Yea...

GODS is one of the few games I know, that use FM AND speech for music.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Interesting. For me the machine locks up when you hear the first digital speech effect (when Indiana Jones swings through the glass)...

I have tested Yamaha DS-XG PCI vs Aureal Vortex 2 on Fate of Atlantis. With Vortex 2, I found the same problem you describe, game locks up for a few seconds while digital sound playback. But Yamaha DS-XG will play digital sound perfectly with SB-Link attached. It definitely seems to be the most compatible PCI sound card for DOS gaming (we already talked about this matter some days ago on a Roland SC-8820 thread).

sprcorreia wrote:

The only problem i find in Fate is low volume with my Vortex 2.

Maybe it was under Win9x? I also found that low volume issue and no digital sound problem, but only while in Windows 98. Under pure DOS, volume is higher and digital sound playback lags a lot.

batracio wrote:

But Yamaha DS-XG will play digital sound perfectly with SB-Link attached.

That's good news!

I think that we were probably all short changed with the pure software ISA emulation approach for PCI sound cards. If everybody had jumped on SBLink, PCI cards probably would have been quite DOS friendly. But as with most things, the cheaper approach won out over the best.

Or maybe we should blame the ingenious programmers who figured out how to essentially emulate an ISA card in pure software. 😉

Or, blame ISA and PCI for being so unlike each other. Skip ISA altogether maybe 🤣

batracio wrote:

sprcorreia wrote:

The only problem i find in Fate is low volume with my Vortex 2.

Maybe it was under Win9x? I also found that low volume issue and no digital sound problem, but only while in Windows 98. Under pure DOS, volume is higher and digital sound playback lags a lot.

I tested it in pure DOS. Maybe my DB50XG has something to do with it. I'll try without it.

swaaye wrote:

I think that we were probably all short changed with the pure software ISA emulation approach for PCI sound cards. If everybody had jumped on SBLink, PCI cards probably would have been quite DOS friendly. But as with most things, the cheaper approach won out over the best.

Or maybe we should blame the ingenious programmers who figured out how to essentially emulate an ISA card in pure software. 😉

Or, blame ISA and PCI for being so unlike each other. Skip ISA altogether maybe 🤣

Yup I couldn't agree more
Even someone I know who work at Creative Lab couldn't keep up with all change's they where making back then.
I just got off ebay one of thoses Sound Blaster AWE64D model CT4600 coming I still haven't found the CT4650 model.

The AWE64 PCI is a mysterious thing. You should do some testing with it. See how its MIDI works, and check whether it does any hardware DirectSound acceleration. The DSP chip looks similar in size to EMU10K1...

I check thoses things out to, I even have a motherboard that has a SB-Link on it ho boy can't wait it going to be fun play with it.