CT2760 and CT3900 as they are non PNP and will work in any system.

Some say the CT3900 is the better of the two but I would say they are equal (I own both).

If you want a PnP card get the CT3980.

Skyscraper wrote:

CT2760 and CT3900 as they are non PNP and will work in any system.

Some say the CT3900 if the better of the two but I would say they are equal (I own both).

If you want a PnP card get the CT3980.

3900 is PNP.

brostenen wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

CT2760 and CT3900 as they are non PNP and will work in any system.

Some say the CT3900 if the better of the two but I would say they are equal (I own both).

If you want a PnP card get the CT3980.

3900 is PNP.

It is not! CT3980 and CT3990 are though.

Then were is the IRQ and DMA jumpers then?
I have one too, you know. Or is it simply me mistaking jumperless non-pnp with PNP?

brostenen wrote:

Then were is the IRQ and DMA jumpers then?
I have one too, you know. Or is it simply me mistaking jumperless non-pnp with PNP?

Yes you are. 😀

It's resources are configured with software but that dosn't make it PnP.

It's the main reason though why Im saying the CT2760 and CT3900 are equally good, the CT2760 sets everything with jumpers and I prefer that but the CT3900 is probably a little bit less noisy.

Its also the main reason why the CT3900 costs ~$75 while the CT3980 costs ~$45.

Ahhh. I see. I too like the 3900 better, as I had a 2760 that spontaniously died. It was rev. 1 I think. Other revisions of the 2760 are not that fragile. Personally I think the 3900 is the best of them.

brostenen wrote:

Ahhh. I see. I too like the 3900 better, as I had a 2760 that spontaniously died. It was rev. 1 I think. Other revisions of the 2760 are not that fragile. Personally I think the 3900 is the best of them.

I have heard about dying CT2760 cards but the two CT2760 I own have been solid. I can't remember what revison they are only that they are not revision 3 as that card uses a different layout.

One of my CT2760 cards I bought new late 1995 or early 1996.

Some 2760 are also jumperless. I've i v3 and it is jumperless ... (for the card irq and etc) for the ide port is another story.

I am a bit devided on 32's. They have everything one need. Still they feel, at least for me, better at home in a Pentium-1 or faster machine. So the issue of PNP is not of my consern. Well... Anyway.

486's are for me the home of a SB16 and 386 is for SB-Pro/GUS. This is one of the reasons why I think the 3900 is the best. Mine has no "home" other than an antistatic bag at the moment.

I actually bought my 3900 in 2014 for what I recall, as being in the range of 15 US dollars or something.

brostenen wrote:

I am a bit devided on 32's. They have everything one need. Still they feel, at least for me, better at home in a Pentium-1 or faster machine. So the issue of PNP is not of my consern. Well... Anyway.

486's are for me the home of a SB16 and 386 is for SB-Pro/GUS. This is one of the reasons why I think the 3900 is the best. Mine has no "home" other than an antistatic bag at the moment.

My MIDI Jukebox is a 286 system with a CT2760 equipped with 2MB memory. I own both 4MB and 16MB 30pin SIMM-modules so I could use the 6MB SBK but the 2MB "finegm" one takes enough time to load using a 16 MHz 286 system with 1MB memory. When I write "aweutil /em:gm" I can go and brew a full pot of coffy and when the coffy is ready the loading of the SoundFont is just completed! 😀

I did some comparisons between the CT2760 with the "finegm" SoundFont and the Roland SCC-1A playing alot of MIDIs and it's not at all clear cut. The Roland card handles modern music better in most cases while the 2MB "finegm" SoundFont is better when it comes to alot of (but not all) classical music.

The first revisions of the CT2760 only have jumpers for base address. The IRQ and DMA channels are set by software (you have to run a non-resident program on boot that reads the SET BLASTER line to setup the card).

I have the original CT2760, the rev 3 CT2760, and the CT3980. Of the three, I find the CT3980 to be the best. Never had any issues with PnP. The reason I like the CT3980 over the other two is a very clean sound compared to most other Creative cards of the era. I seem to have stumbled onto a rare gem that has almost no hiss on modern PC speakers, and doesnt seem to pick up noise from the PC (no clicks or pops or static sounds in the background), and that just doesnt happen very often with old soundblasters.

But between the original CT2760 and the rev 3 variant, I find the original to have slightly less hiss and back ground noise. They're all good cards, but the rev 3 is kinda used for test rigs or stored until needed. I use the original CT2760 in my main pure does rig (SS7 rig), and the CT3980 is in my main Win98 PIII rig. I've yet to get a CT3900, so I cant really compare it to the others. I can only say that the CT3980 is my favorite AWE32 so far.

This page makes for some interesting reading: http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.co.za/2012/07 … 64-options.html
It was one of the pages that helped me decide which AWE32 to get (I eventually bought a CT3980 in Aug 2014, since I couldn't find a CT3900 and the CT2760 was already starting to become quite expensive).

As a general rule, if you have to load CTCM (and CTCU if you are booting up in plain DOS), then you have a Plug 'n Play card.
Personally, being fairly familiar with system resources and how to resolve resource conflicts, I prefer a non Plug 'n Play card, but by now I've managed to find my way around Creative's Plug 'n Play cards in both DOS and in a Windows 9x "DOS Mode" environment.

My CT3980 does exhibit some pops & crackling sounds when playing back digitial sounds, but I found that by disabling the high DMA channel (usually channel 5), and only using the low DMA channel (usually channel 1), the problem disappears (this occurs both under DOS & Windows).

One of the good tests for any soundcard is Dynablaster. First it need to have a real OPL chip or core.
Anything else just sounds like shit. Second, some soundcards with an OPL chip/core, have problems with playing eighter soundeffects, music or borth. Both 2760 and 3900 have no issue playing sound effects and music, though the 3900 have some wierd high pitch sound in the soundtrack, that eighter has to be there or just simply played wrong by the 3900. I have no idea if it is the one or the other. It just sounds wierd, though seems to be part of the tune in the same time.

Anyway.... Some SB16's have problem playing Dynablaster in pure Dos and some have no issues. And yeah... AWE32 is basically an SB16 with extra on it, hence why I brought up SB16's here.

NJRoadfan wrote:

The first revisions of the CT2760 only have jumpers for base address. The IRQ and DMA channels are set by software (you have to run a non-resident program on boot that reads the SET BLASTER line to setup the card).

You are correct, they need diagnose to initialize and also aweutil to get the emu8000 going but at least those can run on any computer while CTCM/CTCU needs 386 instructions (emulated or not). 😀