Can I have 2 choices.. but only because I haven't tested my second probably "only one card" choice?

1. Opti 930 based card with OPL3 and onboard wavetable.
Reason: I've had one of these cards since about 1996. I never ran into a game I wanted to play that it didn't work with.

2. Turtle Beach Tropez Classic
Reason: It is supposed to be one of the best compatibility-wise and it has a very good onboard wavetable, has OPL3, and has 30-pin simm slots that you can load samples on, even in DOS. I haven't tested this card yet as I have too much other stuff going on, but as of now those are my top choices.

That being said, I would probably want at least 2-3 sound cards in any one build depending on what it was going to be used for.

One other thing to mention is the chosen ISA card really depends on what speed of computer you are running as some of them are speed sensitive and can only be used with slower systems.

One soundcard mostly means a small one. That's very tricky.

- OPL3
- Digisound in stereo
- full mpu401 interface for mt32, or internal wavetable header

I'd hate to be so limited, mostly because of its weaker MIDI interface, but I think I'd be 95% happy with an SB16 CT2940 OPL w/ Roland SCB-55 daughterboard and an MT32 or CM-32L externally. I'd take an AWE64 with external modules, too; better for some things and worse for others. Always considering the full range from, like, Wing Commander to Duke Nukem 3D - nothing fancy.

I'd probably cheat and go with a sound card featuring two chipsets. GUS Extreme!

bristlehog wrote:

Imagine that you are bound to use only one ISA sound card in your retro rig..

No.

James-F wrote:

bristlehog wrote:

Imagine that you are bound to use only one ISA sound card in your retro rig..

No.

Why don't we have a like button on this forum?

dr.zeissler wrote:

- full mpu401 interface for mt32, or internal wavetable header

Please enlighten me! Is there a soundcard that can act as an intelligent MPU device without things like SoftMPU?

Tough one... SB Pro2 + external Roland stuff for me

AWE32 with OPL3, wavetable header and upgradeable RAM. 😊

jheronimus wrote:

dr.zeissler wrote:

- full mpu401 interface for mt32, or internal wavetable header

Please enlighten me! Is there a soundcard that can act as an intelligent MPU device without things like SoftMPU?

Wouldn't it be great to make one?

My favourites change over time but my front runners are usually clones, and either ESS ES1688 or Crystal CS423X based. Both do lovely SB Pro 2 and WSS support is valueable in my mind. Both need a Wavetable DB slapped on of course but I didn't see anything forbidding that in the OP!

OR

AWE64 Gold + MIDI armada is what I use now and I'm happy with that.

Pretty much 90% of games that interest me support MIDI, so the Sound Blaster is just for digital basically.

A SB16 of some kind and a Yamaha DB50XG if I was stuck with only one card. That setup is pretty much what I used for most of my DOS gaming back in the day (I had used a Reveal Ensoniq and other Reveal cards before that). I do kind of like the SBPro 2 for earlier games.

badmojo wrote:

My favourites change over time but my front runners are usually clones, and either ESS ES1688 or Crystal CS423X based. Both do l […]
Show full quote

My favourites change over time but my front runners are usually clones, and either ESS ES1688 or Crystal CS423X based. Both do lovely SB Pro 2 and WSS support is valueable in my mind. Both need a Wavetable DB slapped on of course but I didn't see anything forbidding that in the OP!

Excellent, the legendary Acer S23.

I think my choice would be a Creative Sound Blaster card from the same generation as the hardware I would use, In this case I have a Sound Blaster AWE64 in my Celeron-433 Rig.

I never really cared for audio quality in DOS gaming due to it being a semi-recent interest so I don't have any complaints about its OPL3 emulation system, Plus I don't have a good speaker system reserved for older systems because I use them only once in a while, the mono-speaker that's built into that computer's case seems to be all I use with it most of the time.

Any SB/SB Pro compatible with real OPL3, bug-free MPU-401 interface and correctly located WB connector. I hope i can use DB by rules?
My current Aztech Washington 16 matches.

Games? Gazilions of DOS games ofcourse.
Oh, ok, my favorites for atleast twenty years:

DOOM I/II, Heretic, Hexen
Descent
Dark Forces
Duke Nukem 3D
Quake
Commander Keen 4-6
Bio Menace
Lost Vikings
Hocus Pocus
Litil Divil
Supaplex
Another World
Flashback
Terminator: Future Shock/Skynet
Wolfenstein 3D/Spear Of Destiny
Electro Body/Electro Man
Blackthorne
Prehistorik II
Jazz Jackrabbit (sounds quite good even with no gus, imo)

IBM mwave, duh

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

AWE64 Gold + MIDI armada is what I use now and I'm happy with that.

Pretty much 90% of games that interest me support MIDI, so the Sound Blaster is just for digital basically.

I guess I'm a weirdo preferring FM for a lot of games.

aleksej wrote:

Any SB/SB Pro compatible with real OPL3, bug-free MPU-401 interface and correctly located WB connector. I hope i can use DB by rules?
My current Aztech Washington 16 matches.

+1
Also Multimedia 16 ABI/ABO which is virtually the same card, or Audician 32 Plus.
These will cover a lot of DOS ground.

Say aleksej.
Supaplex freezes with the Aztech MM 16 ABI on my Pentium-100 machine, but not the Audician 32.
What machine are you running your Washington 16?
In my system all my Aztech cards will freeze with Supaplex and Prince of Persia 1.