the OPL output of the AWE32 (but then, this is a digital mixer so I can add much higher quality reverb to any channel easily, and in fact I do that to the ESFM output, and I even add some reverb to the QWave to give it some space).

I think you should be able to utilize the OPL3 chip on the AWE32 even while using the ESS card for digital sound. Assuming that older games are coded to use Adlib music at port 388, which most of them are, they will send those signals to both cards at the same time.

Of course, you will need to temporarily mute FM synth on the ESS card using its drivers, but that can easily be done with a simple batch file.

P.S.

Be careful with connecting MIDI gear to that AWE32. It may suffer from (type 2) hanging note bugs and high sample rate stuttering bugs as described here and also here.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-01-20, 07:12:

I think you should be able to utilize the OPL3 chip on the AWE32 even while using the ESS card for digital sound. Assuming that older games are coded to use Adlib music at port 388, which most of them are, they will send those signals to both cards at the same time.

My understanding is that the Sound Blaster base port is still used for OPL, so games use 220 + 388, or 240 + 388, etc. as described here:
Re: Internal OPL3 ISA 8 bits (PCXT)

But anyway, I'll just test it out with Prince of Persia, Alone in the Dark, etc. and see how they behave! Thanks for the tip.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-01-20, 07:12:

Be careful with connecting MIDI gear to that AWE32. It may suffer from (type 2) hanging note bugs and high sample rate stuttering bugs as described here and also here.

Thanks, luckily I'm not into any of those FPS games affected by the Type 1 bug, and my AWE32 CT3900 has the CT1747 bus interface which doesn't have the Type 2 bug, so that's a non-issue for me.

My experience would be once you start using more than 2 sound cards it quickly turns into a bit of a conflict nightmare situation , ask me how I know.
So just two is probably the smarter choice.

There's a bit of dilemma when it comes to midi modules though:

Whereas external midi modules are easier to chain up because even though they take up more space , they can be managed with midi thru switchboxes ,
you can easily have a huge stack and as long as you have a switcher with the right amount of inputs you can toggle between them pretty quickly.

The downside is you need multiple power adapters , midi cables , different audio cables and it turns into a bit of rats nest cable wise.

Your situation seems to mostly deal with wavetable cards which saves dealing with wires and space but can be a bit less flexible with running multiple things at once.

However there is a project on vogons though where someone converted a hard drive changer bay to hold a breakout board that you could connect your wavetable boards to. That way you could simply swap out the bay with another wavetable card as you felt the need.

Waveblaster Adaptor for IDE-HDD Swap Frames

Might be something to consider if you want to make it more modular.
The project seems to be in limbo but maybe you could get them to give you the gerber files or something.

The big issue with these setups as I've learned is though they save space vs multiple systems require an annoying amount of planning to set up ,
and getting everything to play nicely with each other can be tricky.

Anyway your setup looks pretty cool hope it all goes to plan. 👍

Rincewind42 wrote on 2023-01-20, 08:03:

My understanding is that the Sound Blaster base port is still used for OPL, so games use 220 + 388, or 240 + 388, etc. as described here:
Re: Internal OPL3 ISA 8 bits (PCXT)

But anyway, I'll just test it out with Prince of Persia, Alone in the Dark, etc. and see how they behave! Thanks for the tip.

It may depend on the game. For a while, I was using an AWE64 together with a Yamaha YMF724 and was usually able to get OPL3 music from the Yamaha card with the method described above. BTW, for that method to work, it might be necessary to select "Adlib" instead of "Sound Blaster" for music in the game's setup, when both options are available.

Thanks, luckily I'm not into any of those FPS games affected by the Type 1 bug, and my AWE32 CT3900 has the CT1747 bus interface which doesn't have the Type 2 bug, so that's a non-issue for me.

I think you have that backwards. Your CT3900 doesn't suffer from the type 1 hanging note bug, but it is still affected by the type 2 bug, as well as the stuttering bug. Neither of those are earth shattering issues, but they might get annoying if they affect games that you enjoy playing.

AppleSauce wrote on 2023-01-20, 08:19:

My experience would be once you start using more than 2 sound cards it quickly turns into a bit of a conflict nightmare situation , ask me how I know.
So just two is probably the smarter choice.

Tell me more 😄

AppleSauce wrote on 2023-01-20, 08:19:

There's a bit of dilemma when it comes to midi modules though: […]
Show full quote

There's a bit of dilemma when it comes to midi modules though:

Whereas external midi modules are easier to chain up because even though they take up more space , they can be managed with midi thru switchboxes ,
you can easily have a huge stack and as long as you have a switcher with the right amount of inputs you can toggle between them pretty quickly.

The downside is you need multiple power adapters , midi cables , different audio cables and it turns into a bit of rats nest cable wise.

Your situation seems to mostly deal with wavetable cards which saves dealing with wires and space but can be a bit less flexible with running multiple things at once.

Exactly, two external modules and that's it. I don't even need to chain them as the DB15MIDI has to outputs. Would probably result in less latency too, although I don't think it matters. I don't care about running multiple things at once; it's just about having everything set up so I can switch between them with batch files and/or pushing a few buttons on the Yamaha mixer.

AppleSauce wrote on 2023-01-20, 08:19:

However there is a project on vogons though where someone converted a hard drive changer bay to hold a breakout board that you could connect your wavetable boards to. That way you could simply swap out the bay with another wavetable card as you felt the need.

I like your thinking: we already have way too much gear, so let's get even more gear to make it all work somehow together! 😂 Frankly, this would be the last resort for me; if I can make it all work without buying extra stuff then that's what I'll do. I kinda like it that those waveblaster headers will be put to good use as well.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-01-20, 08:22:

BTW, for that method to work, it might be necessary to select "Adlib" instead of "Sound Blaster" for music in the game's setup.

Nice tip, this is exactly the type of advice I was looking for!

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-01-20, 08:22:

I think you have that backwards. Your CT3900 doesn't suffer from the type 1 hanging note bug, but it is still affected by the type 2 bug, as well as the stuttering bug.

You're right, I misread it, indeed... However, this sentence at the top is interesting:

The bug only occurs when affected cards are utilized for digital sound effects and MIDI music simultaneously, but it happens on any MIDI device regardless if connected to the internal Wave Blaster connector or externally through the game port.

So looks like if I can get the ESS to play the digi sounds, and the AWE the MIDI music on port 300, then I'm getting 100% bug-free MIDI playback!

Having said that, using MIDI on the AWE is always going to be "plan B" for me, meaning my primary MIDI devices will be driven by the ESS (SC-55, MP32L & QWave), and the rest (that I would use much less frequently) by the AWE (McFly, DreamBlaster S2). If I really want, I can also just detach the DB15MIDI from the ESS and swap it out for the Chil and Phill with the S2, so that only leaves the McFly "hardwired" to the internal waveblaster header of the AWE.

Rincewind42 wrote on 2023-01-20, 11:15:

So looks like if I can get the ESS to play the digi sounds, and the AWE the MIDI music on port 300, then I'm getting 100% bug-free MIDI playback!

Indeed, and the same goes for the stuttering bug as well. As long as you don't use the AWE32 for both digital sounds and MPU-401 duties at the same time, you're good to go. Also, none of those issues affect the card's on-board AWE synth, so that's always safe to use.

With regards to the 1868F, be advised that some Sierra games like Gabriel Knight erroneously mute certain inputs on ESS cards, which can sometimes prevent MIDI music playback. In your particular case, this might only affect the wavetable header on that card, since you don't use its Line In and rely on an external mixer instead. More info here.

The OPL3 AWE32 makes the ESS card completely redundant in this setup.

The only reason for using two sound cards in this case is for getting around the MPU-401 stuttering issues (Type 2 hanging note bug isn't much of a big deal IMO) that the AWE32 has while at the same time, getting better 16-bit mixing support in DOS programs where there is no "native" support for ESS sound card. I do also have that kind of "redundant" setup for that reason.

BTW, "Semi-PnP" is a made-up term. The AWE32 CT3900 is just a sound card that is capable of configuring the rest of the resources thru the SB I/O address without using the PnP BIOS routines at all.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-01-20, 11:54:

The OPL3 AWE32 makes the ESS card completely redundant in this setup.

Recently, I've come to appreciate the SBPro-like low pass filter of ESS cards (and others which implement it) for older games. In those titles, the end result sounds a bit nicer than with the filter which SB16 and AWE cards use.

James-F has a demonstration of the differences here. That said, for me, this is even more pronounced in some early 90s adventure games, where digitized speech was recorded at a fairly low bit rate e.g. King's Quest VI.

Rincewind42 wrote on 2023-01-20, 11:15:

Tell me more :smile: […]
Show full quote

AppleSauce wrote on 2023-01-20, 08:19:

My experience would be once you start using more than 2 sound cards it quickly turns into a bit of a conflict nightmare situation , ask me how I know.
So just two is probably the smarter choice.

Tell me more 😄

AppleSauce wrote on 2023-01-20, 08:19:

There's a bit of dilemma when it comes to midi modules though: […]
Show full quote

There's a bit of dilemma when it comes to midi modules though:

Whereas external midi modules are easier to chain up because even though they take up more space , they can be managed with midi thru switchboxes ,
you can easily have a huge stack and as long as you have a switcher with the right amount of inputs you can toggle between them pretty quickly.

The downside is you need multiple power adapters , midi cables , different audio cables and it turns into a bit of rats nest cable wise.

Your situation seems to mostly deal with wavetable cards which saves dealing with wires and space but can be a bit less flexible with running multiple things at once.

Exactly, two external modules and that's it. I don't even need to chain them as the DB15MIDI has to outputs. Would probably result in less latency too, although I don't think it matters. I don't care about running multiple things at once; it's just about having everything set up so I can switch between them with batch files and/or pushing a few buttons on the Yamaha mixer.

AppleSauce wrote on 2023-01-20, 08:19:

However there is a project on vogons though where someone converted a hard drive changer bay to hold a breakout board that you could connect your wavetable boards to. That way you could simply swap out the bay with another wavetable card as you felt the need.

I like your thinking: we already have way too much gear, so let's get even more gear to make it all work somehow together! 😂 Frankly, this would be the last resort for me; if I can make it all work without buying extra stuff then that's what I'll do. I kinda like it that those waveblaster headers will be put to good use as well.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-01-20, 08:22:

BTW, for that method to work, it might be necessary to select "Adlib" instead of "Sound Blaster" for music in the game's setup.

Nice tip, this is exactly the type of advice I was looking for!

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-01-20, 08:22:

I think you have that backwards. Your CT3900 doesn't suffer from the type 1 hanging note bug, but it is still affected by the type 2 bug, as well as the stuttering bug.

You're right, I misread it, indeed... However, this sentence at the top is interesting:

The bug only occurs when affected cards are utilized for digital sound effects and MIDI music simultaneously, but it happens on any MIDI device regardless if connected to the internal Wave Blaster connector or externally through the game port.

So looks like if I can get the ESS to play the digi sounds, and the AWE the MIDI music on port 300, then I'm getting 100% bug-free MIDI playback!

Having said that, using MIDI on the AWE is always going to be "plan B" for me, meaning my primary MIDI devices will be driven by the ESS (SC-55, MP32L & QWave), and the rest (that I would use much less frequently) by the AWE (McFly, DreamBlaster S2). If I really want, I can also just detach the DB15MIDI from the ESS and swap it out for the Chil and Phill with the S2, so that only leaves the McFly "hardwired" to the internal waveblaster header of the AWE.

Moral of the story is don't do this

or this

or this

if you value your sanity 😆
which it seems you do so that's good.

As for the wavetable thing:
I mean in the case of your setup , it being mostly composed of wavetables addons makes it somewhat of a less of a mess , plus a pull out bay wouldn't be that bad , it would sit flush in the pc case and would add maybe one extra cable for the ability to swap out. Just a suggestion in case you get bored of the modules you have and want a easy way to swap in future without having to remove the sound card every time.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-01-20, 11:39:

Indeed, and the same goes for the stuttering bug as well. As long as you don't use the AWE32 for both digital sounds and MPU-401 duties at the same time, you're good to go. Also, none of those issues affect the card's on-board AWE synth, so that's always safe to use.

Great to hear! Seems like I can take advantage of this very important detail about when exactly the bug manifests.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-01-20, 11:39:

With regards to the 1868F, be advised that some Sierra games like Gabriel Knight erroneously mute certain inputs on ESS cards, which can sometimes prevent MIDI music playback. In your particular case, this might only affect the wavetable header on that card, since you don't use its Line In and rely on an external mixer instead. More info here.

Cheers, being primarily a fan of adventure games and RPGs, that's some really useful info!

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-01-20, 12:37:

appiah4 wrote on 2023-01-20, 11:54:

The OPL3 AWE32 makes the ESS card completely redundant in this setup.

Recently, I've come to appreciate the SBPro-like low pass filter of ESS cards (and others which implement it) for older games. In those titles, the end result sounds a bit nicer than with the filter which SB16 and AWE cards use.

James-F has a demonstration of the differences here. That said, for me, this is even more pronounced in some early 90s adventure games, where digitized speech was recorded at a fairly low bit rate e.g. King's Quest VI.

Indeed, I have learnt a lot from James-F's posts about those filter differences. I consider the brickwall filter of the SB16 and low sample rate content a bad combination. Like you said, that makes speech sampled at 10kHz or lower rates a lot harder to understand. Overtones play a very important role in speech intelligebility, and the dynamic SB16 filter cuts most of the useful content from 3-5kHz upwards on low sample rate speech samples (so from half of the playback sample rate). This is less of a problem with sound effects, but those still sound more muffled than they should be on the SB16.

Also, taking a step back, I was completely happy with my ESS and ESFM. I got the AWE32 for games that specifically make use of the AWE's synth capabilities, so taking advantage of the real OPL3 chip + reverb and the extra waveblaster header + MPU is just something extra on top of that. But if I had to choose between the two cards, honestly I'd pick the ESS.

AppleSauce wrote on 2023-01-20, 13:10:

if you value your sanity :laughing: which it seems you do so that's good. […]
Show full quote

if you value your sanity 😆
which it seems you do so that's good.

As for the wavetable thing:
I mean in the case of your setup , it being mostly composed of wavetables addons makes it somewhat of a less of a mess , plus a pull out bay wouldn't be that bad , it would sit flush in the pc case and would add maybe one extra cable for the ability to swap out. Just a suggestion in case you get bored of the modules you have and want a easy way to swap in future without having to remove the sound card every time.

Well, with three very active cats every cabling needs to be tidy, and no electronics can be left exposed like that. So that settles it for me 😄

That wavetable breakout box is certainly a good idea, I'll keep it mind for the future, thanks!

If I could be bothered to take pics, I'd give you more 'don't try this at home kids' 😜

My setup is based on two considerations, very similar to AppleSauce's:
1) even if it might theoretically be possible to run all games on one system, I choose not to, not least because of the massive headaches multi-card setups give.
2) that said, I want all my MIDI available to all.

So, what have I done:

A: Computers

I: 'UMC system' with UMC VGA, I/O, motherboard chipset and CPU (U5S-33, slightly faster than an i486SX-33 - and a (de)Turbo button for the old XT stuff)
- Snark Barker SB1.0 replica with CMS
- SSI-2001 replica
- Roland MPU-401AT intelligent mode MIDI interface
I used to have an Aztech Sound 16 Basic in here too, for SBPro, WSS and Covox/DSS support, but it wasn't giving me sound in Ultima 7 so replaced it with the Snark Barker and intended to do Covox via a self-designed PCB, but that needs some urgent debugging (short circuits...) which I haven't gotten round to. Also this system needs an OPL3, but that should be sorted later this week.

II: 'Late DOS' with P3-500, i440BX board with 3 ISA slots, Diamond Viper V550 TNT VGA
- Aztech AZT2320-based 4th gen SBPro2, OPL3, WSS + bug-free MPU-401 UART
- Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold with SB16, AWE and CQM if I really want it.
- GUS Classic for... GUS stuff.

III: 'Packard Bell inside joke' with P3-1400S, i440BX motherboard with onboard Voodoo3-2000 running Win2k
- Turtle Beach Montego II (A3D 2)

IV: 'Windows 98SE' - a bit in flux since my P6S5AT died on me. Currently using a Compaq i815-board with Celeron 1400, GeForce3Ti200, Voodoo2 and Matrox PCX2
- playing around with PCI audio here, target is a Guillemot Maxi Studio Isis but currently I have a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz in here.

I have more systems, but none have a fixed role. Yet...

B: MIDI

I: Roland MT-32
II: Roland SC-55ST
III: Yamaha MU50
IV: Chill and Phil with Korg wavetable module
V: Chill and Phil with Serda E-Wave
VI: my SO's Roland FP-7 electric piano (great quality, if you like everything sounding like piano 😉 )

C: connectivity
I: Roland A-880 8x8 MIDI patchbay (like the MPU-104 and 105 doubled in size and stuck in same box)
II: 2x Behringer RX1602 audio mixer
III: 8-port KVM switch

Now, just imagine the mess of cables behind my desk. To make matters more fun: my elder son is about to go to secondary school, and really wants a room of his own (has been sharing with little brother since birth) so I need to vacate the spare room. That means this entire monstrosity needs disconnecting, moving upstairs and reconnecting over the next couple of months...

AppleSauce wrote on 2023-01-20, 08:19:

My experience would be once you start using more than 2 sound cards it quickly turns into a bit of a conflict nightmare situation , ask me how I know.

Challenge accepted. 😁

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-01-23, 20:08:

AppleSauce wrote on 2023-01-20, 08:19:

My experience would be once you start using more than 2 sound cards it quickly turns into a bit of a conflict nightmare situation , ask me how I know.

Challenge accepted. 😁

I had this at one point but its scaled it back a bit now hahahaha

You guys make me drool with those setup descriptions and photos! 😀

Update: I just bought a Yamaha MU80, so that necessitated buying a proper MIDI splitter because the DB15MIDI's 2 out ports won't be enough (I need 3). After much research I ended up getting a Kenton Thru-5 that is powered and has proper opto-isolators (unlike these hacky "self-powered" splitters that are surprisingly common; I just don't trust them as they have galvanic connection between your gear).
https://kentonuk.com/product/thru-5/

The Yamaha is great, I really like it! I'm still waiting for my custom desk, should be done in the next 2 weeks or so, then I can set up all my gear in my second "retro" computer room. I'll post pictures once everything is cabled up & ready!

I'll stop at the AWE32 + ESS combo, btw. Managed to get things running nicely with these two, you can even disable port 388 on the ESS with UNISOUND, then do things like combinig the SB Pro digi sound on the ESS with the proper SB Pro'esque lowpass filter and real OPL3 on the AWE with EMU8K reverb! Oh yeah!

(But... I still have 2 free ISA slots, so if I could find a GUS for a good price... 😜 Old foolish me threw my old GUS MAX away about 15 years ago... didn't give a crap about retro gear back then, oh well...)

I used to have a awe64 value with a ess688 non pnp card (Sound Leader Pro 16E). The ess688 is a very good sb pro 2.0 clone with an original opl3 but no mpu 401 interface. The awe64 lacks the midi hanging note and is a very decent sounding card. I think the whole trick is not to use 2 pnp cards together.

This evening I decided to try out a DOS combination of an AWE64 Gold, Gravis Ultrasound Extreme, and Roland MPU-401 AT.

I figure this might be the best possible DOS sound card combination, featuring SB AWE32 / SB16 compatibility via the AWE64, GUS Classic and SB Pro compatibility via the GUS Extreme, and native MPU-401 intelligent mode MIDI support via the Roland card.

While it does lack a real OPL chip, I find the ESS1688 on the GUS Extreme is a good emulation.

And each card has super clean audio output with little to no excess noise.

I've been testing this combination and after trying a couple dozen games, everything has worked thus far.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-08, 02:22:

This evening I decided to try out a DOS combination of an AWE64 Gold, Gravis Ultrasound Extreme, and Roland MPU-401 AT. […]
Show full quote

This evening I decided to try out a DOS combination of an AWE64 Gold, Gravis Ultrasound Extreme, and Roland MPU-401 AT.

I figure this might be the best possible DOS sound card combination, featuring SB AWE32 / SB16 compatibility via the AWE64, GUS Classic and SB Pro compatibility via the GUS Extreme, and native MPU-401 intelligent mode MIDI support via the Roland card.

While it does lack a real OPL chip, I find the ESS1688 on the GUS Extreme is a good emulation.

And each card has super clean audio output with little to no excess noise.

I've been testing this combination and after trying a couple dozen games, everything has worked thus far.

Heh, that's pretty close to ideal - but given the prices of a GUS Extreme, it's beyond the range of mere mortals. I'd also argue that the MPU-401AT is rather wasted on a system with these cards - if you're running games that need intelligent mode, you'd want basic AdLib, SB 1.0 and maybe CMS and Covox as alternatives, not GUS and AWE.

That's why I went for a card with real OPL3 and bug-free UART MPU-401, saving my MPU-401AT for a system more suited to the period of intelligent-mode games.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-08, 02:22:

This evening I decided to try out a DOS combination of an AWE64 Gold, Gravis Ultrasound Extreme, and Roland MPU-401 AT. […]
Show full quote

This evening I decided to try out a DOS combination of an AWE64 Gold, Gravis Ultrasound Extreme, and Roland MPU-401 AT.

I figure this might be the best possible DOS sound card combination, featuring SB AWE32 / SB16 compatibility via the AWE64, GUS Classic and SB Pro compatibility via the GUS Extreme, and native MPU-401 intelligent mode MIDI support via the Roland card.

While it does lack a real OPL chip, I find the ESS1688 on the GUS Extreme is a good emulation.

And each card has super clean audio output with little to no excess noise.

I've been testing this combination and after trying a couple dozen games, everything has worked thus far.

I've got a similar setup with a Gravis Ultrasound (Primax Soundstorm M16C) ,
AWE64 Gold with the memory expansion and 28 mb of ram ,
MIF IPC card (that connects to an external MPU 401 breakout box).

But I also threw in a CT1740 SB16 with an ASP chip to have OPL3 music ,
and also because it was jumper controlled therefore it was the only way to have Duke Nukem 3D stop screaming at me about the high DMA being unavailable.

I've also got plans for a db25 switcher setup with some LPT cards.

I get some crazy conflicts though , usually I find I have to resort to picking the GUS for the sound effects in certain games because the sb16 locks the pc up.
Or if I pick the gravis for certain other games when using a gamepad the character starts moving by itself so I have to use the sb16 instead.

It would be for me the most ideal setup if it wasn't for the hardware constantly fighting itself.