ah, what about an ESS 1688 (or 688?) isa sound card + the dream midi?
I remember I had an ESS ISA card way back, it had 100& SBPRO compatibillity + it needed no tsr's, just a little init program, like the als100+ ...

ES1688 undoubtedly the easiest to set up. AWE64PnP is going to be a pain cuz it needs TSRs and PnP can mean extra pain if it gets weird ports and IRQs. Turtle Beach was never known for excelling at DOS game compatibility.

I have read that the ESS boards do not really have a mpu401, and they use some drivers for that... would it cause probs with a wavetable daughterboard?

If you have enough ISA slots and interrupts to spare, you could try a combination:

AWE64 (for SB16/AWE) + ESS1688 or ALS1000 (for SB/SBPro/AdLib) + Dream Wavetable board (for General Midi).

keropi wrote:

I have read that the ESS boards do not really have a mpu401, and they use some drivers for that... would it cause probs with a wavetable daughterboard?

The SoundBlaster cards are not really MPU401 compatible either, the wavetable connector on the ESS1688 should be as good as any other.

keropi wrote:

btw, how good is this SBLINK found is some pci cards?

I never heard about SBLINK, is this something like the ominous "ASUS media slot" (slot extension for PCI that carries ISA-IRQ/DMA links)?

How is the Gallard SC-8000 called outside of France?

5u3 wrote:

I never heard about SBLINK, is this something like the ominous "ASUS media slot" (slot extension for PCI that carries ISA-IRQ/DMA links)?

I'm not exactly sure how the SBLINK works. I remember reading about it once, and I recall the distinct impression that I got that the concept sounded like a huge hack.

It's basically some mechanism to help ensure good DOS Sound Blaster compatibility for PCI based sound cards. Don't know the details, though.

5u3 wrote:

The SoundBlaster cards are not really MPU401 compatible either, the wavetable connector on the ESS1688 should be as good as any other.

You know, I've never had problems with SB16's (or later) and their MIDI ports... for games anyway. So long as you have the right joystick to MIDI cable, I don't see a problem.

swaaye wrote:

AWE64PnP is going to be a pain cuz it needs TSRs and PnP can mean extra pain if it gets weird ports and IRQs.

You know, I have to disagree there... but due to experience. I initially thought any PnP ISA SB card was going to be a nightmare. But out of a lack of any non-PnP SB's, I tried them. They are actually really easy. No TSR's, just one set-up line in your autoexec.bat that calls "CTCM" (Creative's DOS PnP initialization tool) and that's it. CTCM initializes the card to whatever IRQ's, etc. you choose and even sets the "BLASTER" environment variables for you.

So, for gaming, keropi, I'd actually recommend the AWE64PnP. That's my two cents.

AFAIK, SBLINK is for carrying isa irq's/dma in pci soundcards that support it... never tried that though...
AWE64 is not very good for dos gaming because is GM emulation is buggy as hell... for games that support it directly it rocks, but for GM is a no-go...
I'll go with a sb16 + db50xg for now...

Yeah it's a special jack on mobos. I have a old Abit BF6 440BX board with the jack on it. It is just for ISA compatibility of the rare PCI AWE64. Maybe other cards, I dunno. This was before Ensoniq got bought by Creative, at which point Creative switched to Ensoniq's DOS ISA emulation driver.

Like keropi says, AWE cards are a pain in the ass in DOS. It is a real trick to get the soundfonts working in DOS games, and the onboard ROM really really sucks bad (you can enjoy listening to it in one of my recordings in the Best Sound Card sticky). The AWEUTIL TSR is pretty big, thus making you go thru some DOS memory tweaking to load big games. Soundfonts simply will not work in DOS games at all if the game uses DOS protected mode. And, Soundfonts have to be loaded in Windows 9x cuz I've never found a DOS loader. And AWEs are usually full of cracks, pops, and static.

The ideal setup is the cleanest SB16-compatible (or real SB16) you can find with a Roland/Yamaha daughtercard. Or a separate Roland card, or a daughtercard on their MPU-401 ISA card.

I think it would be best if you used an AWE32 or AWE64 for the improved sound output and recording quality compared to the 16 and a separate midi device (like an MPU-401/AT) for the SCB-55 wavetable header. That way, you can use the Sound Blaster for FM synthesis or if the game supports the AWE32 Wavetable capabilities and the midi device for midi music.

keropi wrote:

I'll go with a sb16 + db50xg for now...

Wise choice, if you take the CT2980 you mentioned in your other thread. Didn't know you have these available when I wrote the first reply.

Anyways, thanks all for the SBLINK info, I've never heard of this before 😊

well, I have the db60xg (not the 50 one, 🤣) and not the sb16... I'll do some testing with an als100+ pnp card + db60xg... sb16's are 5euro on ebay, but I got so many sound cards the last week, I really don't want another for testing.... man, I have 12 of them here, both isa / pci...

also I believe sb16 compatibility is not a very big deal, if you can get PROPER sbpro compatibillity... 16's only offer 44khz instead of 22050... I don't think I'll miss it a lot ! 😁

also the yamaha waveforce 192xg pci card has a sblink connector...

sorry for the double post, but hs anyone heared of the DREAM WAVETABLE BOARD? it's in the mail, don't actually have it here...

here is a nice pic of it:

http://images.auctionworks.com/hi/67/67032/ram24.jpg

The DREAM SAM9407 was used as part of the Maxi Sound 64 Series from Guillemot and Terratec EWS64.

Some Picture can be found here:
http://www.cooling-station.net/index.php?page=museum&id=61

It has:
128 Instruments, 97 Sound Variations, 200 Percussions in 16 Drum Sets in4 MB ROM
64 Voices Polyphony
Multi Timbral on 16 Channels
8 Reverb, 8 Chorus types
4 channel Equalizer, Surround Sound
GM/GS compatible

Digital:
16Bit 44.1 kHz full duplex
Up to 8 Wave-Files are played simultaneously, while additional one more is recorded, with realtime effects on each wave channel
Dynamic Noisefilter

Effects:
4 Band Equalizer and Surround as Aftereffects on Midi, Wave, CD, Line-In, Micro
Reverb, Chorus, Delay, Flanger are per Wave or Midi Track, also Pitch on Wave Track useable.
Echo and Reverb can be used in realtime on the inputs.

I guess on the Wavetable Card is only the 4 MB ROM part and the Firmware.
As I own a Guillemot Maxi Sound 64 Home Studio Card, I can say that the Midi quality is indeed very good. Though most games were made for Roland MT32 or AWE, so despite of the high quality it sound sometimes not perfect cause of the different soundfont used.

So this small Wavetable add on seems to be small but USE IT 😎

(There is also some Document around with the additional Midi Commands to program the other DSP features and some Firmware API Calls)

Diamond Monster Sound MX200 had a slick Dream DB. Always wanted to get one of those but they are impossible to find.

http://www.yjfy.com/Museum/sound/DIAMOND.htm#MX200

In my opinion, there are only two sound card daughterboards you will ever need for any DOS or Windows game, the Roland SCB-55 and the Yamaha DB50XG. Both are tough to find, but well worth the time and expense of tracking them down. Accept no substitutes and you will never feel that you could get better audio out of the game. These are the ways General Midi was meant to be heard.

As for a Sound Blaster card, undoubtedly the most important Sound Blaster is the Sound Blaster Pro 1.0 with dual OPL2 chips. Some games program them in stereo in a way incompatible with the later Sound Blasters with the OPL3 chip.

Now, as far as using a daughterboard, you really shouldn't use a Sound Blaster AWE32/32/AWE64 because it requires you to load AWEUTIL in order to use the midi features in a game, unless the game supports the non-standard midi operation of these cards. AWEUTIL doesn't work with DOS Extenders at all, which many games use. If you really want to use a daughterboard, stick with a Sound Blaster 16 or use a midi card like Roland's MPU-401AT.

What about older Sound Blasters? Anything before the Pro isn't worth bothering about in my opinion, as the Pro totally encompasses their functionality. While the oldest Sound Blasters may have Game Blaster chips, the on-board Adlib functionality can confuse many games that autodetect sound cards and leave the user unable to select Game Blaster music. If you want Game Blaster music, find a Game Blaster.