Physikant wrote on 2024-10-30, 13:37:

is there a difference software-wise between PAS8/16?

Of course - a program designed for the original PAS can't play 16-bit samples on PAS16.
It would be hard to find a DOS game with 16-bit samples as SFX, but there was a bunch with MOD-style music, probably using 16-bit mixing on 16-bit cards.

Also, you forgot about Windows Sound System.

I think you missed creatives: game blaster / creative music system.
But yes the PAS8 is stereo 2x OPL2 chip based like the Sound Blaster Pro 1 that came after the PAS , and the PAS16 is OPL3 based.

Few more for the list:

ARIA
Game Blaster / Computer Music System (CMS)
Roland RAP-10 (technically General MIDI for music, but the digital audio portion was specific to the RAP-10)
Windows Sound System (WSS)

See also:
SB16 vs. WSS compatibility - what was more common? -> ISA 16-bit neither SB16 nor WSS

But it should be noted that certain cards/chips from that list never got native support in DOS games.
Eg. Analog Devices AD181x - AFAIK the only DOS software with native mode support is... Windows.

Gus MAX (ICS mixer chip)
Gus MAX (CS4231 mixer chip, no ICS chip). supports WSS
Gus PNP (completely different core chip)

Turtle Beach Multisound (gen1, e-mu proteus/x1)
Turtle Beach Tahiti (gen2, ics, different synth chips from gen1)
Turtle Beach Pinnacle (gen3, kurzeweil, different synth chips from gen2 +gen1!)
(all programmed differently).

A few more things came to mind.

The Tandy TL/SL have a specific DAC for digital support.

There is also IBM PS/1 Audio Card (aka PS/1 Audio Option).

And finally there was the LifeSize Sound Enhancer that was included with Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 (and I think other games as well?). I looks like it might be similar to a Covox Speech Thing, but I don't know if they are compatible or not.

okay, I've added WSS and CMS.
So there is a difference between PAS8 and PAS16. But is there actually a game that supports PAS8? Is PAS16 backwards compatible? Simply spoken: are they really 2 standards supported by different games? Can you give examples for a PAS8 game thats incompatible to PAS16 or at least sounds different?
Are the GUS variants supported by any game/software specifically? Or is it just an enhanced GUS version?
I always thought the turtle beach cards are just general midi devices or SB compatible. Are they directly supported by any game?
Same question for ARIA and RAP-10.

Physikant wrote on 2024-10-30, 20:29:

So there is a difference between PAS8 and PAS16. But is there actually a game that supports PAS8? Is PAS16 backwards compatible? Simply spoken: are they really 2 standards supported by different games? Can you give examples for a PAS8 game thats incompatible to PAS16 or at least sounds different?

Yes, they are two different standards. I believe they are somewhat backwards compatible, but that games that support stereo sound on the PAS would only support mono on the PAS16 (due to the dual Yamaha chips used by the original PAS).

IIRC, there are some early Sierra games (Hero's Quest I believe?) that support stereo sound on the PAS.

Are the GUS variants supported by any game/software specifically? Or is it just an enhanced GUS version?

GUS variants are somewhat independently supported. Gravis actually included a "prepgame.exe" utility designed to patch games to make them compatible with the GUS PnP (interwave).

I've also seen games that list GUS (classic) and GUS Max independently in sound setup options (Descent, for example).

Same question for ARIA and RAP-10.

ARIA is a separate sound standard that AFAIK isn't supported by any other (non-ARIA) chipsets or vise-versa.

RAP-10 has its own digital audio support in games that isn't compatible with anything else.

I'd suggest listing standards not by card but by method of sound creation, so digital audio, FM synth, wavetable synth etc

That's particularly relevant with the sprawling SB16 range, where the digital audio is basically the same across all models, but for FM, some have OPL3, some OPL3-L (with subtly different frequency/timings) and later cards Creative's own (and not much loved) CQM. So there's no such thing as "the" SB16, it's SB16 DA with one or another of the FM synths - and then there's the AWE which is sample-based wavetable, but otherwise the cards are identical to SB16 models with same FM synth, just with added EMU8k.

It also makes it easier to figure out where other cards fit into the picture (i.e. ESS1xxx = SBPro2 8b DA + ESFM + ESS AudioDrive 16b DA, Aztech 23xx = SBPro2 + OPL3 + WSS)

Same for Aria and RAP-10:
Aria is a chipset with regular (albeit flakey) SB compatibility, Aria proprietary wavetable and laughably bad FM-synth emulation using that same wavetable.
RAP-10 has no SB support but has its own RAP-10 DA, as well as excellent General MIDI wavetable.

dionb wrote on 2024-10-30, 22:01:

Aria is a chipset with regular (albeit flakey) SB compatibility

Does it have native hardware SB compatibility? I was under the impression it did SB emulation, similar to the GUS.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-30, 20:39:

Physikant wrote on 2024-10-30, 20:29:

So there is a difference between PAS8 and PAS16. But is there actually a game that supports PAS8? Is PAS16 backwards compatible? Simply spoken: are they really 2 standards supported by different games? Can you give examples for a PAS8 game thats incompatible to PAS16 or at least sounds different?

Yes, they are two different standards. I believe they are somewhat backwards compatible, but that games that support stereo sound on the PAS would only support mono on the PAS16 (due to the dual Yamaha chips used by the original PAS).

IIRC, there are some early Sierra games (Hero's Quest I believe?) that support stereo sound on the PAS.

Is PAS transparently compatible with SBPro version 1? It seems like Creative simply copied the PAS, but I don't know if they changed anything to break compatibility. I'm inclined to lump SBProV1 and PAS together as the same short-lived "standard", which is an enhancement of the older OPL2 standard. They have more in common with each other than they do with any OPL3 cards IMO.

I had a SBPro v1 (dual OPL2) back then, so since that time I've run into some games that in my (biased) opinion don't sound right on OPL3 cards. Just recently I installed the SBPro into a 486 and confirmed my memory. Civilization, Ultima Underworld both sound correct on the dual OPL2 but not on my OPL3 cards. Star Trek 25th Anniversary also has great stereo with dual OPL2, but I never tried it on OPL3.
The symptom I frequently notice with OPL2 games played on OPL3 is that some instruments have odd volume levels, and are practically mute at times. It's like pieces of music have just disappeared, like there's something incompatible about how volume levels of the "voices" or whatever are handled.
Civilization had an OPL3 patch, but even with the patch installed it sounds different from the original audio on OPL2. That difference might just be because they wanted it to sound different, not because it had to.

Since the programming differences between dual OPL2 and OPL3 cause differences/issues in many games, they definitely count as different standards IMO. A game would need to be knowingly programmed to work correctly with both.
I think Arena is an example that was programmed to support both. I get stereo with it on dual OPL2, and given that it's a later game I assume it also works on OPL3.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-30, 22:03:

dionb wrote on 2024-10-30, 22:01:

Aria is a chipset with regular (albeit flakey) SB compatibility

Does it have native hardware SB compatibility? I was under the impression it did SB emulation, similar to the GUS.

It needs software initialization under DOS, but once that's done, I can't remember it actually having a TSR. And it may be flakey, but nowhere near as awful as messing around with SBOS and/or MegaEM. Not 100% sure though, as I retired this card to my curiosity cabinet after being amused by its "FM" synth became a bit old.

shamino wrote on 2024-10-30, 22:28:

Is PAS transparently compatible with SBPro version 1? It seems like Creative simply copied the PAS, but I don't know if they changed anything to break compatibility.

I don't know. I've been meaning to set up a system to test both of these cards at which point that is something I can try out.

dionb wrote on 2024-10-30, 22:38:

It needs software initialization under DOS, but once that's done, I can't remember it actually having a TSR. And it may be flakey, but nowhere near as awful as messing around with SBOS and/or MegaEM. Not 100% sure though, as I retired this card to my curiosity cabinet after being amused by its "FM" synth became a bit old.

I'll have to try that out for myself at some point then to see how it works. I've had one of these cards for awhile, just haven't gotten around to taking it out of my own 'curiosity cabinet'. 😁

shamino wrote on 2024-10-30, 22:28:

Is PAS transparently compatible with SBPro version 1? It seems like Creative simply copied the PAS, but I don't know if they changed anything to break compatibility.

No, there is a list of games that support dual OPL2 on PAS only or SB Pro 1.0 only. This was discussed previously and it's due to the ports used to access the second OPL2 being different (and apparently OPL3 on SB Pro 2.0/SB16 vs PAS+/PAS16 has the same issue).

I agree with dionb that splitting it by sound creation method would be clearer. As an example, WSS would refer to the PCM aspect only, there are cards that support its PCM output standard but not the OPL3 that a real MS WSS would have (some, like the GUS Max, don't have hardware OPL at all).

Ok, then let's talk about the reason of making such a list.
For me, it is just the curiosity how the developers of games/software intended things to sound. As long as it sounds the same, I don't care how the sound is generated.
Taking this approach, things like different PCM sound sources are rather uninteresting (since besides some noise, they do exactly the same). With PCM sound, there is just an optimal sound (no noise, enough simultaneous playback etc.). Same holds for the myriad of external midi synthesizers. Yes, they sound differently, but no game developer ever intended that people should run their game on these. Perhaps they had an SC-55 or an SC-88 in mind, but that is as far as it goes (correct me if I'm wrong). I doubt that any game was developed to be played on a Yamaha TG-100 (just an example).
So that's why I ask for sound standards: if the game mentions the hardware in their setup, the developers at least tried to get a good composition with this sound device, it is an intended way to listen to the game.
So the simple rule is: if a game exists that mentions the sound device, it's a sound standard.
Of course there is a gray area if it comes down to the case in which the manufacturer changes the hardware but stays somewhat compatible software-wise (so with SBPro1/2 and OPL3/CQM). There the developer probably would have given a specification (so SBPro1 or SB16/OPL), but the change was after the game release. There I would differentiate.
I mean, yes, there are many chips that support the sound blaster 16 standard, and they probably sound different somewhat (if they don't include a real OPL3). But this should be a list from the software perspective, not the hardware side, this would just give a different list.
So of course we could rename the points in my list to the original chip that brought the standard to life (so renaming SB16 to OPL3, SBPro1 to Dual OPL2 etc.) but it would make the things far more difficult (because SB16 - OPL3 is not the same as SBPro2 - OPL3, and SBPro1 - Dual OPL2 is not PAS8- Dual OPL2).
Looking from this perspective on Aria and RAP-10:
Do games exist that directly support them?

Physikant wrote on 2024-12-10, 12:47:

Taking this approach, things like different PCM sound sources are rather uninteresting (since besides some noise, they do exactly the same). With PCM sound, there is just an optimal sound (no noise, enough simultaneous playback etc.). Same holds for the myriad of external midi synthesizers. Yes, they sound differently, but no game developer ever intended that people should run their game on these. Perhaps they had an SC-55 or an SC-88 in mind, but that is as far as it goes (correct me if I'm wrong). I doubt that any game was developed to be played on a Yamaha TG-100 (just an example).
So that's why I ask for sound standards: if the game mentions the hardware in their setup, the developers at least tried to get a good composition with this sound device, it is an intended way to listen to the game.
So the simple rule is: if a game exists that mentions the sound device, it's a sound standard.

To be clear, it seems like you are talking about music options and how music is generated by different sound cards.

This is where it's a little confusing, because typically sound card game setups differentiate between digital sound versus music.

I wrote a piece on this in my blog a few months back. I find it worthwhile to only focus on the major standards that got some significant level of support. That being said, there have been different classes of implementation and that needs to have its own elaboration to avoid confusion.

I went a slightly different way and listed my games and what soundcards are supported.
Although I only list the "best" sound devices. eg if a game supports Adlib, SoundBlaster and SoundBlaster 16, I only list SB16

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zrt9Q … dit?usp=sharing