Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-02-24, 14:13:

Interesting. I heard that some of these cards support 4 speaker surround, but my particular one doesn't seem to do that. At least there is no mention of that feature anywhere in the documentation.

Out of curiosity, did your card have a dedicated jack for the rear speakers? Or did they plug into one of the existing ports, which was then re-configured by the drivers?

Yes the "Aux In" is also the "Rear Speaker Out". You need to select Quadraphonic Speakers in the Windows Sound options (same panel to select the Hardware Acceleration and SRC). It will only work in DS3D games which specifically have Quad speaker support built in.

CT4750 with 4 Speaker + SPDIF

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-02-15, 10:33:

Speaking of which, General MIDI works by using ECW sets for the softsynth, which is Ensoniq's proprietary format. The driver CD contains three sets in total: 2MB, 4MB and 8MB with the last one arguably providing the best quality. You can switch between these sets from the driver panel at any time. Apparently, the 8MB ECW set also supports GS sounds + 10 drum kits. This card doesn't support soundfont loading (.SBK and .SF2 files) only the aforementioned ECW sets. The driver panel also allows you to use an external MIDI device instead of the softsynth, but unfortunately, this only works for native Windows applications (e.g. Windows Media Player). DOS games will always use the softsynth, regardless of what you select in the driver options.

Why would one actually use the 2MB or 4MB sets when the 8MB is available? Is it a question of RAM used or am I missing something?
And in true Creative fashion, I have a CT4810 which doesn't have the same PCB, basically with a big transistor and a heatspreader on it.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2024-04-19, 13:59:

Why would one actually use the 2MB or 4MB sets when the 8MB is available? Is it a question of RAM used or am I missing something?

Apparently, the 8MB set has some issues with MT-32 emulation.

And yeah, in the old days when many PCs had 32MB RAM total, some people would have used a smaller ECW set.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2024-04-19, 13:59:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-02-15, 10:33:

Speaking of which, General MIDI works by using ECW sets for the softsynth, which is Ensoniq's proprietary format. The driver CD contains three sets in total: 2MB, 4MB and 8MB with the last one arguably providing the best quality. You can switch between these sets from the driver panel at any time. Apparently, the 8MB ECW set also supports GS sounds + 10 drum kits. This card doesn't support soundfont loading (.SBK and .SF2 files) only the aforementioned ECW sets. The driver panel also allows you to use an external MIDI device instead of the softsynth, but unfortunately, this only works for native Windows applications (e.g. Windows Media Player). DOS games will always use the softsynth, regardless of what you select in the driver options.

Why would one actually use the 2MB or 4MB sets when the 8MB is available? Is it a question of RAM used or am I missing something?
And in true Creative fashion, I have a CT4810 which doesn't have the same PCB, basically with a big transistor and a heatspreader on it.

This is a matter of taste, ultimately, but I think the 4MB CT sample is the best of the bunch. The 8MB one just sounds wrong to me in many ways.