Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-05-25, 12:31:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-05-25, 12:12:

kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-05-25, 12:04:

I hate both, not many seem to agree, that's cool, to each their own.

If we're talking about FM synth implementations between the CMI8330 and Creative's CT4810, they are fundamentally different.

The CMI chip attempts to mimic the original OPL3 sound as closely as possible, and uses actual FM synthesis to do so. On the other hand Creative's CT4810 (which is a rebadged Ensoniq Audio PCI) emulates OPL3 using its wavetable. This is objectively a far worse implementation. Examples of the CT4810's OPL3 emulation can be heard in this video.

Even CQM looks better in comparison to the CT4810's OPL3 emulation. 🤣

Humming the tunes to yourself through a Kazoo and sneezing occasionally, looks better in comparison to the CT4810's.... 🤣

*actual findings of scientific panel

I just wanna say it' s great what Keropi and Marmes are doing, even more so considering all the time and effort these kind of projects require.

I wish nothing but great success for you guys in these endeavours.
Hats off!

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-05-25, 12:39:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-05-25, 12:31:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-05-25, 12:12:

If we're talking about FM synth implementations between the CMI8330 and Creative's CT4810, they are fundamentally different.

The CMI chip attempts to mimic the original OPL3 sound as closely as possible, and uses actual FM synthesis to do so. On the other hand Creative's CT4810 (which is a rebadged Ensoniq Audio PCI) emulates OPL3 using its wavetable. This is objectively a far worse implementation. Examples of the CT4810's OPL3 emulation can be heard in this video.

Even CQM looks better in comparison to the CT4810's OPL3 emulation. 🤣

Humming the tunes to yourself through a Kazoo and sneezing occasionally, looks better in comparison to the CT4810's.... 🤣

*actual findings of scientific panel

CQM indeed sounds off but I was actually comparing about how the waveforms were generated or emulated. Nevertheless, CMI8330's FM synth is mostly faithful (even moreso than ESFM) than CQM.

kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-05-25, 09:35:

I hate both, not many seem to agree, that's cool, to each their own.

That's the point, you hate something you don't even know. It's not because you didn't like a shitty implementation of that chip that you won't like this one? You're not even giving it a chance to show what it can do when properly used.
There are some recordings earlier in the thread that sound very nice. There is first-hand feedback from a prototype user that says it sounds awesome. Both of these things are more tangible than "I heard it on shitty motherboards and hated it", no?

Boohyaka wrote on 2022-05-25, 14:20:

kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-05-25, 09:35:

I hate both, not many seem to agree, that's cool, to each their own.

That's the point, you hate something you don't even know. It's not because you didn't like a shitty implementation of that chip that you won't like this one? You're not even giving it a chance to show what it can do when properly used.
There are some recordings earlier in the thread that sound very nice. There is first-hand feedback from a prototype user that says it sounds awesome. Both of these things are more tangible than "I heard it on shitty motherboards and hated it", no?

The heck are you even talking about? Pull your head out, yes? Talking all snarky, attacking me all the time... peak performance.

kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-05-25, 15:29:

Boohyaka wrote on 2022-05-25, 14:20:

kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-05-25, 09:35:

I hate both, not many seem to agree, that's cool, to each their own.

That's the point, you hate something you don't even know. It's not because you didn't like a shitty implementation of that chip that you won't like this one? You're not even giving it a chance to show what it can do when properly used.
There are some recordings earlier in the thread that sound very nice. There is first-hand feedback from a prototype user that says it sounds awesome. Both of these things are more tangible than "I heard it on shitty motherboards and hated it", no?

The heck are you even talking about? Pull your head out, yes? Talking all snarky, attacking me all the time... peak performance.

He isn't attacking you, he is pointing out that you judged the chip overall without taking account that the output quality can vary between manufacturers.

I never said his card is bad, mind you. Have fun!

I'm down with something and can't look at the screen for more than 5 minutes before tears start streaming down my cheeks; no recordings tonight I'm sorry 🙁

appiah4, I hope you feel better soon! Sending positive vibes.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-05-25, 13:08:

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-05-25, 12:39:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-05-25, 12:31:

Even CQM looks better in comparison to the CT4810's OPL3 emulation. 🤣

Humming the tunes to yourself through a Kazoo and sneezing occasionally, looks better in comparison to the CT4810's.... 🤣

*actual findings of scientific panel

CQM indeed sounds off but I was actually comparing about how the waveforms were generated or emulated. Nevertheless, CMI8330's FM synth is mostly faithful (even moreso than ESFM) than CQM.

For sure. We covered that earlier in the thread, when we took an in-depth comparative look at the waveforms, and could scientifically see that the differences (between 8330 and original OPL) are truly microscopic. It was great data.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-05-25, 19:44:

I'm down with something and can't look at the screen for more than 5 minutes before tears start streaming down my cheeks; no recordings tonight I'm sorry 🙁

I appreciate all the trouble you're going to, to fill my earlier request for comparative examples, but please don't feel any obligation. You're clearly very busy, and now ill as well, so just relax, and if you still want to get the recordings done, do it in your own time, whenever. I don't mind if it's in 2 week, or even never. Health and wellbeing is number 1.

This is the same Dune track recorded with the same retro PC and recording setup, using a Terratec Gold 16/96 ES1868 sound card, which is in my experience one of the the cleanest and most pleasant sounding ISA sound cards out there.

ES1868 - Arrakeen Palace

Unfortunately the YMF719 card I dug out appears to have gone bad, lower right part of the card gets very hot when the system is turned on and it doesn't get detected as a P&P card. I'm thinking something in the power delivery failed short, or something. I'll start a repair thread for that and hopefully someone well versed in these cards like Tiido and keropi can help me repair it 😁

In the meantime, I will dig out another YMF719 card later tonight and record that as well. Yes, I have a lot of sound cards 🤣.

Now that I got the YMF719 card, here is a recording from that as well:

YMF719 - Arrakeen Palace

In my non-expert view the YMF719 is considerably noisier and muddier, whereas the Terratec Gold seems to be about the same in terms of audio quality but the synthesis is slightly different - filtered amd softer. Regardless I'll let everyone else decide for themselves.

I just listened Arrakeen palace recordings by appiah4. YMF719 and ESS sound good but MK8330 does not. I listened with headphones and the MK8330 sounds like some afwul 3D effect is enabled. Is this normal or some mistake when recording?

In MK8330 you need to disable 3d sound if you use unisound. For that I usually use cmmix. I will test that game with mk8330 soon.

unisound isn't quite there yet for CMI8330 chip , CMMIX has some other options too like SB MIXER EMULATION ON/OFF which I am not sure unisound enables or not - or if LOUDNESS option is turned OFF... but 3D is definitely not getting disabled with unisound

When I made the recording I posted on the 1st post I used the CMI driver with these settings:

My recording was made with unisound and therefore 3d spatial effects, apparently. I will rerecord with official cmi drivers/mixer in an hour or so.

Awesome job at making this card! 😀

appiah4 wrote on 2022-05-28, 09:55:

My recording was made with unisound and therefore 3d spatial effects, apparently. I will rerecord with official cmi drivers/mixer in an hour or so.

thanks!
truth be told the original CMI driver package is not bad - it initializes the card and mixer and quits with no memory consumption
if/when unisound implements switches for the other options it will be great but I am not sure how easy is this because there is no real tech docs for the CMI8330

Here is a proper recording with the 3D Spatializer disabled:

MK8330 - Arrakeen Palace

For comparison:

YMF719 - Arrakeen Palace
ES1868 - Arrakeen Palace

That took a while but I think I finally did it.. I think.. 😅

Anyway, like I said:

- ES1868 has great filtering, a soft sound and ESFM is fairly damn close to OPL3, though not exactly the same
- YMF719 appears to have a (mostly?) unfiltered FM synth so it sounds somewhat harsh and electronic, but is genuine OPL3
- MK8330 (at least to my ears) appears to have some kind of a low-pass filter that makes it sound pleasant like ES1868, and its FM Synthesis (again to my ears) indistinguishable from genuine OPL3.

As a final note, MK8330 and Terratec Gold also have WAY lower background noise levels than the YMF719 (-56dB vs -47dB in my recording setup).

keropi wrote on 2022-05-28, 10:51:

thanks! truth be told the original CMI driver package is not bad - it initializes the card and mixer and quits with no memory co […]
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appiah4 wrote on 2022-05-28, 09:55:

My recording was made with unisound and therefore 3d spatial effects, apparently. I will rerecord with official cmi drivers/mixer in an hour or so.

thanks!
truth be told the original CMI driver package is not bad - it initializes the card and mixer and quits with no memory consumption
if/when unisound implements switches for the other options it will be great but I am not sure how easy is this because there is no real tech docs for the CMI8330

For now I am using UNISOUND to initialize followed by CMMIX.COM to set the mixer volumes and disable 3D, Gain and SB Mixer options.

I'm not using CMINIT.EXE because the DOS driver installer actually froze on this system during post-install testing, probably due to the same reason YMF719 cards freez when I try WSS on this system - a hardware resource issue that UNISOUND doesn't care about but the official drivers get stuck on. Regardless, this way seems to work fine 😀

Can you overly critical dingbats get back to the real question at hand: When can we purchase the MK8330??