dionb wrote on 2022-12-24, 12:17:

Am I correct in saying you already have other systems beside these IBM ones? […]
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Am I correct in saying you already have other systems beside these IBM ones?

If so, you don't need to worry about basics and can be a bit adventurous here. The obvious - and actually workable - choice would be what IBM themselves would have installed. That would probably have been mWave cards, most likely the IBM 'Dolphin'. They have a bit of a bad rep, but are actually usable under DOS and pretty good under Win98SE. Maybe it's just me but I've never, literally never, been able to get one to work under Windows 95.

For DOS, the SB Digital audio is fine. The OPL3 is... well... amusing 😉
In Windows you have a full and decent MIDI synth available.

If you do want to have as broadly useful sound as possible, I'd suggest setting up the 486 for legacy stuff, so with real OPL3 and SBpro2 - and bug-free MIDI, and the P200 for newer games. There the CT3670 would be ideal, but even the pretty ubiquitous and cheap CT4520 AWE64 Value would be doable. I'd recommend a second card next to it for bug-free MIDI though (AWE64 doesn't have hanging note isues, but does suffer from MIDI slowdowns when 16b audio is being played, which is exactly your P200 use case). That second card could be exactly the same as the card in the 486. Any generic OPTi 929/930, Aztech 2316/2320 or similar would fit the bill.

And then you still have the P60. Stick the mWave in there anyway 😜

Hi, very thanks, I have other computers but mainly MAC that I use for work, so the retro computers I would like to use are just these 4 plus a 5150 when I have time. I think I have all the systems I need, I just need to experiment with expansion cards.

Having said that, in a certain sense reading you all, I am always thankful for having found this forum populated by highly knowledgeable people on the subject of retrocomputing, I have changed my mind a bit and now the goal is:

DX4 -> SBPro2.0
P60 -> SB16 CT2770
P200 -> experimenting with MIDI music, whether it's wewatable or on expansion of ram on the card I haven't figured it out yet, but surely I won't fit another limited OPL3 card, I already have other computers equipped with this type of card.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-12-24, 18:55:

AlessandroB wrote on 2022-12-24, 10:01:

i am confusing about: (opl3 YES-NO) (header YES-NO) (30pin YES-NO) all this combination are a mess.

This is why I asked earlier if you were interested in any non-Creative Labs cards. With Creative Labs, it seems like every card involves a compromise in some way.

I read a bit on the subject and I understand that you have advised in the right way, and I have changed my mind a bit and now the goal is:

DX4 -> SBPro2.0
P60 -> SB16 CT2770
P200 -> experimenting with MIDI music, whether it's wewatable or on expansion of ram on the card I haven't figured it out yet, but surely I won't fit another limited OPL3 card, I already have other computers equipped with this type of card.

jesolo wrote on 2022-12-24, 10:52:

I think you'll find that the DX4 (I presume it's a DX4-100) will very much overlap with your P60 in terms of integer performance […]
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I think you'll find that the DX4 (I presume it's a DX4-100) will very much overlap with your P60 in terms of integer performance and will sometimes outperform it. In other words, whatever games you can play on the P60, you can either play on the P200 or the DX4. The DX4 should be able to clock down a bit (in most cases via the turbo switch) to give you slower performance for those speed sensitive DOS games.
If you intend of using the P200 as a system for running DOS & Windows 9x games, then I suggest creating a start-up menu under Windows 9x which will then allow you to boot into DOS 7.x as well (How to create a boot (start up) menu under Windows 9x/ME).

I think there is nothing wrong pairing your DX4 with a Sound Blaster Pro 2 (as opposed to a SB16). Most games from that era didn't have 16-bit samples anyway (apart from your very late era games) and the Sound Blaster Pro 2 does have that nostalgia for you.
As for the P200, any AWE card will do as your target games will most likely be later DOS games (post 1992). You can refer to this article which provides more detail about the various AWE cards - http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2012/07/s … 64-options.html.

An AWE card is basically just a SB16 with an "integrated" wavetable synthesis engine (utilising the EMU8000 synthesis chip). The sound quality of your MIDI music will depend on which "samples" you use to play back your MIDI sounds.

Practically all DOS games from that era until around 1996/1997 did provide in game AWE32 support and/or General MIDI (GM) support negating the need for an OPL (or CQM) synthesis chip as the sound (music) quality is considerably better than using FM synthesis. Where your game lacks direct AWE32 support, then you can use the General MIDI option of the game in conjunction with the Aweutil utility.
Check out this thread as well for another utility that user georgel wrote that provides additional GM support for protected mode games as well (by default, Aweutil only provides GM support for real mode games under DOS) - DOS32AWE - DOS/4G compatible DOS Extender with Sound Blaster AWEUTIL MIDI synthesizer support for Protected mode,VIASB.

I do wish to point out that, if you intend on playing DOS games prior to 1992, then your MIDI support will be mostly based around the Roland MT-32 standard. The AWE cards' MT-32 support is very limited and I would suggest that you there look at other options (like MUNT). Philscomputer lab also made a video on that subject a while back.

PS: The CT3670 is a basically a "low cost" AWE64 with 30-pin simm sockets.

I've read a lot in these two days and I'll probably keep the SBPRO2.0 on the 486, the CT2770 (which I discovered to be a very good SB16) on the P60 while on the P200 I'll indulge myself more on the MIDI path...

Disruptor wrote on 2022-12-25, 12:12:

I've found out that there exist decent soundfonts that fit in 8 MB size (*.sf2, *.sbk). AWE64 just has 512 kB RAM AWE64 Gold has […]
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I've found out that there exist decent soundfonts that fit in 8 MB size (*.sf2, *.sbk).
AWE64 just has 512 kB RAM
AWE64 Gold has 4 MB RAM
AWE32 with SIMM sockets may have 2x256 kB, 2x1 MB, 2x4 MB or 2x16 MB. From the last pair just 28 MB are useable.
However, once populated I do not recommend to change the SIMMs in the AWE32 sockets since they tend to be very fragile.

No matter what amount of RAM you use.
Alone the presence of wavetable improves games and MIDI playback compared to FM synthesis.
But I guess you want to play with soundfonts too 😀

So from what you're saying, to use midi is it better to have a lot of ram so as to load higher quality instruments? I still don't quite understand the various compatibilities/incompatibilities between FM and MIDI. On any game can I choose if FM (OLP2/3) or midi? If yes, then better a card with more RAM to load more beautiful instruments? The thing is much more complicated than I imagined, I've always left out the audio cards speech and I thought that with a good card with OPL3 I could have done a bit of everything and instead.

Perhaps.
But you also will hear the difference with the AWE's builtin ROM samples. Hardly any game will use the DRAM on the AWE.
I think 8 MB is a reasonable amount of DRAM on any AWE.
In Windows 98' DOS box you may use an emulation that routes MPU through the AWE's wavetable synthesis.

(Yes, I know that 28 MB is the maximum, but it also will take about one minute to just load the soundfont! - with 8 MB it just are some seconds)

Disruptor wrote on 2022-12-25, 22:47:

Perhaps. But you also will hear the difference with the AWE's builtin ROM samples. Hardly any game will use the DRAM on the AWE. […]
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Perhaps.
But you also will hear the difference with the AWE's builtin ROM samples. Hardly any game will use the DRAM on the AWE.
I think 8 MB is a reasonable amount of DRAM on any AWE.
In Windows 98' DOS box you may use an emulation that routes MPU through the AWE's wavetable synthesis.

(Yes, I know that 28 MB is the maximum, but it also will take about one minute to just load the soundfont! - with 8 MB it just are some seconds)

sorry I did not understand…. a game can use the FM synthesizer to play the music, whether it's opl or cqm, little changes in the end, instead if you tell it to use the midi it uses the sounds that the peripheral plays which can have them in rom or load them into the ram of the sound card ... I think it's always better to have them custom in the ram because I imagine better ones have come out over time, in the rolan55 awe32/64 roms those are and those remain ... or not?

Most of the games that support the AWE directly don't use the RAM.
Some of the games can use an MPU to AWE routing that is provided from a Windows 98 for the DOS box, or some builtin AWE tools. However, that Windows driver will support soundbanks. And for playback of MIDI in Windows you improve from soundbanks too.

Disruptor wrote on 2022-12-26, 10:00:

Most of the games that support the AWE directly don't use the RAM.
Some of the games can use an MPU to AWE routing that is provided from a Windows 98 for the DOS box, or some builtin AWE tools. However, that Windows driver will support soundbanks. And for playback of MIDI in Windows you improve from soundbanks too.

mmhhh… not like this way… there is a native hardware way to use “something different” than the OPL? without using strange exotic systems with dosbox, custom drivers etc…

Yes. So called "WaveBlaster" modules.
But be sure to not have any of those SB16 chips that suffer from the hanging note bug.

Disruptor wrote on 2022-12-26, 13:44:

Yes. So called "WaveBlaster" modules.
But be sure to not have any of those SB16 chips that suffer from the hanging note bug.

i have seen it and i have seen thirty party weve blaster but you can’t load a custom instruments. it’s not better to have this possibilities?

Yes, that's the difference.

for my DX4, im using a sound blaster 16 CT1770 with the 4.05 DSP

I'm still confusing... what the difference using external midi ora onboard ram or 30pin ram??? and the hanging note is affected also if i use the sample in the internal ram or 30pin ram socket???

The infamous hanging note bug only happens when using external MIDI modules connected thru the gameport or in the case of AWE32, a module connected to the WaveBlaster header. It won't happen if the EMU8K (or AWE wavetable 😜) is being used for MIDI playback since it is largely detached from the SB16-compatible components.

BTW, SB16 and AWE32 cards having the CT1747 bus chip aren't prone to that bug.

Disruptor wrote on 2022-12-25, 22:47:

Perhaps. But you also will hear the difference with the AWE's builtin ROM samples. Hardly any game will use the DRAM on the AWE. […]
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Perhaps.
But you also will hear the difference with the AWE's builtin ROM samples. Hardly any game will use the DRAM on the AWE.
I think 8 MB is a reasonable amount of DRAM on any AWE.
In Windows 98' DOS box you may use an emulation that routes MPU through the AWE's wavetable synthesis.

(Yes, I know that 28 MB is the maximum, but it also will take about one minute to just load the soundfont! - with 8 MB it just are some seconds)

The only real use for big SIMMs that comes to my mind is Impulse Tracker (and similar programs).
Some tracker music is so huge and complex that several megabytes are needed.
These 8 MBs might be almost too few for those.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-12-28, 21:59:

The only real use for big SIMMs that comes to my mind is Impulse Tracker (and similar programs). Some tracker music is so huge a […]
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Disruptor wrote on 2022-12-25, 22:47:

Perhaps. But you also will hear the difference with the AWE's builtin ROM samples. Hardly any game will use the DRAM on the AWE. […]
Show full quote

Perhaps.
But you also will hear the difference with the AWE's builtin ROM samples. Hardly any game will use the DRAM on the AWE.
I think 8 MB is a reasonable amount of DRAM on any AWE.
In Windows 98' DOS box you may use an emulation that routes MPU through the AWE's wavetable synthesis.

(Yes, I know that 28 MB is the maximum, but it also will take about one minute to just load the soundfont! - with 8 MB it just are some seconds)

The only real use for big SIMMs that comes to my mind is Impulse Tracker (and similar programs).
Some tracker music is so huge and complex that several megabytes are needed.
These 8 MBs might be almost to few for those.

Another real use is getting SF2 SoundFonts loaded in Windows (of course within the maximum allowed memory). 😀