I don't really want to say that I "collect" this old stuff. It's more that I've wanted to play with all sorts of hardware over the years and now that it's cheap I can get it easily. 😁

You guys have seen my video card collection in the recent 3D Accelerator Thread. I have lots of sound cards and CPUs too. I have (almost) every Creative and all Ensoniq cards (except that DB that's unexciting). That's the bulk of it. I have one of each motherboard/CPU platform so I can build things.

I do have a CGW magazine collection ranging from the '80s to the end of their run in 2005 or whatever it was. 😉 Those magazines are basically the embodiment of my computer hobby 🤣. Also have the first few years of Next Generation magazine.

That makes me wonder, is there a list of all the Creative cards? I mean the 8 bit cards are quickly collected, but once you get into the 16s and 32s there are just sooo many cards!

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

That makes me wonder, is there a list of all the Creative cards? I mean the 8 bit cards are quickly collected, but once you get into the 16s and 32s there are just sooo many cards!

Well, there is this:
http://www.ask.asia.creative.com/wwenglish/ge … _list_audio.htm
I suppose it's pretty much complete, since it also lists a couple oem cards. Can't tell of course if these are all of them, the list may not be complete

Now that would be a collection 🤣

But my SB Pro 2.0 CT1680 isn't on that list. Neither is the CT2860 (SB 16) which I have ordered recently...

So it looks like there are really a lot of cards to collect!

I'm interested in seeing all the subtle differences amongst the creative cards -ISA cards in particular, within a same class. For example, CT2760, CT3980, CT3990 etc. are all SBAWE32s. But there are differences in each. Though this is easier to find out, I would like to know about the complete set of differences in the above mentioned list (again for the ISA cards only).

Some differences may not matter that much, but it's good to know what they actually did with a particular model.

I thought of compiling this list but didn't know where to start. I think I need to contact someone who was at Creative during the ISA days.

"Following" the larger chips as the cards became more and more integrated might be interesting?

e.g. going from a AWE32 to a AEW64 the cards are almost half the size and with a lot less chips. There is quite a good post on queststudios giving an overview of some of the differences.

e.g. some SB16s don't have treble and bass controls. Then we have some with the Yamaha 262, some with the CT1747 and some with no real OPL whatsoever. There are a ton of different analogue mixer chips and so on...

So tracking what chips are on each card might be a start. I would love to contribute but only got a handful cards...

We would need a good resource for what each chip does and for the bigger ones, which functions that chip handles.

Malik wrote:

I think I need to contact someone who was at Creative during the ISA days.

It's really late now...
Didn't creative use to have a forum? Maybe you could ask there, or have a look around

Link to the creative forums:
http://forums.creative.com/t5/Sound-Blaster/b … -p/soundblaster

I haven't browsed there myself but it seems like a good place to browse for some extra information, even if it's just (interesting) background information

Great resource, though it doesn't look like it goes back far enough. The first posts are from 2004 already 🤣

Aren't the primary differences between the various SB16s, SB32 and AWE32s the following:

-Vibra 16 chipset vs. SB16 chipset
-Whether or not it has OPL3 discrete, integrated or simulated
-CSP/ASP chips and/or sockets
-PnP or not
-CDROM / IDE interfaces
-RAM slots
-How much it pops/clicks and how much hiss there is 😁

Tracking the components as the cards got more and more integrated might be the way to go...

But we would need to know into which larger chips, some of the past / smaller chips went into. e.h. the CT1747 combines an ISA interface with an OPL3. Previously individual chips took care of these tasks...

Going from AWE32 to AWE64 really shows us how much progress they made with integration...

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Going from AWE32 to AWE64 really shows us how much progress they made with integration...

AWE64 also saw the removal of some functionality. CDROM interfaces and ASP/CSP. So that integration is less exciting than it seems.

Sure but the card is still half the size!

Same goes for the SB16. The early cards are huge, whereas the final Vibra models only have a few components.

One can't deny the progress made through integration...

How many games actually used the ASP/CSP? I didn't think there was many at all.

As far as integration goes there's a lot of info on the different Creative chips here:
http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php/topic,2175.0.html

Yea that post is great!

Hey DonutKing not sure if you saw my post in your other thread. Do you happen to have a picture of that Vibra16 card you have? The one that has the Yamaha OPL chip?

in the thread that DonutKing points, there are pics of such a Vibra16 cards:

Yea but he has a CT2800...

EDIT: Hey found a thread on VOGONS 🤣

Any Information about SB16 - CT2800?

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Yea but he has a CT2800...

EDIT: Hey found a thread on VOGONS 🤣

Any Information about SB16 - CT2800?

🤣 you replied before my edit, I added a pic of a 2800 😁 😁 😁

edit: I wonder if the 2800 has the hanging note bug... noone replied in the thread here...

CT2504 that's the one. I got 2 cards underway with that same chip. According to the information on queststudios the CF2504 is the last revision with a real OPL3 on the card...

I believe all designs after this used the Creative CQM clone chip...

Hey DonutKing not sure if you saw my post in your other thread. Do you happen to have a picture of that Vibra16 card you have? The one that has the Yamaha OPL chip?

Keropi's picture of a CT2800 above looks almost identical to mine, except mine has an IDE interface, and the 4 pads on the left side have chips soldered onto them- obviously something to do with the IDE.

I've been very happy with the CT2800, sounds great, excellent quality compared to older SB16's. I've been using it with an MT32 and I haven't noticed the hanging note bug, only really tried with Lucasarts adventure games though. Did try briefly with Doom and Hexen and didn't get it there but I was only playing them for a few minutes.

I've found old games like monkey Island required slowing the machine down by disabling cache, otherwise the MT32 sounded terrible, missing notes etc... not sure if this has any bearing on the hanging note bug.