Higher temperature means more stress and thus more wear though.

Sure. But these cards are 15 years old and still work as "well" as ever. What does wear mean if we don't know the lifetime?

Yeah most cards that don't have factory heatsinks are designed to tolerate the amount of heat that they generate. The same goes for chips with heatsinks but no fans - I've had some motherboard southbridge chips with only heatsinks that ran pretty hot.

I'm going to very briefly hijack my own thread! I just tested my first ATI Radeon 7500 card, and it had a horrible "wasp like" fan attached to its heatsink. I got rid of it pronto, and just propped up my trusty and almost silent 800 RPM case fan next to it. Then I did a 3DMark2001 bench test, with all its settings maxed out, and then moved the fan out of the way and put my fingers on the whole in the heatsink where the little fan used to sit, and I could feel no heat whatsoever. Hijack over.

Eh, I have a 7500 that I just pulled the fan off of and run it passive. Those chips don't get hot. They are a die shrink+tweaks of the original Radeon chip. The original didn't run very hot either, and came passively cooled in some variants.

The sad little fan/heatsink combos are really poor at removing heat anyway. Just look at how little metal surface area there really is there. I figure that either the fans on those things cost less than the extra metal of a passive heatsink, or they thought the fan helped sell cards.

The Radeon 8500 runs a lot hotter than previous ATI chips.... It actually has the same POS fan+HS cooler too.

Oh yah and </furtherOT>

swaaye wrote:

Sure. But these cards are 15 years old and still work as "well" as ever. What does wear mean if we don't know the lifetime?

You'll know as soon as it breaks 🤣
And they usually weren't in use all the time.

I tend to attach heatsinks in all that feels warm to the touch... even have heatsinks in cirrus chips :p
better safe than sorry is my moto, that 15+ y.o. hardware needs no more stressing!

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

And they usually weren't in use all the time.

Hehe, my old 486 in it's day (~1991-2003 or so) was on more than it was off 🤣 😀

As far as I'm concerned, the AWE series never worked properly anyway.

Stuck notes with DBs, crappy MPU-401 emulation from the EMU8000, horrible overall signal quality, unreliable SBPro & SB support, huge AWEUTIL TSR, and an embarrassingly poor ROM patch set. All that "quality" for the low price of like $500 back in the day (I kid you not).

swaaye wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, the AWE series never worked properly anyway.

I'm not usually one to defend a Creative product, but...

Stuck notes with DBs...

Between both a CT2760 and CT3900, I've only experienced stuck DB notes with ONE game - X-Wing CD - and infrequently at that.

...crappy MPU-401 emulation from the EMU8000 ... huge AWEUTIL TSR...)

I suppose it depends on the motherboard, but I've never had a problem with the AWEUTIL TSR functions. Notwithstanding, I'm not sure I'd even advocate using this feature today, given the alternatives.

...horrible overall signal quality...

Hearing the S/PDIF output should instantly change that opinion (at least concerning the OPL/EMU8000 output).

Regarding the PCM and analog output, I'm of the opinion that any Creative card bearing a CT1703 codec (including the later AWE32s) has cleaner output than the CT1701-bearing cards. I suppose I should do some actual measurements...

...and an embarrassingly poor ROM patch set.

It's actually not that bad, in my opinion, especially given ROM size. You'll want to compare the Soundscape DB to a Soundscape Elite for an example of what "embarassingly poor" sounds like. 😀

Cloudschatze wrote:

Between both a CT2760 and CT3900, I've only experienced stuck DB notes with ONE game - X-Wing CD - and infrequently at that.

TIE Fighter and Dark Forces too. Could be all DOS IMUSE games. I think Doom might do it too. I don't remember anymore. The only Creative card that works ok with my SCD15 is a original release SB16. It needs to have the old rev DSP. The problem isn't infrequent either, more like almost immediate and continuous. Maybe part of the problem is Roland issues?

I suppose it depends on the motherboard, but I've never had a problem with the AWEUTIL TSR functions. Notwithstanding, I'm not sure I'd even advocate using this feature today, given the alternatives.

The problem is that for games that don't support AWE32 directly, you need AWEUTIL to emulate the MPU-401 for GMIDI support. AWEUTIL doesn't work with DOS extenders. It's around 30KB in resident size. Then you also have the usual MIXERSET and DIAGNOSE (these are sorta optional though). That's a lot of conventional memory eaten up, and it still won't work with the extender games that never got support added for AWE.

I'm not sure what you mean by alternatives. Non GMIDI cards? Yeah I can understand that LAPC-I or even FM might be preferable.

Hearing the S/PDIF output should instantly change that opinion (at least concerning the OPL/EMU8000 output).

Regarding the PCM and analog output, I'm of the opinion that any Creative card bearing a CT1703 codec (including the later AWE32s) has cleaner output than the CT1701-bearing cards. I suppose I should do some actual measurements...

Well if the pops, clicks, and squeals are gone that would be a improvement. SPDIF wasn't exactly in huge demand in 1994-5. I didn't even know it existed back then. Even today all my PCs use analog output to speakers though.

It's actually not that bad, in my opinion, especially given ROM size. You'll want to compare the Soundscape DB to a Soundscape Elite for an example of what "embarassingly poor" sounds like. 😀

$500 card!!!! 😀 Rodent torture in place of wind and string instruments!!!

I haven't heard a Soundscape DB (or seen one first hand for that matter).... Aren't there 2MB and 1MB variants? Maybe it's similar to the cheap OEM Gateway Soundscape? That one has 1MB and is bone dry and icky. I'm sure they're a toss up.

swaaye wrote:

All that "quality" for the low price of like $500 back in the day (I kid you not).

Mine must be worth at least $510, with that incredible heatsink. 😉
Hang on a minute, I need to adjust something.
Mine must be worth at least $5.10, with that incredible heatsink. 😉
That's better. 😀

swaaye wrote:

TIE Fighter and Dark Forces too. Could be all DOS IMUSE games. I think Doom might do it too. I don't remember anymore.

I think you're right about the DOS IMUSE games. I have a WaveBlaster (the first edition, *NOT* the crapola "WaveBlaster II"), and seem to remember experiencing the same problems. Never had a problem with DOOM though (or Duke 3D for that matter).

I was never happy with the sound of the 1meg ROM on the AWE32, but purchased it back in the day to add SIMMs to it (and an EMU SoundFont). The WaveBlaster 1 on the other hand sounded great 😀 Had 4 megs of compressed ROM samples, and was based on the Proteous line of MIDI modules.

I remember buying a WB2 when it first hit the market, as the EMU8K on that DB provided reverb and chorus effects. I was drooling on my way home thinking about it; as, although the WB1 sounded super, it was "dry" as a bone... no reverb or chorus.

After installing the WB2 and giving it a whirl, I thought something must be wrong with my ears; as the WB2 - even with the reverb and chorus - sounded like pure crap compared to my WB1. I then quickly discovered that the WB2 only had 1 meg of ROM samples <argh>!

Packaged it up, and money refunded the exact same day!

LucasArts was very proud of how the MIDI music in their games changed dynamically to adapt to the current situation, so it doesn't surprise me that some MIDI setups might get tripped up while running IMUSE games.

Threads like this make me glad for things like DOSBox and external MIDI synths 😜

I have only one SB16, a CT2800, and used it just briefly. It definitely has hanging notes in DOOM and its cousins. Lucasarts Tie-Fighter also gets 'slowdowns' with this soundcard. No other soundcard I own gives such behaviour, and I own plenty. (edit: over twenty different chipsets)

I always read the Wave Blaster II, which actually has 2MB, was considered an improvement over its predecessor.

HunterZ wrote:

Threads like this make me glad for things like DOSBox and external MIDI synths 😜

No kidding huh? It "just works". I don't even need an external synth cuz I'm rather happy with the soundfont options. And the output quality of any modern sound card is better than just about anything from the ancient times. 😀

I remember spending a lot of time futzing with different SoundFonts on my SB Live! around 8 years ago. Not sure I miss that either 😜

Though I have been thinking it might be nice to get a software SoundFont synth to use on my laptop because the Windows default software synth is kind of boring. Are there any software SoundFont synths that work in Win7 x64? (anything that works in Vista x64 should work)

Well I use an Audigy 2.

I know that you can set up Timidity as a driver in XP at least. I've done it. It's not perfect and it's somewhat complicated. Better off with a card that can run soundfonts natively.

I'll never put a modern Creative card in any of my computers, both on principle and to avoid driver and/or hardware problems.

Oh dear. Yeah I hear you somewhat. I don't have problems with their drivers and haven't since they figured out NT5. But their business practices are some of the scuzziest out there.

I tend to get great deals on these cards. Crazy rebates. I have picked them up when they were no longer the hottest tech in town and they were cheap. You can find really cheap Audigy 1/2/4 cards on ebay these days and IMO they are amazing DOSBOX choices and certainly useful for recent games and music too. Creative isn't winning when you get a $10 Audigy off ebay!!!!