Terrific!

Will have a thorough listen to these!

*Man attaching files here is sooo buggy 🤣*

Attached a recording from the AWE64 GOLD.

Sounds quite bad 😢

URL=http://img101.imageshack.us/i/dsc01903l.jpg/][/URL]

Personally speaking, I enjoyed listening to the Opti recording the most. The SB16 sounded satisfactory, while the SB Pro sounded as if the card may be faulty in some way, because of the excessive background noise.

Re: the Opti recording. The bass sounds particularly good. I wonder if it's partly got something to do with that "mysterious" 3-D Audio jumper block? After seeing this on your Opti card photo, I looked eagerly for it on my Opti cards, but alas it isn't there.

Sounds to me like the CT1747 contains Yamaha's YMF262, not the CQM clone. The notes the CQM clone gets wrong sound correct on the CT1747. Thanks for sharing!

Later on I will upload the COMPLETE intro. Listening to Mau1wurf1977, I realized the intro continues way up to 4 minutes 😜
Maybe if I have time I will record also the C-Media 8330.

@RG100: don't know what that jumper block really does. I also noticed that all the OPTi cards I saw, no one has this jumpers.

retro games 100 wrote:

Personally speaking, I enjoyed listening to the Opti recording the most. The SB16 sounded satisfactory, while the SB Pro sounded as if the card may be faulty in some way, because of the excessive background noise.

While the SB Pro 2.0 is noisy, there is something else wrong with this card 🤣

Here is the recording of my SB Pro 2.0 OEM:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Here is the recording of my SB Pro 2.0 OEM:

That's better. Was your mixer setting set to Filter On, or Filter Off?

retro games 100 wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Here is the recording of my SB Pro 2.0 OEM:

That's better. Was your mixer setting set to Filter On, or Filter Off?

That setting only applies to digital speech / sound effects.

Another question:

What are all these huge chips on my SB Pro 2.0 OEM?

There is one from NCR 😳

Mau1wurf1977: how much volume do you give your SB Pro using the control on the back ? do you set it near the middle ? max ?

unmei220 wrote:

Mau1wurf1977: how much volume do you give your SB Pro using the control on the back ? do you set it near the middle ? max ?

A little off max. Like ~80-90% I would say

I still believe that your card might be faulty. It's just way way too noisy.

Well, it seems the quad op-amp on my 82C929A has a broken input, and that broken input is the one in which the raw audio from the YAC512 is fed. I don't have any replacement surface-mount quad op-amps, so what I'm going to do is bypass the broken part of the quad op-amp by mounting a dual op-amp and feeding everything that has to do with the right audio channel on my 82C929A's YMF262 before it reaches the input on the op-amp. Either that, or go for Mono OPL3.

So right now, the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 has taken its place until I fix the 82C929A. That sound card has the loudest sound output out of all my sound cards, so loud, in fact, it can sometimes clip and distort.

I can also confirm the Stereo of the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0's YMF262 is reversed. In Descent's SETUP program, the Stereo is reversed in the music. I'm comparing to the Ensoniq Soundscape here, which has 100% correct Stereo for digital sound and MIDI music.

My loudest card is my ESS AudioDrive. Max out all the mixer options and boy that thing goes off 🤣

Mine, oddly enough, has rather weak audio output. I have to set the jumpers on the sound card to Speaker Out, otherwise the sound is very quiet. But on the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0, if I max out everything in Creative's SBP-MIX software mixer, it becomes REALLY loud.

Remind me how to turn off the filter on the digital sound?

My ESS doesn't have any jumpers. It's quite the "naked" card...

Here are the relevant files from my CONFIG.SYS.SYS:

DEVICE=C:\SBPRO\DRV\CTSBPRO.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 I:7 D:1
DEVICE=C:\SBPRO\DRV\CTMMSYS.SYS

And here from my AUTOEXEC.BAT:

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T4 SET SOUND=C:\SBPRO SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E C:\SBPRO\SBP-SET.EXE /M:10,10 /VOC:15,15 /FM:15,15 /CD:0 /X […]
Show full quote

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T4
SET SOUND=C:\SBPRO
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E
C:\SBPRO\SBP-SET.EXE /M:10,10 /VOC:15,15 /FM:15,15 /CD:0 /X:0 /LINE:0,0 /DNFI:OFF

SB-SET.EXE options:

Boot screen after SET-SB.EXE is run through AUTOEXEC.BAT:

[/b]

Thanks!

Now, I don't know if my memory is correct, but I remember finding a certain mixer where it was possible to reverse the sound output of the YMF262. What mixer is that?

Never heard of that. Just reverse the cable if it bothers you...

But then, if I reverse the cable, the digital sound's Stereo will be reversed. Ah, screw it, I'll just use the sound card as it is until I fix the 82C929A.

Ace wrote:

But then, if i reverse the cable, the digital sound's Stereo will be reversed

That should already be reversed...

You used Descent right? And you found the OPL3 music to be reversed? What about the digital part?

How does a SB16 behave?

Hmm actually I'm going to test all this. Give me a few minutes...

Ok that was easy 🤣

Test was D2DEMO (Descent 2 demo) SETUP.EXE because the music has a clear difference between L and R right at the beginning. On the left you hear a beat and a loooong holding note. The left plays a beat and a melody.

Ok cards tested are: ESS Audiodrive, AWE64 not the GOLD (because it has headphone out) and SB Pro 2.0

OPL3 music: All 3 cards have the same L, R configuration. No difference between any cards.

Digital / speech: AWE64 voice "left" comes out from L and voice "right" comes out from R.

ESS AudioDrive and SB Pro 2.0 have this reversed. Voice "left" comes out from R and voice "right" comes out from L...

So there you have it. FM is the same across all cards. Voice is swapped on the Pro 2.0 and ESS AudioDrive.

Strange... if that's the case, then I guess the MIDI music in Descent was probably made with the Stereo reversed.

But I don't get it: I did notice the Stereo was reversed on the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 in Descent, but for whatever reason, the Stereo is NOT reversed in the Collector's CD-ROM edition.

Also, Descent has exposed a flaw in the 82C929A I was not aware of: with the SoundBlaster Pro option for digital sound, the Stereo doesn't work at all. Wonder if I'll get Stereo out of the 82C929A with another sound option.

As for SoundBlaster 16s, I haven't tried it out. I'll try my SoundBlaster Vibra16 model CT2260 and my SoundBlaster 16 WavEffects model CT4170 and report back.

Some thoughts...

Descent has an option to reverse Stereo so all good there.

Collector's CD-ROM edition: Well they likely knew that the SB Pro 2.0 has Stereo reversed and addressed this. AFAIK all SB Pros are like this, so it makes sense that the developers took this into consideration.

I guess Descent and other games had this option because some SB Pro clones didn't have the Stereo configured the same as the original SB Pro. Who knows 🤣

82C929A: Maybe it's SB16 compatible? Try that option, because on a SB16/32/64 you also get Mono when you select SB Pro...

No need to test the SB16. AWE32, AWE64s are all SB16s as far as the digital portion goes...