I'd say no.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-10, 10:03:

I'd say no.

Yeah that was my feeling too - the lack of memory kind or wave board pins means you can't really do much with it that a SB16 can't ... and I just bought a great Sound Blaster 16 (CT2230)

I mean you would get the default 512K sample ROM for AWE32 music option alongside a genuine OPL3 but that's not worth $60 at all. You can buy a YMF71x card + an AWE64 Value for maybe even half that price, stick them both in and get the same thing.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-10, 11:31:

I mean you would get the default 512K sample ROM for AWE32 music option alongside a genuine OPL3 but that's not worth $60 at all. You can buy a YMF71x card + an AWE64 Value for maybe even half that price, stick them both in and get the same thing.

Thanks for the info. I have a MT-32 + Sound Canvas hooked up too which nearly always sound better than AWE32/64 music anyway. Creative sure loved that "reverb" sound back then. I'll stick with my SB16.

funny i was just researching this as i'm looking for a OPL3 + AWE MIDI solution in a single card without spending $200 on a Sound Canvas.

Is 512k sample really not enough for games?

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-10, 11:31:

I mean you would get the default 512K sample ROM for AWE32 music option alongside a genuine OPL3 but that's not worth $60 at all. You can buy a YMF71x card + an AWE64 Value for maybe even half that price, stick them both in and get the same thing.

Where can you get both for $30??? An AWE64 Value is $50 by itself. What YMF71x cards do you recommend that are good and cheap?

where do people shop for parts? I have nothing local to me and only know ebay.

Shishkebarbarian wrote on 2022-05-10, 19:51:

funny i was just researching this as i'm looking for a OPL3 + AWE MIDI solution in a single card without spending $200 on a Sound Canvas.

Is 512k sample really not enough for games?

For larger SoundFonts, no.

However, there are some games that are capable of loading custom samples on AWE cards, all of them having smaller SoundFonts as fallback for cards with 512K RAM onboard.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-10, 11:31:

I mean you would get the default 512K sample ROM for AWE32 music option alongside a genuine OPL3 but that's not worth $60 at all. You can buy a YMF71x card + an AWE64 Value for maybe even half that price, stick them both in and get the same thing.

Where can you get both for $30??? An AWE64 Value is $50 by itself. What YMF71x cards do you recommend that are good and cheap?

where do people shop for parts? I have nothing local to me and only know ebay.

Currently on eBay, there are two AWE64 CT4520 around $30 (don't get the one that cost $20 because it lacks the EMU8K chip) and the only YMF-71x based card I could find is the Labway A151-A00.

For expanding the memory easily on AWE64 cards, SIMMCONN is your best friend but it would incur additional cost + shipping.

Edit: I didn't take account of the shipping cost for the AWE64 CT4520 and there is also the Labway A151-A10.

Shishkebarbarian wrote on 2022-05-10, 19:51:

funny i was just researching this as i'm looking for a OPL3 + AWE MIDI solution in a single card without spending $200 on a Sound Canvas.

Is 512k sample really not enough for games?

Depending on your needs, you might not need any sample RAM at all. These Creative Cards have 512KB sample ROM as well as the usual 512KB of RAM and/or SIMM sockets. Games with native AWE support typically just use the 512KB ROM samples and don't care about the RAM at all. Real mode games can use the software MIDI emulation provided by AWEUTIL. This software emulator by default also uses the ROM samples, but it is able to load sound fonts into RAM. Loading a complete MIDI sound font that replaces the ROM samples by better quality samples requires 2MB to 8MB of sample RAM, so the CT3910 wouldn't do for that.

With DOS32AWE, you can also use the power of AWEUTIL in most protected mode games.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-05-10, 20:13:

Currently on eBay, there are two AWE64 CT4520 around $30 (don't get the one that cost $20 because it lacks the EMU8K chip)

The card for $20 doesn't lack the EMU8K synthesizer chip. On AWE64 cards, the EMU8K is integrated into the main ASIC. The missing pieces are the 512KB sample RAM, the sockets for the RAM expansion board and the EMU8011 sample ROM. Without any RAM and ROM, the integrated EMU8K is pretty useless, though. So the conclusion to not buy this incomplete card stands.

mkarcher wrote on 2022-05-10, 20:26:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-05-10, 20:13:

Currently on eBay, there are two AWE64 CT4520 around $30 (don't get the one that cost $20 because it lacks the EMU8K chip)

The card for $20 doesn't lack the EMU8K synthesizer chip. On AWE64 cards, the EMU8K is integrated into the main ASIC. The missing pieces are the 512KB sample RAM, the sockets for the RAM expansion board and the EMU8011 sample ROM. Without any RAM and ROM, the integrated EMU8K is pretty useless, though. So the conclusion to not buy this incomplete card stands.

Interesting, I thought that it lacked the chip considering that it gets treated as a basic SB16.