renejr902 wrote on Today, 08:46:
I have this wonderful sound card.
1. i read that crystal cs9233-cq chip on the midi daughther board can do the FM in games. But i dont want to do this because a lot of people says it sounds bad and strange in FM games. But the aztech card has a real yamaha opl3 on it. How can i use the opl3 for fm instead of the cs-9233 midi card ?
The wavetable board only does MIDI-in and audio out, so no way for it to do FM. Any FM is handled by the AZT2320 and as it contains a licensed OPL3, it does it well.
2. I want to use the midi daughther board for general midi game like doom and duke3d, i suppose its better than FM, right ? it uses cs4112 set and it should be a roland set instrument, so even if the ram is 1mb only it should be better , right ?
"Better" is a matter of taste, but if game music is GM, the output of the daugtherboard will almost certainly be more faithful to the original than OPL trying to synth it.
3. Does this card in general midi games sounds better than awe64 ct4500 at 512k ram ? for example in doom, duke nukem...
That's really a matter of taste, they will probably be close in objective quality. AWE is decent but not great, the Crystal/Dream synths have a good reputation, but quality depends a lot on the sample set used. It's not going to be comparable to a 4MB GM/GS (i.e. 1:1 SC-55 clone) set. I'd suggest trying it out and seeing which you like more.
4. I read that you can set it like a mt-32 until reboot, it should be interesting for monkey island. but not sure its faithfull enough to a real mt-32, but how i can do that ? i dont get it.
MT-32 differs from later GM synths in two ways:
- different instrument set/layout
- use of subtractive (LA) synthesis as well as samples
A purely ROM sample-based synth can load an instrument map that corresponds to the MT-32 instrument set, but it can't emulate the LA synthesis. If a game that supports MT-32 only uses samples, it will sound pretty close, but if the game does a lot of LA stuff, it won't sound at all like it.
It sounds like you have some good documentation on this Aztech card though, I've never come across this sort of detail about their settings. Could you share it perhaps?
5. i cant find the driver for this exact card, if nobody know where i can find it, i will use the better fit on aztech download section at dosdays.
Under DOS?
It doesn't need any drivers under DOS; all you need is to PnP initialize the AZT2320. It has hardware compatibility with SBPro 2.0, WSS and UART MPU-401. In Windows 98SE there are drivers for the AZT2320 built in so no additional software needed there either.
I second the suggestion to use Unisound for that.
If you really want the Aztech software, you need to identify the card unambiguously, which is hell given Aztech's inconsistent naming. The one unique identifier is the FCC-ID. This card looks like an MMSN855. You can check that on the PCB, it's just under the wavetable header, on your photo you can see where it starts "FCC"... Now, if it's an MMSN855 Aztech software might be a challenge as that's a Packard Bell specific OEM card, referred to as the "Rocky 2.5" internally at Packard Bell. I don't think there is any software for that on Aztech's site. However, tools from any other AZT2320-based card should work, so you could try stuff from say the Sound Galaxy Pro16 III-3D PnP (basically the same card minus the onboard modem). But I personally just use Unisound - I have this card in my late DOS system next to an AWE64 Gold and a Gravis Ultrasound. I use it for its real OPL3, bug-free UART MPU-401 and good clean SBPro 2.0 support.
6. with this card and daughter board can i use GM in pure dos ? ( for doom and duke nukem... )
Yes. It's really 'dumb', no config or init needed or indeed possible: just set the MPU-401 address for the AZT2320 (using Unisound) and tell software to use that. When it does, General MIDI will play.
7. can i remive the daughter midi card and put in on one of my sound blaster 16 ? ( i know about bug note sound )
If the Sound Blaster 16 has a wavetable header: yes. But I'd recommend against it - this Aztech card is bug-free, has low self-noise and a real OPL3. If you really want SB16, I'd put both cards in the system and run the wavetable on the SB16. You could even put an AWE64 next to it like I have done. All you need to do is select different MPU addresses and use those different addresses to point software to the one you want to use.
8. by curiosity, is it expensive card with a lot of value ? is it a card that collector want ? ( i just saw the midi board at 250$ canadian in ebay )
Aztech cards are pretty unloved, mainly because they were used by OEMs and people assume - incorrectly - that they would be worse than retail cards. The base MMSN855 card is common as muck and one I frequently recommend to people on a tight budget looking for a good bug-free DOS ISA sound card. The wavetable module is slightly less common but still nothing special. Remember that eBay prices that stay up longer than a few hours are precisely the ones no one wanted to pay. With patience and alertness you should be able to find one like this for less than half that price. Or put another way: this thing is probably broadly comparable to the Serdaco Dreamblaster S2, which sells new for EUR 35, or a bit less than CAD 60.
9. Can my NEC monitor works as a CGA, seems to work only in ega mode ? ( with oak 0ti037c )
EGA is (broadly speaking) a superset of CGA on TTL monitors like this. If it works as EGA, just tell your software to use CGA and you should get CGA output. If software autodetects EGA because of the card's capabilities, that's not the monitor's fault. Replace the card with a 'real' CGA card to fix that.
