VOGONS


First post, by shaq

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Hello everyone. It's been a few years since I posted . After a marriage and 2 kids I'm ready to finish the build I started buying parts for in 2017 (finally). My goal is as close to 100% DOS and Win98 compatibility as I can get and still have the best sound (don't we all?). I have an Abit VH6T with a Tualatin 1.13. So I only have 1 ISA slot but can put a PCI card in also if they can coexist? Here is the list of sound cards I already own from using over the years or buying them for this build:

AWE64 value ISA
Audician 32+ ISA
AWE32 ISA
SB Live! PCI
Xfi Xtrememusic PCI
Audigy 2ZS PCI

Is it possible or desirable to have an ISA and PCI together? I am also putting in an Nvidia card up to maybe a 5600 or 6600GT (I have a bunch of choices here too that i bought) and Voodoo 2 SLI.

Thanks for your advice.

Reply 1 of 12, by Gmlb256

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Hello. It is possible to have both ISA and PCI sound cards together on one computer without resource conflicts.

For the ISA sound card, I would suggest either the Yamaha Audician 32+ or AWE32 (if it has the CT1747 bus chip). For PCI, use the SBLive!

X-Fi XtremeMusic would be wasted on that Tualatin computer and the Audigy 2ZS takes two IRQ because of the FireWire port. The SB16 emulation on both the SBLive! and Audigy 2ZS can be disabled.

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 3 of 12, by shaq

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Robbbert wrote on 2023-05-26, 02:10:

My WIN98SE gaming rig has 3 ISA slots and 2 PCI slots. There's a PCI network card (Intel 82557 - E100B), and a ISA AWE64 soundcard - they both happily coexist and it all works great.

It is the CT3670. Right now I have just the AWE64 in there. It is good to know that PCI and ISA cards can coexist. I'm not sure if the xtrememusic even has Win98 drivers. I also have a P4 XP PC I might use that in. Which apps/games would you use each sound card? Would the Live be better for later Windows games and the AWE for Dos games?

Reply 4 of 12, by Robbbert

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The machine came with an inbuilt sound system, but it's on a shared IRQ (10 or 11, can't remember) and DOS games don't understand that stuff, so I installed the AWE64 and switched all the sounds to that. It uses the traditional IRQ5 and so on, exactly like in DOS. There's even a SET BLASTER command in there somewhere.

I don't know anything about those other soundcards you've listed. I don't see the need for more than one.

Most of my games are DOS-based, while the few Windows games can manage themselves. I do not, and never will, use games that require an internet connection - for any reason.

Reply 5 of 12, by stanwebber

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the awe32 ct3670 is the best choice even with an external midi module. the awe64 value really shouldn't have any advantages over it. there are a few 1-2mb soundfonts you can load under dos with memory installed and windows will allow up to the full 28mb to be used.

the awe32 windows drivers are excellent. i don't see much point installing a pci soundcard unless you can't stand the cqm fm synthesis from the awe32. you could get an awe32 with a yamaha opl3, but then you'd have to deal with all the mpu401 bugs absent in the ct3670/awe64.

my awe64 gold has fallen out of favor. i've gone thru a procession of sbpro clones with onboard wavetable searching for the ultimate package.

Reply 6 of 12, by chinny22

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Very desirable to have both PCI and ISA sound cards, its a very typical setup.
ISA cards are a bit more crackly then PCI plus windows games can support EAX so you'll get better sound then anything on the ISA bus.
DOS on the other hand best bet to stick with ISA, Which ISA card is a dangerous question though as people have strong opinions on this.

AWE32, AWE64 are basically the same thing as far as dos gaming. Only difference is what bugs exist (only relevant if attaching an external MIDI module) and if it uses CQM or true OPL chip.
Audician 32 is a branded YMF718 sound card. True OPL chip and beautiful sounding MIDI.

Both these cards are very highly regarded, really it comes down to personal preference.

PCI Windows side of things is easier.
SB Live! is good but the Audigy 2 ZS is basically a 3rd generation SBLive! so benefits from improvements and the one to pick. It's also the last card with Win98 support.

The Xfi Xtreme has no Win98 drivers but is one of the last to support WinXP, so very good choice if your planning a XP build.

Reply 7 of 12, by dionb

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There's no such thing as "100% DOS compatibility", as there is no such thing as a DOS sound system: games directly addressed the hardware and different periods and indeed different games used different cards; the most compatible (eg old mono Soundblaster cards) will lack a lot of features for newer stuff. There are massive rabbit holes to go down with DOS gaming and sound cards, with people builing multiple builds around multiple cards.

You probably don't want to do that, so it would help if you could narrow down what you mean by "DOS compatibility". What sort of games from what sort of era? With that CPU you're not likely to be playing XT-period games anyway, so probably don't need to worry about extremely early sound hardware.

Another thing to bear in mind is that there are multiple ways in which sound cards generate sounds (digital audio, FM-synthesis, wavetable synthesis through MIDI interface etc.) and that almost all cards contain two or more of these functionalities.

A quick analysis of your cards:
AWE64 value ISA CT3670 - FM synthesis using CQM (unliked by most), least buggy SB16 (only slowdowns when playing MIDI at same time as high quality digital audio), and EMU8k ("AWE") wave synthesis with SIMMs to support big sound fonts
Audician 32+ ISA - real Yamaha chip with OPL3 FM-synth (the original, generally considered best), bug-free MPU-401 MIDI but no SB16 support (only SBPro2 and WSS 16b audio) and no onboard wavetable.
AWE32 ISA - exact features/options depend on which of the many AWE32 cards it is. Unlikely to be superior to CT3670 except perhaps real OPL3 for FM-synth, but in that case more MIDI bugs and in any event single-cycle DMA clicks.

With two ISA slots it would be a no-brainer: use the CT3670 and Audician 32+ together, with SB16 and AWE from the CT3670 and OPL3 and MIDI (as well as SBpro2 and WSS if needed) from the Audician. If you just have one slot, it's tougher, but despite my not exactly liking Creative and the whole hype around their cards, the CT3670 is the more compelling single-card solution. It can do a lot more than the Audician (even if some things might not sound as good - metallic FM synth and MIDI slowdowns when playing high-quality DA sounds in games like Tie Fighter) and it's definitely superior to any AWE32.

That's DOS covered. For Windows, positional audio is the interesting bit. All the Sound Blaster Live/Audigy cards do EAX very nicely. I second the Audigy 2ZS as best of your selection for Win98.

Then interoperability - firstly as DOS doesn't actually have a sound system, so long as it doesn't conflict with ISA resources, if you don't tell a game a card is there, it has no influence whatsoever. So the Audigy2ZS can be in the system and not in any way effect DOS. The other way round, Win98 does have a sound system and can handle multiple cards. You can choose whether to only have the Audigy active, or whether to also use the CT3670. In the latter case you can use the EMU8k ("AWE") for Windows MIDI output. Note however that there are quite a few softsynths available for Windows that actually do an arguably better job at wavetable synth than the EMU8k, so really its added value is CPU offload, as it saves the cycles used for a softsynth. You can have both installed and play around seeing whether you prefer quality (softsynth) or performance (EMU) - and you can even choose differently per game if so desired.

Reply 8 of 12, by shaq

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I did try the CT3670 for a bit but for some reason I was not getting midi or AWE32 to work in Dos games like I was with the AWE64. The jumper is on the midi switch so I don't know what is happening. I went with the Live! for now with the 2ZS drivers and it sounds really nice. I will run the Live! and the Audician, maybe upgrading the Live to the 2ZS at some point. The Audician used for DOS FM games and the Live for Windows. That will get me most everything except for AWE32 support which I do like more than midi in games that support it. To get it all I would have to spring for a CT3980 and run it beside the 2ZS, but I don't want to spend the extra $300-$400 for one. Maybe later on.

Reply 9 of 12, by dionb

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shaq wrote on 2023-05-27, 00:38:

I did try the CT3670 for a bit but for some reason I was not getting midi or AWE32 to work in Dos games like I was with the AWE64. The jumper is on the midi switch so I don't know what is happening.

The CT3670 doesn't have any RAM onboard so you need at least one SIMM to get it to do anything with its EMU8k. Did you install a SIMM?

I went with the Live! for now with the 2ZS drivers and it sounds really nice. I will run the Live! and the Audician, maybe upgrading the Live to the 2ZS at some point. The Audician used for DOS FM games and the Live for Windows. That will get me most everything except for AWE32 support which I do like more than midi in games that support it. To get it all I would have to spring for a CT3980 and run it beside the 2ZS, but I don't want to spend the extra $300-$400 for one. Maybe later on.

Sounds like you're mixing things up. "MIDI" is an interface, which says nothing about how something should sound. "General MIDI" is a standard set of instruments, but again only specifies which instrument should be behind which number. Each synth supporting General MIDI is free to choose how to make each instrument sound, which can vary from amazing to downright awful. If you think you like "MIDI" less, you need to specify which MIDI device you're talking about. If you've only ever heard bad ones, you might be very pleasantly surprised when you hear a good one. Most game music in late DOS era was written on Roland SC-55 devices, so will sound as the creator intended on an SC-55 or something very similar.

AWE is a bit of a Creative-specific side-step but is basically MIDI too. Its default sounds are generally ranked as decent MIDI but nothing special. You can manipulate how it sounds with sound fonts; bigger is frequently better, so that's where extra RAM on the SIMMs come in. Most AWE cards have some RAM onboard (eg. a AWE64 Gold has 4MB), but the CT3670 doesn't. It compensates that by being upgradable to 28MB with 2x 16MB SIMMs, unlike the proprietary modules needed for say the AWE64 Gold.

Reply 10 of 12, by shaq

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I thought that was the problem. I'll order some SIMMS and retry it. I had no lucj at all getting the Live! and Audician to work together. Every time I try to adjust the Audician settings with setupsa I get a WSS I/O error. Is there a specific way to set them up? The Live! works if I completely disable the Audician but I can't enable the Audician in DOS mode even with the Live! not initialized.

Reply 11 of 12, by shaq

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I was looking into the new clone cards and was wondering if it would be better to either get a OPL3 LPT card to use with the AWE64 or get either a waveblaster for the Audician either for the header on the cards or a LPT version. Wouldn't those options get me pretty much everything ? Since I only have 1 ISA slot it seems to make sense to use the LPT port. I think it would be better to use the AWE64 with the OPL3 LPT since that would give me awe,midi and opl3.

Or maybe even better, use the 3670 AWE32 with the full 32mb of RAM and an OPL3 LPT with the Audigy 2 ZS in all these scenarios as well for WIN98 games.

Reply 12 of 12, by FinalJenemba

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shaq wrote on 2023-06-07, 04:52:

I was looking into the new clone cards and was wondering if it would be better to either get a OPL3 LPT card to use with the AWE64 or get either a waveblaster for the Audician either for the header on the cards or a LPT version. Wouldn't those options get me pretty much everything ? Since I only have 1 ISA slot it seems to make sense to use the LPT port. I think it would be better to use the AWE64 with the OPL3 LPT since that would give me awe,midi and opl3.

Or maybe even better, use the 3670 AWE32 with the full 32mb of RAM and an OPL3 LPT with the Audigy 2 ZS in all these scenarios as well for WIN98 games.

Honestly if you dont need any of the newer stuff after what an AWE64 supports like EAX and whatnot, a Radlib/Resound 2 hooked into the line in port of an AWE64 is about the best DOS combination you can get. The resound has just about the best OPL3 sound ive ever heard, and I bet the radlib sounds great too.