Ensoniq AudioPCI:

Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

There are also the later Creative cards (like the Sound Blaster Live!) that had onboard samples (that were not loaded into RAM as with the earlier models).

However, from a DOS gaming perspective, PCI sound cards generally have compatibility issues and are not really suited for that environment.

There are also PCI based sound cards from other manufacturers, but they also fall short in one way or the other in terms of DOS and overall features support.

So what ISA card would you suggest which is fairly cheap an sounds "ok"? AWE64 Gold and SCC-1 are a bit pricey. Which cheap ISA cards have the best midi wavetables, that would sound similar or close to PCI's YMF724?

Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI
Aureal Vortex 2 / TB Santa Cruz aka Videologic Sonic Fury unter DOS

Sorry, that's the best I can offer. PCI+DOS doesn't go well together, you know.
Why not adhere to ISA cards in DOS ? Both are carcass of the 20th century.

Here's my post on getting a Turtle Beach Montego II to emulate a SB Pro and use its wavetable when booting from a DOS boot disk.

Re: A Voodoo 3, Vortex 2, Slot 1 based Glide machine

However, I think you may have to install the card using its Windows installation first to create the necessary directory and files (I did before even thinking to try it in DOS). It's possible you could just copy the files without having to have Windows on your PC, but I haven't tried that.

The yamaha Audician 32 plus is a cheap ISA soundcard with wavetable header and SB compatibility, can still get them brand new on ebay

Doppler wrote:

So what ISA card would you suggest which is fairly cheap an sounds "ok"? AWE64 Gold and SCC-1 are a bit pricey. Which cheap ISA cards have the best midi wavetables, that would sound similar or close to PCI's YMF724?

Apart from the Audician 32 Plus, you can also look at the Aztech Labs Sound Galaxy range of sound cards (they were also marketed as OEM models for HP, Trust & Packard Bell).
Most of these models start with an FCC ID of I38-MMSN...
The Aztech sound cards have very good Sound Blaster Pro II compatibility (except for the very first models and the ones with the AZT-1605 chipsets, which were only Sound Blaster 2.0 compatible), a real OPL3 & a wave blaster header with no MIDI hanging note bug.
I would recommend one of the 3rd generation sound cards (with the AZT-2316 chipset). These are, however, not Plug 'n Play, but they work perfectly under Windows.

synrgy87 wrote:

The yamaha Audician 32 plus is a cheap ISA soundcard with wavetable header and SB compatibility, can still get them brand new on ebay

Yeah, but wavetable modules are anything but cheap, and they're not easy to find either. At this point really the only decent options (availability-wise) are the Dreamblaster series - and the S1 is 30 euro, witch is pretty steep if you ask me. The X1 is a whopping 80 euro - for 90 euro shipped I got a genuine SC-55! There's also the diamond monster wavetable synths witch pop up now and again on ebay, but when they do they are far from cheap, and they usually pop up in the US, witch means expensive shipping for anyone outside. There's one on ebay right now selling for 38$ - add 36$ shipping and you come to the same price as a dreamblaster X1 witch sounds a lot better. Add 10-15 euro and you can get a genuine Roland external synth.

A PCI128 is like 5-10$ tops. ISA cards with built in synths are very rare and very expensive, so I'm not even going to mention those.

Yes I know the prices of MIDI daughterboards, and thats why Im looking for an ISA card which would have "built-in" rom sounbank 😜 Daughterboards are not a solution for this moment. Dont have the money, so im looking for something fairly good with builtin wavetable synth. I know now (form the other topic) that I could buy AWE32 and load a sf2 sounbank every boot. But still, are there any other ISA cards with built-in ROM sounbank?

Doppler wrote:

So what ISA card would you suggest which is fairly cheap an sounds "ok"? AWE64 Gold and SCC-1 are a bit pricey. Which cheap ISA cards have the best midi wavetables, that would sound similar or close to PCI's YMF724?

Here is a thread I created that lists a number of ISA sound cards with built-in wavetable. They range quite widely in quality, but some decent examples are available for under $20.

ISA Sound Cards with Internal Wavetable

Also, I mentioned in the eBay thread that a seller has new old stock Turtle Beach Maui cards for $22 each. These are wavetable upgrade cards and are a good solution if a daughterboard is out of reach, price-wise.

Your link is an answer to all my questions. Everything seems clearly laid out. Need to think about those cards.

BIG BIG THANKS! 😀

BTW, the AudioPCI and Live, SBPCI64/128/512, and Audigy cards all use the same DOS audio with the same MIDI softsynth. And it's really not so hot because of limitations with the patch set format (ECW) and synth.

They also do a horrific OPL3 emulation. 😀

Though their 16 bit PCM support is very clean compared to say a real SB16 or AWE32.

boxpressed wrote:

Here is a thread I created that lists a number of ISA sound cards with built-in wavetable. They range quite widely in quality, b […]
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Doppler wrote:

So what ISA card would you suggest which is fairly cheap an sounds "ok"? AWE64 Gold and SCC-1 are a bit pricey. Which cheap ISA cards have the best midi wavetables, that would sound similar or close to PCI's YMF724?

Here is a thread I created that lists a number of ISA sound cards with built-in wavetable. They range quite widely in quality, but some decent examples are available for under $20.

ISA Sound Cards with Internal Wavetable

Also, I mentioned in the eBay thread that a seller has new old stock Turtle Beach Maui cards for $22 each. These are wavetable upgrade cards and are a good solution if a daughterboard is out of reach, price-wise.

22$ is a great price, but the 50$ shipping is a deal-barker for me.

Doppler wrote:

Yes I know the prices of MIDI daughterboards, and thats why Im looking for an ISA card which would have "built-in" rom sounbank 😜 Daughterboards are not a solution for this moment. Dont have the money, so im looking for something fairly good with builtin wavetable synth. I know now (form the other topic) that I could buy AWE32 and load a sf2 sounbank every boot. But still, are there any other ISA cards with built-in ROM sounbank?

AWE32 cards aren't exactly cheap either, tough they are pretty common in some places. In Romania, a AWE32 will cost anywhere from 12 to 50$, but 4 or 16mb 30-pin simm modules are almost impossible to find locally. Actually 30 pin simms are extremely hard to find, and when you do find some they're 256, 512kb or 1mb tops. I found decently priced 4mb modules on ebay but steep shipping foiled me again.

Besides, the AWE32 synth is reachable trough the 620h port, meaning only games with AWE support can benefit from it. For older general midi compatible games that require your synth to be at 300-330h, you're stuck with the card's OPL3 (or twin OPL2) for music. I wish creative made a TSR to redirect general midi to 620h for older games to work with the AWE32 synth...

meh. So AWE32 is no solution either. Seems I must search for a more expensive card like Guillemot Maxi Sound or semthing similar 🙁

I have a couple of PCI sound cards that has wavetable under DOS listed here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cvhr6 … dit?usp=sharing

I think also some of the ESS chipsets that came after the Solo-1/ES1938 has wavetable.

The premium cards like those from Guillemot will always command a premium unless you get lucky.

The Turtle Beach Maui card I mentioned in the earlier post is about as good as you're going to get for patch set quality for $20-$30 (if you live in the US like the seller).

One inexpensive alternative is the Ensoniq Soundscape Opus patch set. This is not to be confused with the patch set on the premium Soundscape cards. Opus has only a 1MB ROM set, but it is fairly high quality. The actual Ensoniq Soundscape Opus card is scarce because it was a Gateway OEM. However, there is an audio/modem combo card called the NEC Harmony that uses the Opus chip. It sells for about $25 after shipping (if you live in the US). I've never tried it and so don't know about drivers. The Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO also uses the Opus chip and can sometimes be found for $10-$15.

One other thing you can do is just search eBay using terms such as "Crystal ISA sound" or "Opti ISA sound." Sellers often identify a card by the brand on the codec or controller. Then, you just look for a fully populated card to see if there is a wavetable patch set on it. For instance, here's one that uses a AdMOS QDSP QS700 patch set. But paired with its controller/codec, the GM is not very good (I review it in my other thread). Still, it's $17 shipped.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/112102237318

Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO is actually not an OPUS card. It uses a more integrated chip called Mark 5. It also requires EMM386 be loaded in DOS, unlike the other Soundscape cards. But its MIDI sounds a lot like an OPUS card.

kanecvr wrote:

synrgy87 wrote:

The yamaha Audician 32 plus is a cheap ISA soundcard with wavetable header and SB compatibility, can still get them brand new on ebay

Yeah, but wavetable modules are anything but cheap, and they're not easy to find either. At this point really the only decent options (availability-wise) are the Dreamblaster series - and the S1 is 30 euro, witch is pretty steep if you ask me. The X1 is a whopping 80 euro - for 90 euro shipped I got a genuine SC-55! There's also the diamond monster wavetable synths witch pop up now and again on ebay, but when they do they are far from cheap, and they usually pop up in the US, witch means expensive shipping for anyone outside. There's one on ebay right now selling for 38$ - add 36$ shipping and you come to the same price as a dreamblaster X1 witch sounds a lot better. Add 10-15 euro and you can get a genuine Roland external synth.

A PCI128 is like 5-10$ tops. ISA cards with built in synths are very rare and very expensive, so I'm not even going to mention those.

very true, i paired a Audician 32 plus and a Dreamblaster S1 for my Pentium 120 system, total price was £43 for that, I was lucky enough to find a AWE 64 Gold on ebay for under £30 a while back which i use for another system, All comes down to what you're prepared to pay and the trade offs you are happy with, Cheap option would be a SB PCI card like an audigy 1 or SB Live! but like discussed these have their drawbacks.

You can go cheap or go all out or settle somewhere inbetween.

swaaye wrote:

Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO is actually not an OPUS card. It uses a more integrated chip called Mark 5. It also requires EMM386 be loaded in DOS, unlike the other Soundscape cards. But its MIDI sounds a lot like an OPUS card.

Right. I meant to say that the patch set on the VIVO sounds very similar if not identical to the one on the Opus. I think I uploaded some audio files comparing the GM music from the two in the Soundscape thread.