5u3 wrote:Here is an article which gives a good overview about all aspects of old soundcards
Wow awesome link! I was checking out the sounds of the older cards and I rather like the distinct older sound of the Adlib card. Even though it rated the Descent sound clip as bad, I liked it. I especially liked the Tempest 2000 track, sounded really good on an Adlib (might even get one of these!)
It's pretty cool because some of the steriod versions of the PC speaker, the Tandy and PCJr... And even the Game Blaster, sounded like the sound system from the 8-bit Nintendo Gaming Console! I thought that was pretty cool. Great tunes too, (might have to get one of these too!, 4dboxing music was bumpin' on my 4.1 speaker system!)
I do think as far as 16-bit goes that the Roland SCC-1 sounded the best, and it states that it's also emulated. Very nice clear tones!
I tried reading the articles of this link but I can't really understand what he's talking about. I'll have to read up on it more later. But the Wiki Sound Blaster article helped me a lot with understanding the history of SB cards and the model numbers and such. Now I know to pretty much stay away for all AWE and later cards for dos gaming! It was fun checking out all those older card sounds and seeing the pictures and seeing how advanced expansion cards have become over the years...
swaaye wrote:As long as you have a good MIDI card, OPL3 is only a concern for games that don't support General MIDI. And those games are rare.
Well I just picked up one of the Yamaha OPL3 sound cards. I should be getting it here within a couple of days. But sounds like you're saying I need a MIDI card to not worry too much on general midi?
swaaye wrote:
As I learn more about the Sound Blasters, I find this very true!
swaaye wrote:here are also Ensoniq Soundscape cards that are very compatible and have high audio quality. The Elite is probably the best all-in-one card out there honestly. Excellent MIDI, almost on par with SCD15, high quality digital audio, and fantastic compatibility because it supports tons of standards fairly well AND almost all games 1994 onwards support it natively
OK, now you got me going on this Ensoniq Sounscape Card! I just checked out the wiki on Soundscape series and see that these cards ain't messin around.
Even though you posted an eBay auction for the S-2000, the Elite blows away the S-2000 obviously, and my hands must get on one of these great artifacts in the silicon world...
And I also noticed that you helped provide information and pics for Wikipedia and that Doom127 gave you an award! hehe. Good info I must agree.
swaaye wrote:Creative SB16s CT17* I don't THINK these are PnP.
Well I was checking out the Sound Blaster Number list, and it seems that Sound Blaster number's CT2771 to CT2840 are pretty safe from beign PnP (Plus some of the CT17* SB models have a SCSI interface? What's up w/ that? hehe). What do you think?
Thanks for your help, guys! I learned a lot about the history of sound cards and how they work in a matter of a day. And I also learned about selecting the best overall sound card for vintage dos gaming. I'm really intrigued with the Ensoniq Elite Soundscape Card!
Thanks again!