You've got yourself a common AudioPCI. It does have DOS drivers and they're all easily available. Enjoy the bad "FM"!

Hopefully it is better than just pc speaker. I do also have sound blaster live that I could try to see how well sound blaster emulation works. Any idea which one is better option? Or would it be better to buy one of those aureal vortex 2 cards for dos?

The Sound Blaster Live! DOS emualtion are based around the Ensoniq AudioPCI (ES1370, ES1371 and ES1373) DOS emulation so it will sound similar and have the same game support. Sound Blaster PCI are actually just rebranded Ensoniq AudioPCI and share the same drivers.

Baoran wrote:

I got my hands on this sound card recently.

Hey, that card looks like an AudioPCI 3000, which I used months ago to make a SoundScape recording of Crusader: No Remorse! ^^

Baoran wrote:

Hopefully it is better than just pc speaker. I do also have sound blaster live that I could try to see how well sound blaster emulation works. Any idea which one is better option? Or would it be better to buy one of those aureal vortex 2 cards for dos?

This was a real messy time for creative, as they also call it a Sound Blaster 64 PCI, You can read more about it here, but basically they just wanted the dos emulation drivers and didn't know what to do with the soundcard itself. Make sure you get the 8MB ecm file.
Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

So the SoundBlaster Live is the better card as amongst other things supports EAX and soundfonts but only marginally IMHO, being from the same era I would say it is a model up.
Your much better off getting an Audigy 1 2 or ZS, they still use the same Dos legacy files but the windows side of things are much more improved and support later EAX versions.

Vortex 2 is completely different (like Intel to AMD or Nvida to ATI)
You will loose EAX, soundfonts, but gain A3D 2.0
Really which is better is down to personal preference, I like the stable (if bloated) drivers of Creative, EAX is more widely supported and Creative cards are much more common and affordable. I wold love a Vortex 2 to play round with though

leileilol wrote:

You've got yourself a common AudioPCI. It does have DOS drivers and they're all easily available. Enjoy the bad "FM"!

Right, though its FM implementation is technically interesting, it really is a torture to the ears. 😵
This is about what someone can expect when playing FM via SoundScape/AudioPCI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzoloT5eRtY

Anyway, the Audio PCI is quite nice for MIDI, at least. ^^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zz-OFYTQLE

chinny22 wrote:

Baoran wrote:

Hopefully it is better than just pc speaker. I do also have sound blaster live that I could try to see how well sound blaster emulation works. Any idea which one is better option? Or would it be better to buy one of those aureal vortex 2 cards for dos?

This was a real messy time for creative, as they also call it a Sound Blaster 64 PCI, You can read more about it here, but basically they just wanted the dos emulation drivers and didn't know what to do with the soundcard itself. Make sure you get the 8MB ecm file.
Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

Thanks for sharing that link with us - I never got that thing to work in early Win95.. 😉
Good ol' Win 3.1 was bit more cooperative, however. After a little bit of trial and error, it worked fine.
Windows 98SE is perhaps fine, too. Unfortunately, my GA586 mainboard still refuses to run Win98.

wow that ensoniq is the worst i've heard in my life....horriblllleee

Elite FM is the best, you'll never hear this anywhere else 😁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXFYWJ7dbz0&t=2400s

I have got a MB with a onboard 1373 chip on it, so my guess is that it should perform, if not identical, at least very close to the card from this topic. My question for you guys is: is it worthy to get a Live card only to play late 90s and very early 2000s titles? I do have other machines with sbpro2 and awe64, so back compatibility and FM synth are out of questions here. I know the Live is an improvement, but is it a lot (really noticeable)?

Gateway PC by chance?
It's what I used back in the late 90's and for about 3 weeks when I went back to Australia this year.
I doubt I'll ever upgrade them but then I have other PC's that do have EAX capable sound cards.

Some games are better then others but not having EAX doesn't make any game less enjoyable.
I'd say its more a case of with Live! cards being so cheap now most people get one to cover all their bases.

chinny22 wrote on 2022-12-12, 11:03:

Gateway PC by chance?

It's a Seanix Gatineau.

Jo22 wrote on 2017-12-15, 05:25:

This is about what someone can expect when playing FM via SoundScape/AudioPCI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzoloT5eRtY

Damn, that SCUMM bar theme immediately rose to 1st place of the most sad & pathetic thing I've heard in 2022, only to be relegated to 2nd place by that poor Doom E1M1 on the Elite 1 minute after .__.

They are like the cheapest sound card 1997 could make which is what those big computer companies want. Along with some brand recognition in Ensoniq. Just an early AC97 codec on a PCI card with host-based MIDI, FM, effects, EAX and A3D processing that is designed with the limitations of a Pentium MMX in mind. They do sound pretty good for just playing back PCM though.

Is there a "bigger" difference between ES1371 and ES1373 ? The OS/2 driver for the ES1371 does not seem to work with the ES1373.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2023-02-17, 19:47:

Is there a "bigger" difference between ES1371 and ES1373 ? The OS/2 driver for the ES1371 does not seem to work with the ES1373.

Yes, few different drivers exist
Different Versions of Ensoniq AudioPCI

thank you, too bad the never made a winos/2 friendly driver.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2024-01-13, 19:48:

thank you, too bad the never made a winos/2 friendly driver.

You can try modifying the ES1371 driver with the vendor and device ID of your ES1373 with a hex editor.

Device ID (71 13) is located at D397h and vendor ID (74 12) is located at D39Ah in the "ES1371.SYS" file

ah sorry, I meant the WInOS/2 driver for the ES1371...I own ES1371 and 1373 cards.

after the excellent fixing for SBEMU there is only WinOS/2 left...otherwise everything works.

Although I don't know the performance of ES1370/ES1371 under DOS, its analog output quality under win98 is better than the SB LIVE I have heard，Much better