Sound card compatibility and choice is why I put more than one sound card in all of my systems. 😅

Given your current specs, I think the ESS sound card will be fine. That or a Yamaha Audician 32 would be my recommendation for a 486 of that era.

I wouldn't worry about SB16 / AWE32 support given your specs. Most DOS games that support true 16-bit sound are going to need a faster 486 or Pentium along with VLB or PCI graphics.

S3 seems to have always been plagued with cards with poor analog output. It's not the chips themselves, I suspect their reference spec/designs weren't as good as some others. Good manufacturers made great cards with S3 chipsets, bad ones made awful cards. I have a nameless S3 805 card whose output is sharp enough, but colours are way out, far too much yellow, i.e. there's not enough blue output. The 805 is also one of the slowest VLB chips. That said, it probably still is faster than the ET4000 purely due to the faster bus, but it won't be a huge difference and I fully understand your choosing good output. I'd suggest option 3: be on the lookout for an affordable VLB card. If DOS is your only concern, any Cirrus Logic GD542x or even Trident 9xxx card would be fine. Do note that most of these don't support high colours/resolutions in Win3.1, so if you want that, you might need to be a bit choosy.

Then sound...
Agree with most of your points. CT1740 is noisy as hell, those AWE32 have hanging note bugs. AWE64 is good for MIDI, but not the older stuff. ESS688 MIDI is a headache, ESS1868 has no SB16. With what you have there, I'd go with two cards. If you want SB16, the AWE64 is the obvious choice. Then you want OPL3, a wavetable header and no MIDI bugs. You don't have the perfect card, as CT1740 complies with the specs but is too noisy and ES1868 lacks real OPL (even if ESFM is a pretty nice alternative). I'd go with it though, so 1st card ES1868 on A220 I7 D1 T4 P330 and 2nd card AWE64 Gold on A240 I5 D3 H5 T6 P300 E620. Do be sure to disable parallel port to free I7.

But... don't overestimate how much 16b sound is out there, and a lot of what is real 16b will be too demanding for a DX40. My late DOS system with AWE64 (and Aztech 3rd gen card for OPL3 and bug-free MIDI) was originally a P100, then I upgraded to K6-2 350 and now have a P3-600. Only now do things like Quake and GTA1 run smoothly. I have a 33MHz 486 too, but that's for older stuff, with an SB 1.0 replica with CMS chips, MPU-401AT for intelligent mode MT-32 games and an SSI-2001 replica. I intend to add AdLIb Gold and BM MFC replicas too, and am working on my own internal Covox clone to go directly onto a parallel header. With turbo off, it runs at XT speeds; with turbo on it's spot-on for Ultima 7. So I'd suggest a significantly faster CPU if you want to go AWE64 Gold - at least a 5x86.

PSUs are always an issue. I prefer to use vintage units, but I invariably replace the old tired fans with quiet new ones (I like Noctua Redux 80mm fans for this purpose). As for reliability, I'm intending to one day rebuild a particularly nice PSU, replacing all caps and anything else that might get worn with time, and adding fuses on the output to protect against catastrophic failure. But that sort of thing is a long-term project. For now the one thing I don't do is use 2000-2010 PSUs with my old systems. Cap plague was a thing in PSUs too and those newer ones blow up far more than the really old ones.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-05-20, 15:18:

That or a Yamaha Audician 32 would be my recommendation for a 486 of that era.

I do have a small similar looking card (Yamaha 719). I'd have to find/make a riser for the wavetable. Being Yamaha, it would have some OPL3 derivative?

I wouldn't worry about SB16 / AWE32 support given your specs. Most DOS games that support true 16-bit sound are going to need a faster 486 or Pentium along with VLB or PCI graphics.

Valid point there. I looked up the vogons list and realized that most titles are Sierra On-Line adventures, which were not my cup of tea. My first candidate on that list (Wing Commander III) is from Dec 1994 and requires 50 MHz. Which is way beyond the cut-off point for this machine.

ux-3 wrote on 2024-05-20, 16:04:

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-05-20, 15:18:

That or a Yamaha Audician 32 would be my recommendation for a 486 of that era.

I do have a small similar looking card (Yamaha 719). I'd have to find/make a riser for the wavetable. Being Yamaha, it would have some OPL3 derivative?

Yup, the Yamaha chips have genuine OPL.

There are also some makes of this card (i.e. Addonics) that have larger PCBs and can support larger wavetable cards.

dionb wrote on 2024-05-20, 15:28:

If DOS is your only concern, any Cirrus Logic GD542x or even Trident 9xxx card would be fine. Do note that most of these don't support high colours/resolutions in Win3.1, so if you want that, you might need to be a bit choosy.

I was intending to compare later games with my ISA and my VLB card to see if VLB would make a real difference.

Then sound...
Then you want OPL3, a wavetable header and no MIDI bugs. You don't have the perfect card, as CT1740 complies with the specs but is too noisy and ES1868 lacks real OPL (even if ESFM is a pretty nice alternative). I'd go with it though, so 1st card ES1868 on A220 I7 D1 T4 P330 and 2nd card AWE64 Gold on A240 I5 D3 H5 T6 P300 E620. Do be sure to disable parallel port to free I7.

But... don't overestimate how much 16b sound is out there, and a lot of what is real 16b will be too demanding for a DX40. But... don't overestimate how much 16b sound is out there, and a lot of what is real 16b will be too demanding for a DX40.

Given the scope of the machine, it may indeed be wise to forego the SB16+ ability altogether. I also realized from above post, that my Yamaha 719 card might be a candidate too. I need a wavetable extender to test. Edit: Managed to squeeze it in temporarily. I find the Yamaha mixer rather confusing. It seems that you have the same slider for both the wavetable and the fm synthesis. Which means that you can't level them to each other. You need to adjust every time you change from wavetable to fm and back?

So I'd suggest a significantly faster CPU if you want to go AWE64 Gold - at least a 5x86.

I have several other retro machines boxed up for finalizing. I just figured that I start with the slowest. The next level machine is going to be a µATX Pentium mmx/K6-2, which should take care of mid and late DOS and the "glide age". Not sure if a daughterboard would be beneficial, if an AWE64 is present. But that will be another issue. As far as slowdown is concerned, when I turn the clock down, shut off caches, I can make it too slow for Wing Commander. That should do it for my gaming needs 😀.

PSUs are always an issue. I prefer to use vintage units, but I invariably replace the old tired fans with quiet new ones (I like Noctua Redux 80mm fans for this purpose). As for reliability, I'm intending to one day rebuild a particularly nice PSU, replacing all caps and anything else that might get worn with time, and adding fuses on the output to protect against catastrophic failure. But that sort of thing is a long-term project. For now the one thing I don't do is use 2000-2010 PSUs with my old systems. Cap plague was a thing in PSUs too and those newer ones blow up far more than the really old ones.

I was actually considering using a rarely used ~400W BeQuiet with cable management from 2016 or so. I just need to check the rail loads before. The 486 is in a relatively small baby AT case, there is not much room for redundant cables.

486/40! That makes for a nice change from the endless 66Mhz and above builds (which I'm also guilty of)
I like the idea of VLB I/O controller. Even if performance doesn't really change it's just nice to use VLB as it's what makes 486's a little different.

Personally I don't see the big deal is with video card speed on dos PC's Unless you get something truly ancient or terrible it's the CPU that decides if a game is playable or not.
Image quality and compatibility are much more important.
Just a little rant, as you said the ET4000 has better image I'd also have gone with that.

Sound is purely personal choice but given the 40Mhz top speed OPL, SBPro, Midi support is most important.

If your planning something like a P200 glide box, I'd also agree this is much better place for an AWE64 as OPL becomes less important.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-05-20, 23:59:

486/40! That makes for a nice change from the endless 66Mhz and above builds (which I'm also guilty of)

I didn't buy this, I just saved it from the dump. All my other projects have this "needs to slow down" demand, which works only to some extend. This one can slow down all the way. I have no experience with downclocking a DX2/66. The only one I ever owned back in 1994 could never be fast enough.

I like the idea of VLB I/O controller. Even if performance doesn't really change it's just nice to use VLB as it's what makes 486's a little different.

My bios limits me to two HDDs. But the speed of the CF cards might scale with the controller. If it doesn't, I probably won't use it.

Personally I don't see the big deal is with video card speed on dos PC's Unless you get something truly ancient or terrible it's the CPU that decides if a game is playable or not.
Image quality and compatibility are much more important.

As I can't preview image quality on ebay, I am very reluctant to invest a fortune. I remember that my graphics updates in the 90s did not do wonders to DOS games, but to windows.

Sound is purely personal choice but given the 40Mhz top speed OPL, SBPro, Midi support is most important.

I failed to realize this until now: I don't need SB16/AWE32 in this project. Which simplifies things a lot. I am down to SBpro clone, working wavetable header, low noise. I can already choose from ESS1868, Yamaha 719 and Maestro 32/96.

If your planning something like a P200 glide box, I'd also agree this is much better place for an AWE64 as OPL becomes less important.

The next build is going to be my µATX SS7, with 233mmx or k6-2 500. It has an onboard ESS Solo-1 (which is fine as far as pci SBpro clones go) and one ISA slot.

I have just run a comparison of the ESS1868 and the Yamaha 719 in Wing Commander Privateer. I stumbled upon some odd differences.

Both of my different ESS1868 cards and my ESS688 exhibit a graphic micro-freeze in the intro, at the very same point. Sound works normal during the freeze. The Yamaha doesn't freeze there, neither does the SB16.
But the Yamaha has some small clickings during a speech part, where the ESS play fine.

Are there any other issues with ESS/Yamaha I should be aware of?

BTW, I edited my starting post to reflect the decisions already made.

EDIT: the freeze caan be removed by adding files and buffers in autoexec.bat. Not sure yet which increase did it.

ux-3 wrote on 2024-05-21, 07:40:

I have just run a comparison of the ESS1868 and the Yamaha 719 in Wing Commander Privateer. I stumbled upon some odd differences […]
Show full quote

I have just run a comparison of the ESS1868 and the Yamaha 719 in Wing Commander Privateer. I stumbled upon some odd differences.

Both of my different ESS1868 cards and my ESS688 exhibit a graphic micro-freeze in the intro, at the very same point. Sound works normal during the freeze. The Yamaha doesn't freeze there, neither does the SB16.
But the Yamaha has some small clickings during a speech part, where the ESS play fine.

Are there any other issues with ESS/Yamaha I should be aware of?

BTW, I edited my starting post to reflect the decisions already made.

This is the way to go about it - people can say all sorts of generic things, but nothing beats your own findings in the games you like to play.

One thing to note about ESS is that some games from the early-mid 1990s specifically support AudioDrive native 16b mode even if the cards only do SBPro2 in compatible mode.

I have done testing with around 250 games so far on both an ESS 1868 and the YMF-719 specifically to see how they worked on my recent 486 single-board-computer build.

The verdict is that it's a pretty even set of results, both cards have a very (very) small percentage of games that they don't work optimally with, and an even smaller percentage of games that produce no sound at all. In general terms there was a core of games that didn't work properly on both cards, then a small handful (single digits) that were problematic on one card or the other.

Remember this was out of 285 games. That's a pretty great result - even with a genuine SB I suspect you would have similar figures.

The upside with both cards was that I didn't find any MIDI hanging note issues with either, both had clear audio without any major background noise, and (once I had figured out the bios issues to correct it) neither appear to have any clicking digital audio playback noises.

I went with the YMF-719 in the end, since the couple of games it didn't work with (Jill of the Jungle was one) were of less interest to me than the ones where it worked better than the ESS (Dune, Flashback, plus a couple others). I also liked the ability to tweak bass, treble and the 3D spatial effect in software via unisound, which the ESS card didn't have.

Honestly though, they both have pretty fantastic compatibility.

dionb wrote on 2024-05-21, 15:43:

One thing to note about ESS is that some games from the early-mid 1990s specifically support AudioDrive native 16b mode even if the cards only do SBPro2 in compatible mode.

https://www.dosdays.co.uk/topics/ess_games.php

Quite a variety! But as with SB16, many of them are too late for this build. Also, if they have 16 bit for the ESS, who knows what they have for a 32AWE?
I have actually made my peace with the decision to delete SB16 support. Well working SBpro and wavetable are the key issue.

I still have the Maestro 32/96, which could be so nice, if it wasn't for the fm synthesis. But... it has 2x line in, can use 2 wavetables (internal and header) and is very quiet.
If I team it with an OPL-AWE32, I might still be able to maximize things. But I rather do that in a faster machine (P2/P3), where the SB32 would find a job frequently.

megatron-uk wrote on 2024-05-21, 16:29:

The verdict is that it's a pretty even set of results

Why is life never easy?

(once I had figured out the bios issues to correct it) neither appear to have any clicking digital audio playback noises.

That is interesting! What issues are you talking about? Both glitches I had could well be bios issues.

Honestly though, they both have pretty fantastic compatibility.

Thanks for sharing this and your findings.

EDIT: Now this is funny: In your list, Wing Commander Privateer is marked red for both cards. I get digital speech and effects in the intro with both cards. In fact, I played it quite a bit in the early millenium on an ESS688, without any issues. Weird.

Yeah, Privateer is indeed odd. I would suspect that in the case where the same symptoms are observed with both cards there is probably an underlying issue that is not specific with either. I.e. in the WC:P case possibly a motherboard/dma problem. Also the majority of the MIDI playback issues occur with Legend Entertainment titles, which have notoriously buggy midi playback, so I don't suspect either card in those cases.

I encountered significant digital audio crackle and clipping issues with the YMF card (but not the ESS) with the default setting of IOCHREADY in my bios (disabled). Enabling it fixed the digital playback issues, but since my board is an industrial specific part, I can only think that this was desired behaviour by default... I have not seen it on any other motherboard I have owned!

I think your decision to focus on SB Pro + wavetable/midi support is entirely sensible and should cover pretty much everything.

Yes, you may miss out on some unique sound implementations (GUS, AWE) on a very small number of titles, but almost anything that supports those will also have at the very least a passable alternative audio option via your SB Pro and MIDI implementation.

It's difficult to cover everything, and sometimes you just have to draw a line!

megatron-uk wrote on 2024-05-21, 18:10:

I encountered significant digital audio crackle and clipping issues with the YMF card (but not the ESS) with the default setting of IOCHREADY in my bios (disabled). Enabling it fixed the digital playback issues, but since my board is an industrial specific part, I can only think that this was desired behaviour by default... I have not seen it on any other motherboard I have owned!

Good thing that all bioses use the same terms... I had something that sounded remotely similar. I'll check.

BTW: Do we have a bios guide here somewhere. I really don't have a clue what much of it does.

The clicking with the Yamaha was most pronounced in streamed digital audio (like .wav files), tracker music and longer sampled sound effects. In very short effects it was not present.
Enabling that bios option removed it entirely.

Closest hits are "READY generate select" and "IO delay on back to back". Both are off.

Well, I know what I do now...

OK some findings...
Nothing I could do would remove the clicks from the Yamaha rendition of the Privateer intro. (The clicks are nothing compared the the SB16, but they are present and audible, ESS has none)

Then I investigated the video stutter scene of the ESS. Swapping out the ISA Tseng ET4000 for a VLB S3 did exactly nothing. Same stutter at the same moment.
I have tinkered with basically all advanced bios options. Amazingly, the machine always booted up and ran. But when I set AT Bus clock selection to clki/3, the stutter was gone.

As the CPU is rated at 40 MHz, this should be 13.3 MHz, which is a bit high really.

Perhaps my inbound VLB IO controller can improve things. Just a guess because your troubles seem to have been HDD speed related too.

If you have slots available, there is nothing wrong with installing multiple sound cards. Even a pair of sound cards can cover a lot of ground a single one cannot.