The OPL3 games out there are above the 286's realm anyway (Dune, Cybersphere, Descent, etc) so sb2.0 for that. Ditto for games that pushed stereo PCM sound

286-12:

I would use the Sound Blaster 2.0. The 286 was mainly Adlib FM (OPL2) and early Sound Blaster PCM, so the SB 2.0 is a good era-appropriate fit.

General MIDI won't be useful on a 286, since General MIDI games started mainly appearing in 1993. An MT-32 would be a better fit, since there were a lot of MT-32 supported games in the late 80's (particularly Sierra games). You do mention only having a single WP32 McCake, I'd probably save it for the 386.

386 DX-40:

The Sound Blaster PRO 2 is appropriate for the 386. Though if you want something quieter, then the Labway card might not be a bad idea.

I'd also go with the WP32 McCake for MT-32 support. MT-32 supported games range from late 80s to early/mid-90s. This is right in the wheelhouse of the 386.

486 DX2-66:

I'd be tempted to use the Turtle Beach Maui in the 486, just for something a little different. Add in a PicoGUS if you want GUS support. You could also include the Ensoniq Soundscape ELITE, to have some variety. Really it comes down to how many free slots your computer has. I'd install as many sound cards as you can.

Pentium MMX 233:

I'd use the AWE64 for SB16/AWE32 support, and the PigoGUS + Dreamblaster for GUS + General MIDI support.

@Shponglefan - thank you, thats very similar to where my headspace is at at the moment. I dont want to have more than two cards ideally in a machine, for the 486 I might consider 3 like you said to just try different things and use the cards I have. the PicoGUS is amazing actually, I bought quite a few of them as well as dreamblasters so might end up using one in each if there is a slot as they are so easy to use and sound great but at same time, I want to use especially for the real oldies like the 286 a card that is appropriate for its era. aaaargh.... too many choices !

Omarkoman wrote on 2024-10-09, 05:17:

I dont want to have more than two cards ideally in a machine, for the 486 I might consider 3 like you said to just try different things and use the cards I have.

IMHO, the 486 is a great platform for a lot of sound cards. There were a lot of interesting ISA sound cards released in the mid-90s and a 486 with a lot of ISA slots is a prime platform to take advantage of that.

With the cards you have, I'd probably put at least 4 of them in that 486. 😉

the PicoGUS is amazing actually, I bought quite a few of them as well as dreamblasters so might end up using one in each if there is a slot as they are so easy to use and sound great but at same time, I want to use especially for the real oldies like the 286 a card that is appropriate for its era. aaaargh.... too many choices !

Agreed, the PicoGUS is a great little card and really affordable way to get GUS and MPU-401 support in a lot of older systems. 😀

Omarkoman wrote on 2024-10-09, 01:55:

Games on this machine will be limited to a 286 CPU so the General Midi is likely an overkill

But Overkill is perfectly fine on a 12Mhz 286 and it has GM support!

Ok seriously, I have come across about 45-50 titles that support GM and do work on a 286, apart from the usual 16-bit SCI point-and-click Sierra titles there's also the following, in order of minimum CPU requirement. Games that have [E] listed at the start require EMS, those with [e] have EMS as an optional requirement:

8088

• Castles II
• Dune 2 (v1.0 only - v1.07 requires a 286)
• [e] Hoyle's Classic Card Games (1993 edition)
• [e] Ken's Labyrinth
• Loonies 8086
• Lords of the Realm
• [e] Prince of Persia 2
• [e] Princess Maker 2
• [E] SEAL Team
• The Incredible Machine
• The Even More Incredible Machine
• [E] The Summoning
• [E] Veil of Darkness
• Voyages of Discovery
• Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? (Deluxe Edition)
• Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (Deluxe Edition)

V20

• Balance (Mobygames link)
• [E] Bram Stoker's Dracula
• Day of the Tentacle
• Global Domination
• [E] Hexx: Heresy of the Wizard
• Hocus Pocus
• Linewars II
• [E] Master of Orion
• Merchant Prince
• Overkill
• Pickle Wars (the registered version on the MVP website is buggy, I had to source another registered version elsewhere)
• Sam & Max Hit The Road
• Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon Deluxe
• SimFarm
• Slow Runnings (includes source code!)
• [E] Star Wars: X-Wing
• Super Fighter
• The Patrician
• [E] The Terminator: 2029

286

• [E] 1830: Railroads and Robber Barons (probably runs on V20, but don't have an 8-bit EMS card with >2MB RAM to verify)
• [E] Armour-Geddon
• Crash Barrier (shareware game, having trouble finding a link)
• D-Day: The Beginning of the End
• [E] Lode Runner: The Legend Returns (unfortunately the DOS version is very unstable, and the Win 3.1 version requires a 386)
• Loonies 8192
• [E] Master of Magic (see 1830 regarding possible V20 support)
• [E] The Incredible Machine 2
• 西遊記 (West Adventure)
• When Two Worlds War

There's a bunch of Korean games that also run on a 286 and have GM support, but I've only gone as far as documenting what runs on a 286 and what requires a 386 and not what video/audio capabilities they have. I need to revisit it at some point, since several Korean games are also very fickle when it comes to FreeDOS support. I'm also expecting a good number of shareware games that have 16-bit x86 and GM support, but I haven't really dived too deep into that.

There will be someone from the peanut gallery who will say "b-b-but the box says 386 minimum!" for a number of the games listed above. Ok, what's your point? I've tested all of this on my hardware. Depending on whether your 286 is running at 0WS or 1WS and what you're using as a video card, I can imagine a few of those are going to be a bit sluggish when it comes to performance, specifically Ken's Labyrinth, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Hexx, Linewars II, Slow Runnings and X-Wing. Dune 2 is likely to experience slowdowns as well, doing a test on my NuXT with a 8088 @ 9.55Mhz was taking me 12 minutes of in-game time to beat the first mission of any campaign compared to 4 minutes at proper speed - regardless, I definitely don't recommend running SEAL Team on any 286 unless you really want seconds per frame. Why EA used a 16-bit compiler for that game without any 386 instructions is truly boggling.

Out of the above list, Overkill is the only game listed with CGA support.

oh wow, thanks !

to make it more complicated, just got myself few Opti 82C930 ISA sound cards. These seem fantastic value for what they offer ATAPI optical drive port, OPL3, Sound Blaster Pro compatibility as well has onboard wavetable for General Midi music which apparently sounds decent. Dont think there are many cards out there that do same (the Labway one I mentioned above is only one I can think of).

Personally I like Creative, its what I always thought about growing up, but really whats the point of multiple builds that all sound the same?

I really like Shponglefan's "alternative" builds

286 + SB 2.0, besides the SB2.0 isn't that common.

386 + SB Pro compatible, I'd actually go with the Labway, ESS or Opti just for something different over endless Creative cards.

The Sound Blaster PRO 2 is appropriate for the 386. Though if you want something quieter, then the Labway card might not be a bad idea.
Also agree this era really wants a MT-32 so natual choice for the WP32 McCake

486
I'd use the Ensoniq Soundscape as its a good fit and part of your nostalga, pairing it up with the Ess or Labway as they score quite high in MIDI and gets around the compatibility issues. GUS support makes sence as well.

MMX + AWE
32 or 64 you decide, true OPL doesn't matter so much this era and can't keep away from creative cards for too long!
plus running Win9x makes additional memory for sound fonts much more useful (the 486 been too slow to take advantage)

With your midi cards I'd put the Turtle Beach in the 486 and Dreamblaster in the MMX but this can be swapped around if needed, just as long as they are somewhere!

and I have to ask how/where did you get all these cards?

Omarkoman wrote on 2024-10-15, 03:34:

oh wow, thanks !

to make it more complicated, just got myself few Opti 82C930 ISA sound cards. These seem fantastic value for what they offer ATAPI optical drive port, OPL3, Sound Blaster Pro compatibility as well has onboard wavetable for General Midi music which apparently sounds decent. Dont think there are many cards out there that do same (the Labway one I mentioned above is only one I can think of).

Tbh, this is pretty much standard except for the wavetable, but all other solutions with similar feature set also offer that as an option.

You can get this - hardware SBPro2, OPL3 (or 1:1 clone) and bug-free MPU-401 interface (and sometimes more) with at least:
OPTi 929, 930
Aztech 2316, 2320
ALS 100(+) and 120
C-Media 8330
Crystal CS423x (although usually usiing own CSFM instead of external OPL3, although the latter is supported)

These are pretty much the commonest mid 1990s sound cards. There are versions of cards with almost all these chipsets with wavetable. For SBPro2, OPL3 and MPU-401 they are pretty interchangeable. They also offer various versions of 16b audio - usually WSS, sometimes partial or full SB16 too. It's only 'fantastic' when offset against buggy overpriced Creative SB16 offerings.

Regarding your choice - have you considered using a midi patchbay to allow you to hook up multiple machines to the same MIDI sound modules? That way you don't need to have specific MIDI setups per machine, you only need that when wanting to showcase a particular card.