The Santa Cruz sounds more austere, but I like that. The SB Live renderings have much more sibilance which I find distracting.

gdjacobs wrote:

The Santa Cruz sounds more austere, but I like that. The SB Live renderings have much more sibilance which I find distracting.

To my ear the Santa Cruz had more authentic-sounding instruments in this composition.

Hmm, the Santa Cruz bank sounds good I suppose. I am curious how other games would sound on that card, too.

By the way, the Santa Cruz's DLS bank has the extension "CLS", I assume? Anyone know if/how it differs from normal DLS files? I am guessing that the CLS is a DLS that's been compressed in some way, and only the Santa Cruz software is able to recognize the format.

Synthoridity wrote:

Hmm, the Santa Cruz bank sounds good I suppose. I am curious how other games would sound on that card, too.

When I get time, I'll will make some more recordings. The only other GOG games I currently have that support General MIDI are Strike Commander and (I think) Wing Commander 3. I don't know for sure if WC3 supports general MIDI. I do have some pure DOS versions of games like Duke3D, System Shock and Descent2 but they are not easily installable on WinXP and I'm not sure I'm up to trying to make them work manually with DosBox. I may just re-buy them on GOG when they go on sale.

I can hear a buzzing like stutter with the trumpet, seems the loop point is not set correctly for those samples... Boy do I hate it when crap like that happens...

There are two horns harmonizing between about :48 and :52 and on the 8MB SBLive! one of the horns abruptly drops out at :50. Interestingly, it does not drop out on the 2MB SBLive! sample.

Here are a few more MIDI selections for the Santa Cruz:

Strike Commander Main Menu:

Wing Commander 3 Flight Control Deck:

Wing Commander 3 In Flight:

Also, I noticed a lot of stuttering in these games (regardless of whether I select FM music or General MIDI) that I determined happens when my joystick (Microsoft 3D Precision) is connected to the Santa Cruz game port. Any suggestions for curing this? I'm not sure if the gameport on the card is faulty or something else. When I disconnect the joystick, stuttering disappears. Maybe I need a gameport to USB adapter.

I've had issues with my Sidewinder Gamepad connected to anything SBPro+WSS compatible causing stuttering. On an AWE64 or anything PCI it works fine.

alexanrs wrote:

I've had issues with my Sidewinder Gamepad connected to anything SBPro+WSS compatible causing stuttering. On an AWE64 or anything PCI it works fine.

The Santa Cruz is a PCI card. 😒

Oops, did not check that.

MS gamepads/joysticks can sometimes really "stretch" the gameport's protocol doing all sorts of weird workarrounds to make it do far more than it was ever designed to do. For Win98 an USB adapter might be a good bet, but since Microsoft doesn't really use the port as it was designed to be, I'm not sure all gameport->USB adapters would work with it

alexanrs wrote:

Oops, did not check that.

MS gamepads/joysticks can sometimes really "stretch" the gameport's protocol doing all sorts of weird workarrounds to make it do far more than it was ever designed to do. For Win98 an USB adapter might be a good bet, but since Microsoft doesn't really use the port as it was designed to be, I'm not sure all gameport->USB adapters would work with it

I ordered an adapter. At $9 and change it was much less than even a used USB flightstick, so I decided to take a chance. Besides, I really like the feel of the MS Sidewinder Precision Pro. Not really sure if the adapter will work for me though. I'm using it in WinXP and mostly for GOG.com DOSBox games. Fingers crossed. The Wikipedia article doesn't fill me with confidence:

For its electronics, the Precision Pro featured a refined hybrid system, resolving some of the hardware compatibility issues with the 3D Pro. However, with the widespread introduction of USB in consumer computers shortly after the Precision Pro was released, Microsoft soon re-released the joystick in a USB-compatible form (joysticks labeled as Part No. X03-57540, Product I.D. 85791-...[citation needed]). The revised joystick still featured a gameport connector but had additional circuitry for interfacing with USB, and was bundled with a USB converter (a DIY converter project exists). Original Precision Pros remain incompatible with this converter,[10] a user made converter exists though.[6] The creation of the USB converter bypassed the problems with the analog gameport entirely, and as a result became the true solution to the electrical problems.