For a 486 in the later part of the DOS era - let's say 1992 to 1995 - the majority of titles targeted the Creative Sound Blaster Pro 2.0. With 'MIDI' interface music - the MT-32 of earlier years, or the newer General MIDI - being the other widely used sound flagships of the platform. A system covering all these is ideal.

It has already been noted that the Aztec card is decent (though perhaps not great) on the SB Pro side of things, but cannot serve well as a MIDI interface. Accordingly it would probably be easiest to forego that card in favour of something which can handle all bases well. And the AWE, while a very cool card in its own right, cannot do the SB Pro side well, and has shortcomings in its MIDI interface. It is perhaps better suited for something just slightly later, a Pentium class machine.

For late DOS soundcards fitting the above criteria, there are great options to suit every budget. From the excellent all-rounders like YMF71x and ES186x ISA cards (augmented by SoftMPU for intelligent mode) at under $50, all the way up to ultra-quality modern options like those made by the PCMIDI team.

Shreddoc wrote on 2024-09-13, 00:40:

For a 486 in the later part of the DOS era - let's say 1992 to 1995 - the majority of titles targeted the Creative Sound Blaster Pro 2.0. With 'MIDI' interface music - the MT-32 of earlier years, or the newer General MIDI - being the other widely used sound flagships of the platform. A system covering all these is ideal.

It has already been noted that the Aztec card is decent (though perhaps not great) on the SB Pro side of things, but cannot serve well as a MIDI interface. Accordingly it would probably be easiest to forego that card in favour of something which can handle all bases well. And the AWE, while a very cool card in its own right, cannot do the SB Pro side well, and has shortcomings in its MIDI interface. It is perhaps better suited for something just slightly later, a Pentium class machine.

For late DOS soundcards fitting the above criteria, there are great options to suit every budget. From the excellent all-rounders like YMF71x and ES186x ISA cards (augmented by SoftMPU for intelligent mode) at under $50, all the way up to ultra-quality modern options like those made by the PCMIDI team.

Well I can certainly stick the AWE32 in my Pentium 200 MMX machine then.

I'm not familiar with the YMF71x or ES186x ISA cards. What are the 'street name' of those or rather, what should I be searching for on ebay. As long as they have an MT-32 interface it will work for my needs.

Tempest wrote on 2024-09-13, 01:32:

Shreddoc wrote on 2024-09-13, 00:40:

For a 486 in the later part of the DOS era - let's say 1992 to 1995 - the majority of titles targeted the Creative Sound Blaster Pro 2.0. With 'MIDI' interface music - the MT-32 of earlier years, or the newer General MIDI - being the other widely used sound flagships of the platform. A system covering all these is ideal.

It has already been noted that the Aztec card is decent (though perhaps not great) on the SB Pro side of things, but cannot serve well as a MIDI interface. Accordingly it would probably be easiest to forego that card in favour of something which can handle all bases well. And the AWE, while a very cool card in its own right, cannot do the SB Pro side well, and has shortcomings in its MIDI interface. It is perhaps better suited for something just slightly later, a Pentium class machine.

For late DOS soundcards fitting the above criteria, there are great options to suit every budget. From the excellent all-rounders like YMF71x and ES186x ISA cards (augmented by SoftMPU for intelligent mode) at under $50, all the way up to ultra-quality modern options like those made by the PCMIDI team.

Well I can certainly stick the AWE32 in my Pentium 200 MMX machine then.

I'm not familiar with the YMF71x or ES186x ISA cards. What are the 'street name' of those or rather, what should I be searching for on ebay. As long as they have an MT-32 interface it will work for my needs.

These are some examples:

https://dosdays.co.uk/topics/retro_review_aud … 32_plus_pt1.php
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ess-audiodrive-es1868.html
MK1869 and MK1869 XTREME : new soundcards with ESS1869 and ES690 or Interwave chips

These cards typically offer a UART mode hardware MIDI interface which, when combined with free software called SoftMPU, will work very well with an MT-32.

If you did not wish to use SoftMPU, e.g. wanted full hardware compatibility for your MT-32 without need for any driver, then you would instead require a card offering a Normal mode (a.k.a. Intelligent mode) hardware MIDI interface.

Tempest wrote on 2024-09-13, 01:32:

Well I can certainly stick the AWE32 in my Pentium 200 MMX machine then.

Good idea.
AWE32 is great with software supporting it natively, and such software was made in the Pentium era - on a 486, it may be slow...

The STB Powergraph C33 card is only displaying in monochrome. Any ideas?

EDIT: The COLORON.COM file from this post fixed my issue. I don't know how it worked or if I'm going to have problems with games in the future though. Re: Investigating old ISA VGA cards