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First post, by Almoststew1990

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I am putting together a 386 PC. Now that it's working I am looking to get a sound card. The games I will be playing are DOS games up to about 1992 roughly.

I see that "real" SB cards are prohibitively expensive. I am looking to spend up to £40 on Ebay UK or electromyne etc.

What should I be looking for? I assume OPL3 support will be important but that's the extent of my sound card knowledge.

The cards I like the look of the most on ebay are a SB Vibra 16 CT4180, and an Aztech Sound Galaxy AZT2316R. Both under £40 delivered.

Ryzen 3700X | 16GB 3600MHz RAM | AMD 6800XT | 2Tb NVME SSD | Windows 10
AMD DX2-80 | 16MB RAM | STB LIghtspeed 128 | AWE32 CT3910
I have a vacancy for a main Windows 98 PC

Reply 1 of 12, by Jo22

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For games up to 1992, something Sound Blaster II /AdLib (OPL2) compatible should be good enough.
Personally, I would install a ThunderBoard, ALS100, ALS120, CT1350B (SB 2.0), ES688 AudioDrive or a no-name SB 2 clone.
Anything in essence. If you also like obscoure games, a SpeechThing compatible card would be nice. Aztech Sound Galaxy 16 Pro ?
- Together with TEMU, you can have additional Tandy 3-Voice sound support and Disney Sound Source support.

For games 1992 onwards, a soundcard with OPL3 and stereo sound effects would be nice.
Which includes SB Pro, PAS16, Windows Sound System, WSS, EWS64XL, SB16/AWE, etc.
For 1992+ on-board MIDI would also be cool, but not 100% necessary.
Games between 1992-1994 often supported MT-32 and/or GM.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts, since I don't know anything about your cards.

See http://www.amoretro.de/ for more inspirtation, the site's owner has a huge collection of soundcards. 😀

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 3 of 12, by jheronimus

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I think, with 386 it could actually be better to get a non-Creative card. Most clones are SB Pro compatible, not SB16, so you're not losing much and you actually gain stereo in some games like Wolfenstein 3D. So, basically anything with OPL3 should be ideal.

So, you can get a Yamaha YMF-series card or an Aztech. There are lots of Opti-based cards with true OPL3. Basically, almost any noname card with OPL3 will be ideal for your needs. And if all fails — just get an ESS AudioDrive, it has a nice enough clone of OPL3.

MR BIOS catalog
Unicore catalog

Reply 4 of 12, by Almoststew1990

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Thanks for the advice. It looks like I'll get the aztech card as it has a real opl3 chip.

One question - there are a few opti based cards. Is this chip compatible with sb16 or is it a completely separate thing?

Ryzen 3700X | 16GB 3600MHz RAM | AMD 6800XT | 2Tb NVME SSD | Windows 10
AMD DX2-80 | 16MB RAM | STB LIghtspeed 128 | AWE32 CT3910
I have a vacancy for a main Windows 98 PC

Reply 6 of 12, by gdjacobs

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jheronimus wrote:

I think, with 386 it could actually be better to get a non-Creative card. Most clones are SB Pro compatible, not SB16, so you're not losing much and you actually gain stereo in some games like Wolfenstein 3D. So, basically anything with OPL3 should be ideal.

So, you can get a Yamaha YMF-series card or an Aztech. There are lots of Opti-based cards with true OPL3. Basically, almost any noname card with OPL3 will be ideal for your needs. And if all fails — just get an ESS AudioDrive, it has a nice enough clone of OPL3.

Wolf3d works in stereo on the SB16. The pan instructions it uses are supported.

But you're right, SB Pro will handle pretty much everything for a 386.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 7 of 12, by LABS

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BlasterBoard 2.0 - a modern 8-bit ISA sound card I'm currently working on will soon be available in limited quantity for purchase. It is SB2.0 and ThunderBoard compatible, modern and expandable via firmware updates and will be reasonably priced.

BLASTERBOARD : A new SB 2.0-compatible ISA sound card

Blasterboard: DIY SB2-compatible sound card on ATmega MCU
Sonic Buster 8: New 8-bit ISA sound card

Reply 8 of 12, by PARUS

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80386 has 16-bit slots. BlasterBoard 2.0 is very actual when 16-bit slots are absent and it's awesome! But there are a lot of excellent SB-clones. Explain please why we may choose BlasterBoard 2.0 for 386+ machines and don't choose one of billion good come-at-able cheap clones. Thank you!

Reply 9 of 12, by Tenorman

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Agree that any good Sound Blaster 2.0, Pro, or clone card would work well.

One specific one I have laying around that I'd think about putting in a 386 would be the Logitech Soundman Games (http://tenorman.info/pc/soundmangames).

[Compaq Presario 633 | DOS 6.22 / Win 3.1 | DX4 100 Overdrive | 28M RAM | SB16 CT2770A | SPEA Media FX (Soundscape S2000) ]
[GA-6BXC R2.0 | Win98SE | Via C3 Ezra 866 | 384M RAM | TNT2 32M | Voodoo2 8M | SB32 CT3670 | Ensoniq Soundscape Opus]

Reply 10 of 12, by Jo22

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PARUS wrote:

80386 has 16-bit slots. BlasterBoard 2.0 is very actual when 16-bit slots are absent and it's awesome!!

Yes. Some 286/386 machines do have a dedicated 8-Bit slot, though. Probably for ancient PC-Bus cards, such as IBM CGA or MDA.
Also, that topic reminds me of some soviet PC clones. They sometimes had 8086 CPUs and their own 16-Bit extensions to the PC-Bus.
A popular model was the "Junior XT" PC or mainboard. It had a tiny 16-Bit extension.
If you're curious, have a look at XT clone with 16-Bit slots ? .

Unfortunately, the auction and the associated pictures are gone by now.
At least, here's a picture of such an expansion card:

junior_xt_cga.jpg
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junior_xt_cga.jpg
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Fair use/fair dealing exception

(Source: https://www.olx.ro/oferta/placi-de-junior-xt- … xt-ID7nOkE.html)

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 11 of 12, by LABS

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PARUS wrote:

80386 has 16-bit slots. BlasterBoard 2.0 is very actual when 16-bit slots are absent and it's awesome! But there are a lot of excellent SB-clones. Explain please why we may choose BlasterBoard 2.0 for 386+ machines and don't choose one of billion good come-at-able cheap clones. Thank you!

Reasonable remark, thank you. BlasterBoard 2.0 is more like an interesting(I hope so) build-youself-a-soundblaster project, but not a mass-production board. Nevetheless it has onboard analog mixer for dedicated OPL2/DAC/CD-IN/PC-speaker volume controls and a 4x oversampled, FIR-interpolated audio with 12-bit DAC is under development.

Jo22 wrote:

Also, that topic reminds me of some soviet PC clones.

Yes, it looks like a soviet university radio lab student's project)

Blasterboard: DIY SB2-compatible sound card on ATmega MCU
Sonic Buster 8: New 8-bit ISA sound card

Reply 12 of 12, by canthearu

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I'm hopeful that the Blasterboard 2.0 will be slightly less expensive than the crazy prices that get asked for ADLIB and soundblaster 2.0 cards on ebay here in AU.

And it is always fun to build something yourself and then have it work.