AirIntake wrote on 2022-02-10, 15:55:
I honestly don't understand the love for OPL. It's the standard, sure, but I really don't think the OPL clones sound bad, just different. Well ok, some sound bad but not ESFM, CQM, and Crystal FM.
The main reason why many users dislike CQM is because it sounds harsher compared to the real thing and some things are slightly off. Haven't see any hate around ESFM due to being more faithful despite some imperfections. Can't comment about Crystal FM due to not having any experience.
If you want to see a bad OPL emulation just check the Aureal Vortex sound cards in DOS games.
Now putting wavetable on 620 instead of making it General MIDI compatible at 330, that's where I think Creative made a mistake.
The EMU8K isn't really a MIDI chip and lacks any hardware MPU-401 interface so setting it at 330h won't work without any emulation, which only works on Windows or using the AWEUTIL TSR (which is mediocre and won't work in protected mode games) in DOS. If you want to see some interesting stuff with AWE card check the AWEstruck... thread.
BTW, the AWE64 still has a MPU-401 compatible interface at 330h like the SB16 and AWE32, and is only accessible thru the gameport. It is mostly bugfree compared to most older Creative SB16-based cards due to using DSP 4.16.
VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS