PowerPie5000 wrote on 2024-05-31, 20:18:

* Unknown brand ISA card with CMI8330 chip (Audio Host VX?)

* Unknown brand PCI based ESS Solo-1 card (version without SB-Link connector unfortunately).

I'm leaning towards the CMI8330 as I've heard it has pretty decent OPL3 and Sound Blaster 16 support. Does anyone have experience with these chipsets and what would you recommend?

I do have an old CMI8330 card too. I have tested it in comparison to various other cards. While technically, it would be that card to do it all, the actual sound from my card just doesn't cut it.

I have used the ESS Solo-1 card in the past, in fact, I have it as onboard chip on some mainboards. I found it to be the best approximation of a SBpro in PCI. But I haven't tried all other options.

In your case, just take some of your favorite old games, and do listening comparisons. Things soon get much easier to decide that way.

Experience with all the chips and most of the cards.

Step back first: what do you want to achieve?

For DOS you probably want authentic OPL3 sound, Sound Blaster Pro 2 and nice-to-have Sound Blaster 16 support - plus bug-free MPU-401. The CMI8330 offers all of those, with a 1:1 OPL3 clone, SBPro2 and SB16 support and bug-free MPU-401 (a featureset only equalled by ALS100 (non-plus) with external OPL3 clone). Of course you probably also want low noise - no idea if this card offers that.

For Windows 98 you want WSS as minimum baseline (all cards offer that) and on top of that positional audio (A3D and/or EAX). None do the latter. So out of this list, if the CMI8330 card is decent in terms of SNR, it's the obvious one-card choice and the other two don't really add anything. But a Sound Blaster Live or something with Aureal Vortex A3D would. That said, this is a P2-400. It can easily run Win98 (hell, it can run WinXP with enough RAM), but the sort of games that use positional audio would not run well on it. Half Life is about the most advanced that would work acceptably and it - sort of - has positional audio support. So you could add one of those cards, just don't expect it to add a lot in most things that would run on this. So the CMI8330 on its own still looks good. For later Win98 stuff, go for a >1GHz system and definitely equip that with a sound solution that supports positional audio.

dionb wrote on 2024-05-31, 23:32:

For Windows 98 you want WSS as minimum baseline (all cards offer that) and on top of that positional audio (A3D and/or EAX). None do the latter.

Some later revisions of the CMI8330 chip can support A3D. My motherboard has an integrated version called SoundPro 1869V+ HRTF 3D and it does offer basic A3D 1.0 functionality.

However, I agree that a dedicated Win9x sound card would be a better choice overall. Preferably something with hardware acceleration to take the load off the CPU. A Sound Blaster Live! would be a cheap and readily available solution. Pair it with the CMI8330 for DOS gaming and you're all set.

Aopen AW200 - 850 cards support DirectSound and have SoundBlaster emulation. PCI 2.1/2.2. Search "Aopen aw" on eBay.

Actual SoundBlaster cards tend to have the best sound. Don't know how you tell, maybe the most capacitors they have the better they sound...

MikeSG wrote on 2024-06-01, 06:00:

Actual SoundBlaster cards tend to have the best sound. Don't know how you tell, maybe the most capacitors they have the better they sound...

I have just excluded all my SoundBlaster16/32 opl3 cards from my build selection for DOS. They all gave the DMA clicking bug. If you want to play games like Wing Commander Privateer, you wouldn't want that. It sounds really unpleasant.
You would probably want something else for those older games.

Definitely the ISA card with CMI8330 especially if it has the wavetable header.
As far as audio quality, this completely depends on the manufacture.
And if it does suffer in quality, it can be corrected via replacing caps.
I think there is another thread on this.

Matchstick wrote on 2024-06-01, 07:04:

Definitely the ISA card with CMI8330 especially if it has the wavetable header.
As far as audio quality, this completely depends on the manufacture.
And if it does suffer in quality, it can be corrected via replacing caps.

Are you sure that recapping will improve the LINE-OUT sound (no amp on)?

ux-3 wrote on 2024-06-01, 06:28:

[...]

I have just excluded all my SoundBlaster16/32 opl3 cards from my build selection for DOS. They all gave the DMA clicking bug. If you want to play games like Wing Commander Privateer, you wouldn't want that. It sounds really unpleasant.
You would probably want something else for those older games.

This is why I don't like any "the best..." statements without a ton of qualification.

I suspect what he is referring to is that EAX 2.0 on an SBLive and EAX 3.0 and 4.0 on Audigy(2) sounds better than EAX 1.0 on a card with an ALS4000 lke the AOpen cards he mentions. That is true. It's also true that the SBLive series had some of the highest SNR in their analog output of consumer cards of their generation. So assuming you are looking for a PCI card with EAX support and your motherboard doesn't have a Via 686B southbridge, they are an excellent choice for Windows audio.

That however in no way improves the fact that SB16/32 cards are a bugfest, all having DMA clicking or Vibra hissing and slowdowns in MIDI when playing HQ digital audio, earlier ones having awful self noise and most having hanging note bugs too. Back in the day, with PC speaker as the main alternative, people were very happy despite all the bugs but in retrospect, it does sort of sound like Stockholm Syndrome.

My vote would be for the CMI+SBLive suggestion. Having heard CMI FM recently, it's quite spot on.