Adlib and CMS came in 1987, SB in 1989.
In that era, there were already 386 PCs.

Safe bet there's no games with sound card support that require 4.77 MHz.
And if there's any exception, it must be some utter bugware.

On the other hand, there's plenty of games using sound cards that are playable on a V20 @ 12 MHz.
It may be a bit slow in VGA mode, but fine in CGA mode.

Not sure about 4.77, but certainly at 12mhz you are in to the realm of 286 era games, and there are plenty of those that will benefit from a soundblaster.

Thanks for the confirmation. Yeah the machine is quite a horsepower for an XT clone. It has a native 8-bit VGA card (first time I see one) CirrusLogic CL-GD510A/GD520A, a JUKO ST BIOS, a 40MB MFM Miniscribe HDD that sounds like an airplane, a 720KB 3.5" drive and 360KB 5.25" drive. It came with Windows 1.0 installed.

My main use of this machine is games that require 4.7Mhz as I was never able to downclock to that on any of my other "more modern" PCs, so many of those games always ran too fast (e.g Might & Magic, Sinbad, Bad Dudes).. several of them are booters so I can't run slowdown software before them.

So to that extent, I kept the HDD off to save myself from its loud operating sound, and refitted the machine with two identical 360K drives, as all my XT-class games are primarily on 360K floppies, and could use two drives to reduce swapping. But I'd take disk swapping any day over the noises of that MFM HDD. I know many people find it nice, but it is really too loud for my taste.

Hi there, I can't think of any speed-sensitive games right now that might need a 4,77 MHz and do support Sound Blaster.

That being said, I'm no XT expert, either. 🤷‍♂️
- And Sound Blasters do support CMS and AdLib, too, which both was used in CGA/EGA days .

I can think of several games that are playable on an XT with a Sound Blaster, also.
In essence, anything using VGA/MCGA graphics.

Things like text-adventures w/ graphics (say, Magnetic Scrolls or Legend Entertainment), platformers, simulation games (SimCity type of games), etc.

Some of them may run too fast on anything beyond 386/486 level, so the Turbo XT might have an advantage here.

If an V20 is installed, some Japanese visual novels may run, too.

Like DOS/V ports of Seasons of the Sakura, Three Sister's Story etc.
Those games were originally being played on a PC-98xx system.

Playing them on an 80s era Turbo XT certainly has some coolness factor.

Action RPGs like Cobra Mission, Mad Paradox or Knights of Xentar may also run on an Turbo XT, still.

Anyway, it just came to mind because I find text/graphics adventures interesting and they're all close to that.

Tip: An old CRT portable TV (colour, up to 15") can be used as a substitute for a proper CRT VGA monitor, for example (see my MCGA LCD vs CRT thread).

The worse the tube, the better. A big dot pitch has a better filtering effect.
For comparison, the famous Commodore 1084S monitor uses a big 0.42mm pitch, which looks great on C64 era low-resolution games.

Converter or custom VGA cable?
A cheap VGA to Composite converter often is okay, already.
Just be sure it does support 60 Hz, because that's what VGA uses for displaying 640x480.

If you're in PAL land, a SCART input is recommended. So you can use 60 Hz, even if the TV doesn't support PAL60/NTSC60.

Edit:

So to that extent, I kept the HDD off to save myself from its loud operating sound, and refitted the machine with two identical […]
Show full quote

So to that extent, I kept the HDD off to save myself from its loud operating sound,
and refitted the machine with two identical 360K drives, as all my XT-class games are primarily on 360K floppies,
and could use two drives to reduce swapping. But I'd take disk swapping any day over the noises of that MFM HDD.
I know many people find it nice, but it is really too loud for my taste.

That's kind of ironic, though, because what set the IBM XT apart from the IBM PC was Fixed-Disk Drive support. 😁

Personally, I wouldn't want to play disk jokey
all the time.
It's not the most professional way of doing things, also.

Even the Amiga and Macintosh users of the 80s had a RAM drive at hand, at least.

Multi floppy configurations were popular, too, so that game diskettes could be left inserted.
The games then would check all the drives in the system for the right disk.

Anyway, that's just me. If you don't like to use an XTIDE card, you can use a DOC on a card, too.

https://www.smbaker.com/8-bit-isa-diskonchip-rtc-board

These were the predecessors to our SSDs, so to say. With a V20, thr DOCs shpuld be compatible without an 8086 firmware reflash.

Quick update. Did do some experiments here.. Games like Rusty or Cobra Mission did execute on an emulated IBM XT 286 @ 6 MHz with VGA+SB2.

However, 640 KB of RAM was a little bit to low, I suppose.
CM was playable with SFX+music, Rusty played the intro animation w/ AdLib music then the screen remained black.

Having an UMB and EMS card installed would make things more practical, I suppose?
Mouse drivers and disk cache could have a benefit from extra memory.

I'll now try other games, such as Wonderland and Gateway..

PS: A Tandy 3-Voice "soundcard" might be an acceptable alternative to a Sound Blaster, maybe.
Many 80s era games supported it, even if EGA or VGA graphics was being used.

Zeliard comes to mind.. It can even combine PC Speaker and 3-Voice for SFX/music.
It also supports ordinary AdLib, of course.

Another game that might be interesting is Space Quest 3, I believe. It has gotten a Sound Blaster patch a few years ago.

Edit: https://www.spacequest.net/sq3/patches/

Jo22 wrote on 2023-11-29, 22:47:

So to that extent, I kept the HDD off to save myself from its loud operating sound, and refitted the machine with two identical […]
Show full quote

So to that extent, I kept the HDD off to save myself from its loud operating sound,
and refitted the machine with two identical 360K drives, as all my XT-class games are primarily on 360K floppies,
and could use two drives to reduce swapping. But I'd take disk swapping any day over the noises of that MFM HDD.
I know many people find it nice, but it is really too loud for my taste.

That's kind of ironic, though, because what set the IBM XT apart from the IBM PC was Fixed-Disk Drive support. 😁

That's indeed one major difference, possible the most important difference between the PC and the XT, but the option to install more than 5 cards can also be interesting without having an HDD. If the model numbers approximately indicate the order of market availability, the 5160 XT and the 5161 expansion unit that converted the 5150 into a 11-slot machine (and space & power for hard drives) were available around the same time, so you could "XTize" your IBM 5150 PC without buying an entirely new computer.

The noise of the MFM drive is likely louder and more annoying today than it was in the 1980s, because many hard drives get louder when the spindle bearing wear out. This can be part of the explanation why people dislike these MFM drives today even when their noise was considered acceptable when the drive was new. Another reason to dislike MFM drives today is that these drives are way past their "expiration date" and may fail at any time.

mkarcher wrote on 2024-01-27, 10:00:

That's indeed one major difference, possible the most important difference between the PC and the XT, but the option to install more than 5 cards can also be interesting without having an HDD. If the model numbers approximately indicate the order of market availability, the 5160 XT and the 5161 expansion unit that converted the 5150 into a 11-slot machine (and space & power for hard drives) were available around the same time, so you could "XTize" your IBM 5150 PC without buying an entirely new computer.

That's a good point, I think, the difference with the slots.
I vaguely remember reading that the spacing was wider with the 5150 and that the slot brackets, too.

I wonder, if it would be possible to transplant the XT BIOS to the PC.
Or if a generic XT BIOS could be installed in an IBM PC.
Because, hardware wise, the original model was quite interesting.

The Cassette port, for example. It could be used for other things, like reading RTTY signals or something.
The sound output is essentially the PC speaker, but the corresponding input isn't available anymore on XT and up.

Speaking under correction, though. The XT era was a bit before me, PC-DOS 3.3+Windows 2.03 were the oldest "technologies" I had worked with when I had my 286.
I'm fascinated by Hercules Monochrome and Tandy 3-Voice, though! ^^

mkarcher wrote on 2024-01-27, 10:00:

The noise of the MFM drive is likely louder and more annoying today than it was in the 1980s, because many hard drives get louder when the spindle bearing wear out. This can be part of the explanation why people dislike these MFM drives today even when their noise was considered acceptable when the drive was new. Another reason to dislike MFM drives today is that these drives are way past their "expiration date" and may fail at any time.

Another good point, wear.

Reminds me of the console fans, by the way.
More than often, both old and new gamepads are being compared:

Many players find modern third-party clone gamepads to be "too stiff" when compared to the old originals.

One factor that's being forgotten is that the old original pads had been weared out to some degree in all these years of use.
They may still be of better quality than cheap clones of today, but they were also more stiff when new.

Speaking of MFM drives, what me worries the most is the head-parking.
Merely few users, like you, are aware of the need to PARK an old fixed-disk in a specific situation (like for transport).

Sellers on eBay likely do not. They give power to the HDD for testing purposes, which depending on the electronics, moves the head out of parking position.
- I admit I'm not entirely sure about the details here. It might be necessary that the controller board is involved in moving the heads/actuator, not sure.