Only Vibras having the CT2505 and CT2511 chips with integrated CQM FM are completely immune to hanging note, as they apparently have DSP v 4.16.

Low profile cards sometimes work. Would the daughtercard hang down below the bottom of the sound card or below the top of the ISA slot fingers?

IMHO for pure DOS that ES1868F + a daughterboard is a great combo.

Btw, you might wanna look for a CT3670 Sound Blaster 32 instead of an AWE64. That card uses an AWE64 chip and has no onboard memory, but has SIMM slots which make it easier to expand (mostly for Windows duties) since the SIMMCON is no longer being produced.

Keep in mind that people recommending an SC-55 (or compatible) module do so because the majority of games were made with that in mind 😉 Most games only sound "just right" either on an SC-55 or compatible, or something that is very close (which AFAIK only chips from Dream do, which are used by Terratec.)

With an AWE, you will never get the true MIDI sound with games, with only one or two exceptions (out of all the games, I think there's only one or two that were made with the AWE in mind.)

So IMO, you will need a wavetable board. Unless of course you don't care about getting faithful MIDI music. Then the AWE is just fine (but note that there's many games that don't support MIDI with the AWE; it lacks MPU401 compatibility.)

There is a Roland wavetable, but it might be hard to find: the SCB-7.

There is also a wavetable with a Dream chip on with the Roland ROM, from Terratec: the WaveSystem Professional SOWT-24 Ver. 2.0. Might also be hard to find 😜

jarreboum wrote:

if there were a MIDI daughterboard equivalent of the SC-55 I would have to change my mind again 😉

That would be the SCB-55.

I think you already have an often overlooked gem of a sound card with your Maxi Sound Fortissimo. It's very clean sounding, true OPL3, WSS, and Yamaha XG midi support. It's also A3D 1.0 and EAX 1.0 capable. The drawback is its PCI and is a Win 9x card, so it's not really going to be a good candidate for a pure DOS rig. It's a great option for a 98 box if you decide to build one though, so don't ignore it. It's one of my goto cards for test builds in 9x setups.

realnc wrote:

Might also be hard to find 😜

That's actually the main problem. It's not even that they are expensive, they are just not there. I assumed that an AWE64 with soundfonts would be the next best thing, like this one Soundfonts that mimic old hardware (SC-55, DX50XG, AWE64 Gold). I'm considering an original external SC-55 too, but that would be in addition to the setup, not replacing parts of it.

The Terratec Maestro on eBay doesn't have its MIDI daughterboard so I won't bother with it.

As an aside, I'm surprised there hasn't been more attempts at reproducing ancient sound cards with FPGA. There are plenty of hobbyist projects making 8/16bits systems, but sound cards are nonexistent yet. There is a core for OPL3 somewhere, but I don't think I saw an actual card using it.

jarreboum wrote:

The Terratec Maestro on eBay doesn't have its MIDI daughterboard so I won't bother with it.

Are you talking about this listing? - http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Terratec-Profimedi … YMAAOSwuMFUhX4i

Not sure it needs a daughterboard ... I've got one which doesn't have a daughterboard either. Dream MIDI synth is on the card itself.

http://www.amoretro.de/2011/09/terratec-maest … -soundcard.html

and

http://www.amoretro.de/wp-content/uploads/m3296.jpg

jarreboum wrote:

The Terratec Maestro on eBay doesn't have its MIDI daughterboard so I won't bother with it.

The whole point why I recommended the Maestro is because you don't need a daughterboard. The Roland ROM, which is used by the card's Dream synth chip (and which hangs on the MPU401 port) is *on* the card itself. In installers of games, in their sound setup screen, you just select the "Roland Sound Canvas" option (or equivalent), and you're good to go.

Also, the Maestro was not sold with a daughterboard. It has a connector where you can install one, but you won't need to.

And as already mentioned, since it gives you AdLib/OPL, SBPro and Windows Sound System (WSS) compatibility, the only thing that's missing is a CM-64 (which is an MT-32 with extra sounds for games that support them).

Maestro+CM-64 is really a kick-ass combination for retro PC games. The only thing closer to the sound of an actual SC-55 is... an SC-55. There is a small difference in reverb between the Maestro's synth and Roland's, but that's extreme nitpicking. For all intents and purposes, they sound the same.

Oh ok, I didn't get that. Then yes it's a very interesting card!

Another thing I forgot to mention, is that the Maestro is configurable through software. It comes with a program that lets you change IRQ and DMA assignments without having to set jumpers on the card. IIRC, only the base address (like 220 vs 240) was set with a jumper.

firage wrote:

AWE64 would be perfectly Adlib/SB16/AWE32 compatible, but they no longer used the original Yamaha OPL FM synth chip. Creative's clone doesn't necessarily sound worse, but it does sound a little different.

As much as I love my AWE64's, I can safely say CQM sounds worse then Yamaha OPL3. It's not a bad clone, but it is in no way superior or even equivalent to a YMF-262.

It basically sounds like OPL3 with stagefright. Performance anxiety. 🤣

clueless1 wrote:

Go by the CT model number, not the card description.

This? (don't have it any more. It died 🙁 )

brostenen wrote:

This? (don't have it any more. It died :-( ) […]
Show full quote

clueless1 wrote:

Go by the CT model number, not the card description.

This? (don't have it any more. It died 🙁 )

Yes, that's what I mean by CT number. A quick search of that number leads to this thread:
Creative CT2890 PnP vs CT2940 (Sound Blaster 16 models)