Monkey Island on Gravis ultrasound MAX "Roland mode":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBI0_uSpzic

Duke3D on a lot of different cards and modules:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFX63IGmbwY

philscomputerlab wrote:

I made some recordings of Money Island with various sound cards. Maybe this helps to understand some of the differences.

The Secret of Monkey Island with various sound cards

I think I "see" the difference even more. Excellent vid!

Indeed a pc speaker will sound different to a opl2 and a wavetable
But many opl3 clones (like essfm) sounds almost The same (not including waveblaster) The difference is really short compared to wavetables sound cards, where each one would make a really different sound to others.

Just ending http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2A7fqIF9Y8 at 16 minute is my monkey island recorded using the essfm18xx, well, monkey island is a great sound support system, I would give it a100% score, it works from a PC speaker to a Wavetable sound card

gerwin wrote:

This is a nice primer on the subject, ranging 1981-1995:
Phonomenal! ... a retrospective view on sound card history
Though most talk and feelings are about the well known cards, there are very capable clones too. Like from ESS, Yamaha and Crystal.

Wow, I just read this - It's interesting, my father is an audiophile (who at age 70 knows how to convert tapes to MP3 using Audacity to a good level of sophistication on an older P4 3.0 that I built him for that task, using inputs from a Yamaha KX-230) but never embraced the digital era. In fact, we got our first computer, which was a Compaq Deskpro 386e (read : a POS) with 640K RAM. I sold that thing quick and got another machine, a true DX, which I promptly added more RAM to and made the speed quicker on. Then I added a good video card and purchased larger, higher resolution, and smaller dot-pitch monitors for, completely negating the sound.

Wow