Is there any difference in quality when choosing Sound Blaster Pro vs 16 in emulation? \ VOGONS

Is there any difference in quality when choosing Sound Blaster Pro vs 16 in emulation?

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First post, by Kahenraz

Posted on 2022-03-17, 08:21

Kahenraz Offline

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This question is also relevant to emulators, but in my case it's with regards to Creative's Sound Blaster 16 emulation drivers for the Audigy 2. I can already choose 16-bit mixing, stereo sound, and 22 Khz in games for both Sound Blaster Pro, as well as Sound Blaster 16.

Other than games using the name of the sound card as a method to help the user choose the right driver, if these features are emulated, is there any difference in audio quality?

Reply 1 of 2, by Grzyb

Posted on 2022-03-17, 10:29

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16-bit mixing with SB Pro means that all the calculations are being done on 16-bit variables, but the resulting value needs to be truncated to 8-bit, and with 8-bit audible quantization noise is inevitable.

So, even if all the samples are 8-bit, but you want to mix several samples into one channel, make sure that channel is more than 8-bit.

Edit: the easiest way to hear the difference is to run some MOD player, preferrably with multichannel music - S3M, XM, etc.

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Reply 2 of 2, by Jo22

Posted on 2022-03-18, 08:21

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I remember there was a long explanation in the helpfile of MOD4WIN, too.
It told why 16-Bit resolution was so vital for mixing, also.

Long story short: Frequency range is half the sampling rate, thanks to Nyquist.
So a 22 KHz sampling rate usually covers 1 Hz to 11 KHz.
Human voice has a range of 3 KHz and higher (esp. females), with the actual information being in the heights.
8-Bit has 256 distinct values, 16-Bit has 65535.
And with a 12-Bit resolution, 4096 values can be represented, still.

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