It really matters what you want to play. If you want to play a somewhat older game like Wing Commander Privateer, you will find that many creative cards from SB16 to SB32 just sound awful. This is called the DMA clicking bug. It isn't minor, it ruins the experience. If you however take a really cheap ESS 688 or 1868, you usually get a much cleaner audio experience with the game.

For my 486, I had the first SB16 card (CT-1740ASP), fully jumpered and with the working 4.04 DSP. A perfect card on paper. But the moment you want to play something, you are greeted by noise, crackling and poor sound. It is shelved for testing duty only. The job in the 486 is given to a cheap ESS 1868F, which sounds much smoother. I had the yamaha 719 and the CMI 8330 in there for comparison, but prefered the ESS filtering. But that is a personal preference, also dictated by the need for a wavetable header and not much need for SB16 compatibility. Without that need, my even cheaper ESS 688 with yamaha OPL would have the job.

If I were in your shoes, dealing with a P150, I would probably like to use a SB64AWE. As this avoids most bugs of the 16/32 era, but brings some compromises and limitations instead. They are not cheap these days either.

ux-3 wrote on 2024-06-06, 16:17:

I had the yamaha 719 and the CMI 8330 in there for comparison, but prefered the ESS filtering.

On that note, it's possible to get the proper SBPro style low-pass filter on Yamaha YMF71x cards by applying a hardware mod.

I've done that with my own YMF719 card, by following the instructions from James-F, and it now sounds pretty much the same as an ESS 1868F. In my opinion, this low-pass filter is really nice for "talkie" adventure games from the early '90s.

dionb wrote on 2024-06-06, 14:33:

Lies, damned lies and marketing. […]
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DataDragons wrote on 2024-06-05, 17:12:

leileilol wrote on 2024-06-05, 16:50:

yes. anything but a PCI sound card should be good. I have no comment on the hanging note politics. Also it doesn't have to be the creative brand - there's also aztech, turtle beach and diamond ISA sound hardware out there and WSS cards that provide fair compatibility. To go exotic on ISA sound would probably be a GUS and that's a big compatibility gamble (with the ultimate payoff being good sound for tracker music'd stuff like demoscene prods and many Epic games).

to be honest, I've read a lot of reviews. And there are a lot of people always recommending creative brand.
I have feeling that if I choose this brand i cant go wrong plus im pretty newbie

Lies, damned lies and marketing.

Creative set a number of highly significant standards but a significant number of their cards were poorly engineered bug-fests. See the link Shponglefan posted.

You pay a premium to get the Creative brand, even on cards that are objectively bad. There are definitely good Creative cards too, but no definitive perfect all-rounder. If you want a trouble-free card that can do almost anything, you probably want something that's not Creative.

i mean even doom have sound options for soundblaster especially

Yes, the Soundblaster *standard*. However the best implementation of that standard need not be a Creative card. In fact Doom has options for Soundblaster, Soundblaster Pro (stereo) and Soundblaster 16 (stereo and higher quality). Almost all non-Creative cards support Soundblaster Pro (2.0) and quite a few support SB16 as well.

I think this brand's card should mainly support most dos games.
But thank you very much for your opinion I am very pleased.

Brand is marketing. If you can find an original Soundblaster Pro 2.0 (CT1600) you will have a trouble-free (albeit noisy) card, but you will pay up to ten times the price of a non-Creative card with support for the same features, as well as many more (eg. a (bug-free) MPU-401 UART MIDI interface) and lower noise levels. SB16 cards are less expensive and have more features (MPU-401 UART, 16b audio) but all have sound artefacts (DMA clicks or Vibra hiss), all have slowdowns when playing MIDI music and high-quality audio, most have various hanging note bugs in MIDI music and many are noisy as well. Also, newer cards don't have a real Yamaha OPL3 synth but a mediocre Creative CQM clone. The best SB16 cards minimize these issues, but there is no perfect card. By contrast, both C-Media CMI8330 and Advance Logic ALS100 offer all of the features of SB16 but with none the bugs. Find a decently made card with one of these chipsets and it will probably cost less than even the worst SB16 and still function better.

Now, DOS audio is a huge rabbit hole to dive down. More likely than not any ISA card you get will be at least fully SBPro compatible and work fine in most games, even the most maligned buggy SB16. But that's not an argument to waste money on Creative cards, it's in fact an argument to get the cheapest ISA sound card you can find and see how you like that. Good enough? Then keep using it. Not good enough? Then you know exactly which features/bugs you find important in the games you like to play.

Hey, thanks for the insights you gave me. After reading, I really understood what you wanted to say.
But in reality, marketing is not always bad. If that item is bad People will say bad things about it and Your brand won't sell it anyway
However, I've also heard that some SoundBlaster cards aren't always good. I'll be careful and thx for warning about this brand!

after i read ur commend i have few question about it

1 . i heard a lot of good things about soundblaster awe32 and awe64 it's still top sound card for dos games right?
2. and if SB is not good what ISA card u like to recommend?

I really appreciate your comments Thank you again.

an update of this pc
finally it work now!

But for now I have to use Soundblaster Live
because I still can't find an ISA card
thx for comments everyone!

DataDragons wrote on 2024-06-06, 16:23:

[...] […]
Show full quote

[...]

Hey, thanks for the insights you gave me. After reading, I really understood what you wanted to say.
But in reality, marketing is not always bad. If that item is bad People will say bad things about it and Your brand won't sell it anyway
However, I've also heard that some SoundBlaster cards aren't always good. I'll be careful and thx for warning about this brand!

after i read ur commend i have few question about it

1 . i heard a lot of good things about soundblaster awe32 and awe64 it's still top sound card for dos games right?

Again, see Sound Blaster: From best to worst

"awe32 and awe64" are 13 different cards (17 if you count the similar SB32 cards). Each have their own advantages and disadvantages. The best cards are probably either the CT3780 (AWE32) with less noisy DAC (some CT3780 have noisy ones), which gives you real OPL3, no PnP, only type 2 hanging notes in MIDI (the less irritating ones), slowdowns when playing MIDI and HQ audio at the same time and DMA clicking, and the CT3670 (SB32), with no hanging notes, quiet DAC, no DMA clicking (or Vibra hissing) and SIMMs for soundfonts. Unfortulately also CQM FM synthesis and slowdowns on MIDI with HQ DA.

Taking a step back, "top" needs definition. "AWE" is an EMU8k synth which can do wavetable synthesis for MIDI music without additional hardware. It doesn't imply anything about MIDI bugs, sound artefacts or FM synthesis. If you want MIDI music and don't have an alternative, AWE is a lot better than nothing. But it won't change underlying issues in the cards. There are also other cards that do MIDI wavetable synth, some with better sound quality and fewer bugs than the AWE cards.

2. and if SB is not good what ISA card u like to recommend?

For starters, the cheapest ISA card you can find locally.

IMHO best generic options are OPTi 928/929, Aztech 2316/2320 or Crystal CS4232 based cards, as they have real or 1:1 clone Yamaha OPL3 FM synth, (near) perfect SBPro 2.0 support and bug-free MPU-401 UART MIDI interfaces.

Slightly less common are cards based on CMI CM8330 or Advance Logic ALS100 (non-Plus) as they also support SB16.

For a cheap ISA sound card you get something like https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/b1129737463 (no Yamaha OPL3, but Crystal 4237 isn’t bad)