You might find this webpage helpful in determining what RAM configuration your board will accept:

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/D/DA … 86-EXP4044.html

It seems that you can combine both 30-pin and 72-pin modules together, but it also looks like the total of 12MB is not a valid option. Have you got a couple of sticks of 4MB 72-pin RAM, to make a total of 8MB? If so, and you only plan on using DOS, then that should be OK. I remember back in the day that Dark Forces needed 8MB, but my guess is that your 486 machine will be used for older/slower DOS games, and your Pentium machine will be used for faster DOS games.

Is there a special reason why you have chosen the SB16 CT2940 model? I once tested a similar PnP model, the CT2960 I think it was. IMHO, I thought the general sound quality was poor, probably the worst of all SB16s I have tested. A nicer and slightly more era appropriate sound card to go for might be a non PnP SB16, such as the CT2230. Luckily, they still appear fairly cheaply on ebay from time to time. You might also like to consider an 8-bit SB Pro (eg CT1600) instead of a 16-bit SB.

IMHO, SB clones seem OK too. I've tested some ESS AudioDrive and Opti cards, and they were both more than satisfactory, and generally speaking seemed better than the Creative cards themselves. Examples are: ES1688F, ES1868F, ES1869F, Opti 82C929A. They are PnP cards, but do not require any memory resident driver.

One thing you can do with these clone cards is mount a wavetable daughterboard on to them. I read in your hardware profile, you have an MT-32, but no General MIDI option. You could either "daisy chain" another external module to the MT-32 for GM music, or try a wavetable DB on a SB clone card. The advantage of using an ESS or Opti or CS Crystal clone card is that it will work correctly with a wavetable daughterboard. OTOH, if you use a Creative SB16 there is a very strong chance it will not play the music correctly, and emit "hanging notes" which spoil the sound.

It seems that you can combine both 30-pin and 72-pin modules together, but it also looks like the total of 12MB is not a valid option.

It seems quite odd that it wouldn't work, though. I wonder if it might just be that all the possible configurations aren't listed.

I agree about the SB clones. Actually, I'd say a clone is a better option than a SB16, not just because they sound better than Creative cards, but also because they give you SBPro compatibility... which is more useful in 486-era games than SB16 compatibility.

As for the PC Partner board, it might be OK, might not, just have to try it and see really. It's basically a PCChips board. There are a bunch of brands under the same parent company, Hsing Tech. PCChips, Matsonic, PC Partner, PC-100, Aristo, Amptron, Elpina, PCWare, Protac, there's all sorts of 'em. I think PC Partner and Matsonic were the 'higher-end' of the bunch, but that's not really saying a whole lot.

I found that the older the games the more issues you will have with clone cards. Starting with Doom and later, pretty much any card works just fine, even PCI cards.

But old games that just started using digital sound effects, that's where it gets interesting 😀 The ESS AudioDrive cards have excellent compatibility, but not 100%. Nothing is 100% compatible. Found a few games that don't work properly on the ESS cards and I haven't tested that many cards yet.

SB Pro compatibility is totally overrated and seems to have become this Retro myth. Games from that era hardly used digital sound effects, let alone in Stereo. I looked for ages and still haven't found a game that supports Stereo sound effects on a SB Pro while not having support for the SB 16 😀 If you find one, please let me know!

@ SquallStrife

Driving a MT-32 with a SB16 = bad idea...

Firstly Creatives MPU401 don't support the intelligent mode. So many games will refuse to work.

Secondly most SB16s have this hanging note bug.

You really should find a Roland MPU401 or compatible midi card. The ESS cards RG100 mentioned will at least avoid the hanging note bug...

Nothing is 100% compatible. Found a few games that don't work properly on the ESS cards and I haven't tested that many cards yet.

What are the games you had trouble with? And, for that matter, which ESS cards?

GODS and Fate of Atlantis. The card is a ESS AudioDrive 1868F...

There are likely more but after finding these two games I didn't do any further testing. It still is an excellent card. Likely 99% of games will work just fine and the OPL clone is very good too.

If you are planning on using a Wavetable board however then you should avoid Creative cards. Most of their cards have this hanging note bug.

The ESS AudioDrive is actually a really good host for wavetable boards. Very quiet (little noise) and no hanging notes whatsoever.

I just dug out an ESS AudioDrive ES1868F card, and ran the game "Gods". At first, I heard the digital sound get cut off in various places. Something wasn't right. So I ran the esscfg.exe utility, and changed the IRQ of the card from 5 to 7, then reran Gods. No problems! All digital sound, as well as the music could be heard, without any cut offs.

I'm now tempted to get Fate of Atlantis, to see where the problem is. I am currently not a Steam account holder, but they sell 4 Lucas Arts adventures for only £6.99 (about 10 US$), so I might get them. Can I copy these games to a CD-R, and install them on to an old DOS based PC, or are the game files in some way "locked" on to your modern internet connected PC?

retro games 100 wrote:

Is there a special reason why you have chosen the SB16 CT2940 model?

That's just what I happened to have lying around. I have a bigger, older SB16 (not sure of the model number, it came in a kit with the Creative 2X CD-ROM drive and has the Panasonic CD-ROM interface), but it has an issue that digital sound is very soft from the left channel. MIDI comes out fine, but not wave sounds. I'm betting it's just a dead cap or something, but it's just having the time to troubleshoot such a thing.

retro games 100 wrote:

One thing you can do with these clone cards is mount a wavetable daughterboard on to them. I read in your hardware profile, you have an MT-32, but no General MIDI option. You could either "daisy chain" another external module to the MT-32 for GM music, or try a wavetable DB on a SB clone card. The advantage of using an ESS or Opti or CS Crystal clone card is that it will work correctly with a wavetable daughterboard. OTOH, if you use a Creative SB16 there is a very strong chance it will not play the music correctly, and emit "hanging notes" which spoil the sound.

OK, I'll check it out. I'm getting some "eBay money" from the inlaws, and was going to spend it on some new retro hardware, maybe one of these clones with a DB60XG would be the ticket. I'm also considering an AWE64 Gold for my Pentium III rig, with one of those SIMMCONN things, that setup really impressed me.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

@ SquallStrife […]
Show full quote

@ SquallStrife

Driving a MT-32 with a SB16 = bad idea...

Firstly Creatives MPU401 don't support the intelligent mode. So many games will refuse to work.

Secondly most SB16s have this hanging note bug.

You really should find a Roland MPU401 or compatible midi card. The ESS cards RG100 mentioned will at least avoid the hanging note bug...

That's what I keep hearing, but I can't say I've had a problem yet with something not working, or hanging notes. The bulk of what I play with my MT-32 is Sierra and Lucasarts games, and they both seem to work properly, they send their patches to the unit and display messages on the LCD. Admittedly, some of the Sierra games needed that MTBLAST driver from Quest Studios, but once that was working everything was great.

Lucky I guess?

SquallStrife wrote:

I have a bigger, older SB16 (not sure of the model number, it came in a kit with the Creative 2X CD-ROM drive and has the Panasonic CD-ROM interface), but it has an issue that digital sound is very soft from the left channel.

I can't remember the name of the SB16 DOS mixer, is it mixerset.exe, or is there another DOS mixer utiltiy as well? I know it's really obvious, but perhaps run your SB16 DOS mixer utility, and check it just in case the "left-right balance slider" position for the digital effects is uneven.

SquallStrife wrote:

I'm also considering an AWE64 Gold for my Pentium III rig, with one of those SIMMCONN things, that setup really impressed me.

Unfortunately, I'm fairly certain that the AWE64 cannot load sound fonts in to its RAM in "pure" DOS. However, it will work if you run your DOS games at the Windows 9x desktop. This situation applies to the SimmConn adapter, or Creative's memory modules, or just using the AWE64 with whatever onboard RAM it has.

retro games 100 wrote:

I can't remember the name of the SB16 DOS mixer, is it mixerset.exe, or is there another DOS mixer utiltiy as well? I know it's really obvious, but perhaps run your SB16 DOS mixer utility, and check it just in case the "left-right balance slider" position for the digital effects is uneven.

Yeah, I've spent plenty of time fiddling with mixer settings, different drivers, even running it under 98SE, and it's the same problem across the board.

retro games 100 wrote:

However, it will work if you run your DOS games at the Windows 9x desktop. This situation applies to the SimmConn adapter, or Creative's memory modules, or just using the AWE64 with whatever onboard RAM it has.

That was the plan. The P3 rig has 98SE.

Actually, just thinking about SB Clones... I remember that back in the day, one of my sisters had a computer with an ESS 1868, and it always made AdLib based games (like Commander Keen) sound weird... kind of..cheaper...not sure how else to describe it.

Would an SB Pro be a better alternative if I can't fix the digital sound on this old SB16?

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

GODS and Fate of Atlantis. The card is a ESS AudioDrive 1868F...

Just wondering something - do you have the Steam version of "Fate of Atlantis"?

retro games 100 wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

GODS and Fate of Atlantis. The card is a ESS AudioDrive 1868F...

Just wondering something - do you have the Steam version of "Fate of Atlantis"?

I have that version as well, but AFAIK it uses it's own windows interpreter. I don't believe it works with DOSBox at all...

I was quite disappointed with that version as the music sounds quite bad. It's neither Roland nor FM. Sounds like a basic Roland Emulation or something like that.

But I only found out after I purchased the game 😵

The Ensoniq AudioPCI / Creative rebrands also fails. Speech stops after a short while...

The other SB16 I have is a CT2740, DSP version 4.12.

Any good?

Sound Blaster Pro doesn't have a midi port, so you won't be able to drive your MT-32.

Lucasarts games work fine though the joystick port, Sierra games (as you found out) through a patch.

So yea if you don't play games that need the "intelligent mode" then this shouldn't be a big deal. For speech / FM any Soundblaster should do the trick. I don't know your particular card, I doubt it's THAT bad is it?

There is the argument about having a real OPL chip though. Do your cards have genuine Yamaha OPL chips?

Games that won't work:

Innocent until Caught (Core Design,'93)
Curse of Enchantia (Psygnosis,'92)
David Wolf (Dynamix,'90)
Ecargxus (demo by TPC,'92)
Spellcasting 201
Timequest
Spellcasting 301
Frederik Pohl's Gateway
Companions Of Xanth
Gateway II: Homeworld
Eric The Unready
A-10 Tank Killer (Dynamix)
David Wolf (Dynamix)
Laser Squad (Krisalis)
Sabre Team (Krisalis '94)
Shadoworlds (Krisalis '93)
Hired Guns (Psygnosis '93)
Corporation" (Core Design '91)
Wing Commander
Wing Commander II
Princess Maker 2
Wonderland

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

But I only found out after I purchased the game 😵

Oh dear! 🙁 Oh well, at least you helped me save £6.99. Thanks. 😊

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Sound Blaster Pro doesn't have a midi port, so you won't be able to drive your MT-32.

Well there you go, the more you know! 😀

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

So yea if you don't play games that need the "intelligent mode" then this shouldn't be a big deal. For speech / FM any Soundblaster should do the trick. I don't know your particular card, I doubt it's THAT bad is it?

I'll record a sample and post it up when I get a chance. I don't think it's so bad.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

There is the argument about having a real OPL chip though. Do your cards have genuine Yamaha OPL chips?

I'm guessing not. On both cards, all of the chips are labelled Creative Labs. In fact, the CT2940 only has two chips on it, both Creative-labelled.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Games that won't work:

I guess I'll just use DosBox if I ever get the urge to play any of them! 😀

On a side note, the EXP4044 motherboard arrived today. Apart from the stupid location of the CPU socket, it's a cool little board. It still has the original battery from 1994, but theres zero leakage, and it's still reading 3.6v. Impressed!

SquallStrife wrote:

Also, do you think it's possible to combine 30-pin and 72-pin RAM on it?

While this shouldn't not work, there might be some limitations.
Sorry for not having read the manual.
I once tested mixing both types of memory on another board which has both types of memory slots and found out the following:
If I put very small 30 pin modules in it, it would only recognize a very small portion of the 72 pin memory. When I added larger 30 pin modules it would also recognize a larger part of the 72 pin module.
If you later get these same issues with your installed memory, try adding the largest 30 pin modules in the mobo and see if that fixes it 😉

Edit: Another tip. I also have a motherboard with the "acid-bomb" battery (It's not in a system though). Whenever I don't use it, I set the jumper to CLEAR CMOS with the brightest red jumpercap I have and put a sheet of paper on top with a warning to set that jumper before applying power (and with the rest of all the jumpers btw).
This way it won't start leaking unexpectedly 😉

Uhm such a battery will start leaking whenever it wants, even when not conected.