Cards:
Magic S20: OPTi 82C929, CS4231, OPL3, WBH.
Magic S23: CS4232, OPL3, WBH.

Chipset details:
OPTi 82C929 MAD16 Pro: Controller, SBPro/WSS/MPU-401 compatible, M-CD.
Crystal CS4231(A): Codec 16-bit 48KHz, WSS Compatible, ADPCM, Full Duplex.
Crystal CS4232: Controller+Codec 16-Bit 48KHz, PnP, SB/SBPro/WSS/MPU-401 compatible, IDE.

I have the Magic S23, it is a fine card. A clean SB Pro 2 and WSS compatible soundcard with genuine OPL3 FM music and a Midi Daughterboard header. (Only downside is that in windows NT/2K/XP the MPU-401 will not work without some serious hacks.). The S23 is functionally comparable with the Yamaha OPL3-Sax based soundcards. Both the Crystal semiconductor chips I mentioned contain a quality Digital to Analog Converter (DAC).

The reversed stereo... almost forgot about that. Well the original creative sound blaster pro introduced that issue...
more info

Thank you gerwin,

do you think there is some advantage with the S23 (poliphony / fluid effects ? Can games written for Creative drivers, like Cannon Fodder, detect it as a SB Pro?

I have an S20 rev 1 now, it is not detected as a Sound Blaster in Cannon Fodder (not a speed issue) and it seems to have reveresed stereo (tested with Tie Fighter floppy version imuse.exe )...

Jolaes76 wrote:

do you think there is some advantage with the S23 (poliphony / fluid effects ?

I would not expect so, as games only know about SB Pro compatibility and cannot safely go beyond the SBPro specification.

Jolaes76 wrote:

Can games written for Creative drivers, like Cannon Fodder, detect it as a SB Pro?

Cannon fodder has music and sound FX with the S23. Nothing fancy though.

Jolaes76 wrote:

I have an S20 rev 1 now, it is not detected as a Sound Blaster in Cannon Fodder (not a speed issue) and it seems to have reveresed stereo (tested with Tie Fighter floppy version imuse.exe )...

TIE Fighter CD imuse has a "reverse stereo" option, but S23 sounds right without this option checked.

I have the S20 and can confirm the limited polyphony, I noticed a lot of sound effects getting cut off partway through, or not playing at all in many games.

I was also unable to make it work with Doom and Hexen for some reason. Other games were fine. Apart from these issues it was a fine card.

thanks DonutKing,

I will go ahead testing this issue further on the S20.

You have mentioned Hocus Pocus before, right?

I do not have Yamaha cards, so I can only make comparisons between the S20 and Sb16 / AWE32.

But the setup of Hocus Pocus also allows 8 voices and 44 khz samples - AFAIK no SB Pro is capable of either, so it must be set to 4 voices and 22 khz. With this setting, what effects should I listen for (that might be audible on the AWE32 but will be muted or wrong on the S20 ?

My version of Hocus Pocus doesn't have any option for 44KHz samples, only 8 or 16 bit mixing (plus 1-8 voices, 4 default).

In any case I don't think any sounds will be wrong, what actually happens is when a lot of digital sounds are playing some of them get cut off or won't play due to surpassing the voices/polyphony limit. So normally a Creative card could play 4 sounds simoultaneously, but even with the default setting the Acer S20 has more like a 2 voice limit.

I noticed this issue particularly in Blake Stone for some reason. Holding down the fire button, the noise of the gun would get interrupted by an actor saying something, but the actor's line would get cut short by the sound of the gun - which doesn't happen on a Creative card.

thanks for the correction,

it is really 16 bit mixing only, I supposed the source is 44 khz, I was wrong. Also, the disctinction between voices and channels is not clear for me, need to look into the specs...
I will test Blake Stone as well for this "bug" or deficiency ...