It's more about what you want to play.

ISA sound cards are generally easier to work with for DOS games. PCI sound cards that work with DOS games typically use a driver that essentially emulates the presence of a ISA sound card. Not very reliable. There is also the uncommon SBLink / PCPCI connector that some PCI sound cards can use to directly connect to ISA.

In Windows 9x a PCI card's PCI bus advantages can be tangible especially with cards that have hardware audio mixing / 3D and really use the PCI bus advantages. ISA lacks the bandwidth to do this. PCI also enabled system RAM MIDI patch sets like soundfonts.

If you need OPL3, there are PCI cards with FM hardware like ESS Solo 1 and a Yamaha model I don't know the name of. You certainly don't want to use a PCI card that emulates it in software because it will be awful.

swaaye wrote:

It's more about what you want to play.

ISA sound cards are generally easier to work with for DOS games. PCI sound cards that work with DOS games typically use a driver that essentially emulates the presence of a ISA sound card. Not very reliable. There is also the uncommon SBLink / PCPCI connector that some PCI sound cards can use to directly connect to ISA.

That connector from the PCI card will be on the motherboard, right? I read about that connector some time ago iirc.

swaaye wrote:

In Windows 9x a PCI card's PCI bus advantages can be tangible especially with cards that have hardware audio mixing / 3D and really use the PCI bus advantages. ISA lacks the bandwidth to do this. PCI also enabled system RAM MIDI patch sets like soundfonts.

So the sound fonts in PCI cards are all emulated I guess? And on ISA cards they are either present or they are not, is that correct? I know sound fonts can make sounds in games sound better, but thats about it concerning what I know about sound fonts.

swaaye wrote:

If you need OPL3, there are PCI cards with FM hardware like ESS Solo 1 and a Yamaha model I don't know the name of. You certainly don't want to use a PCI card that emulates it in software because it will be awful.

All I know about OPL3 is that it was one of those thingies that make sounds sound better.
God, I must sound like a total newb re-reading my own reply 😵

But in short, it doesn't really matter if I use either ISA or PCI sound for 9x, right? Of course it also depends on the card itself, it depends on what features any given card has.
And ISA sound cards typically don't emulate because of it's limited ISA bandwidth?
I recently went through my pile of ISA sound cards and found that they either have LOTS of chips on them (some also have OPL3) and some have only a few. I was guessing that the ones which have very few chips on them, also use some type of emulation by software, or is that incorrect?

Thanks for the reply Swaaye! This newb has some learning to do! 😁

Tetrium wrote:

So the sound fonts in PCI cards are all emulated I guess? And on ISA cards they are either present or they are not, is that correct? I know sound fonts can make sounds in games sound better, but thats about it concerning what I know about sound fonts.

Soundfonts are Creative's name for MIDI patch sets.

ISA MIDI cards have onboard RAM or ROM for their MIDI patch sets. PCI cards typically use system RAM.

Tetrium wrote:

All I know about OPL3 is that it was one of those thingies that make sounds sound better.
God, I must sound like a total newb re-reading my own reply 😵

OPL3 is a Yamaha FM synthesizer. You know the warm-fuzzy synthy music of old DOS games? That's FM synth most of the time. Windows 9x games typically use digital recordings instead of real-time synthesis.

Tetrium wrote:

But in short, it doesn't really matter if I use either ISA or PCI sound for 9x, right? Of course it also depends on the card itself, it depends on what features any given card has.
And ISA sound cards typically don't emulate because of it's limited ISA bandwidth?

ISA cards don't really have negative aspects until you get to games that support tech like EAX or A3D. ISA cards never really did true 3D audio. There were some with 3D spatializer stuff but that's all fakey.

Of course, while you could, you don't really want to play Unreal with a 8-bit Sound Blaster Pro for example. That would be an obviously inferior experience. On the other hand that is an extremely flexible card for DOS games.

Tetrium wrote:

I recently went through my pile of ISA sound cards and found that they either have LOTS of chips on them (some also have OPL3) and some have only a few. I was guessing that the ones which have very few chips on them, also use some type of emulation by software, or is that incorrect?

ISA sound cards tend to have lots of chips because when they were made manufacturing couldn't integrate all of the different functions into one chip.

Some ISA cards emulate features. AWE32/64 has a driver that emulates Roland MPU-401 so you can run General MIDI mode in games. Ensoniq Soundscape does emulation of FM synthesis so it can kind of support OPL2/3 music modes.

swaaye wrote:

OPL3 is a Yamaha FM synthesizer. You know the warm-fuzzy synthy music of old DOS games? That's FM synth most of the time. Windows 9x games typically use digital recordings instead of real-time synthesis.

Which are the advantages of OPL3 FM synthesizer over a generic FM synth?

OPL2 is what the Adlib (and the first Soundblaster cards) had. OPL3 is basically OPL2 in true stereo.
FM synth on the PC, is OPL2/OPL3. Everything else was a clone, chips that tried to imitate how these sounded.

I like things to be simple so the way I approach it is for DOS: ISA and for Windows 98+: PCI. It's as simple as that 😀

Two cards that keep being mentioned for Windows 98 are the Aureal Vortex 2 cards and the Sound Blaster Live!

Personally I'm a sucker for Creative, so the Live! sounds like a good choice 😀

I do have Vortex 2 cards as well but I haven't even started doing projects to do with Windows 98. DOS keeps me soooo busy 😀

Yeah ISA is definitely the best choice for DOS. Unless you get set up with a PCI card that uses SBLink as that is stable and reliable. But then those cards aren't as neat as an Live/Audigy or Vortex 2 for Windows.

Thanks for all the replies guys 😁

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I like things to be simple so the way I approach it is for DOS: ISA and for Windows 98+: PCI. It's as simple as that :) […]
Show full quote

I like things to be simple so the way I approach it is for DOS: ISA and for Windows 98+: PCI. It's as simple as that 😀

Two cards that keep being mentioned for Windows 98 are the Aureal Vortex 2 cards and the Sound Blaster Live!

Personally I'm a sucker for Creative, so the Live! sounds like a good choice 😀

I do have Vortex 2 cards as well but I haven't even started doing projects to do with Windows 98. DOS keeps me soooo busy 😀

Yes, I've read generally good things about the Creative cards (especially the ISA ones). I've also done some reading up on (ISA) soundcards in the "Sound cards - from best to worst" thread. I think I'll be sticking to ISA when in comes to DOS, but might stick in an ISA board for slower Windows systems that use a PCI graphics card.

Didn't the live! have issues when used in combination with a PCI graphics card because of it hogging the PCI bus? And I read that the live! has a minimum requirement of a 133Mhz Pentium CPU.
The Live!'s are still easy to come by, so that's a good thing.

I've never used a Vortex sound card before, but am interested in how it sounds 🤣 even though I also read they could be a pain to get stable.
I remembered I once used a Solo-1 PCI card in a Windows rig and had no issues with it. Same with a Diamond PCI sound card which was essentially a Yamaha card.

I used a mystique a voodoo1 (then v2) and a sblive all together and all pci

My basic sound rundown works like this when I was relearning soundcards last year, it’s not all technically 100% correct but close enough to start getting your head around everything

OPL = Adlib settings in games (doesn’t require IRQ, DMA, etc settings)
Digital = Requires IRQ, DMA, etc, (usually SoundBlaster)
Midi = Midi (typically music for SoundBlaster games)

So if you don’t play games on this PC where you select Adlib, you don’t really have to worry about OPL.

As you may know, midi files don’t actually contain any sound, just tells the midi device what to play (think of it like the midi file as a page of music and the sound device is the orchestra reading the music page, so the better the Midi device the better the orchestra’s instruments are) Soundfonts load different instruments onto your midi device (say a more heavy Bass guitar, Drum etc which suit that game better)

Personally I don’t bother with soundfonts, and just leave it at defaults with a good quality Midi device, most games I play support digital sound so wasn’t overly worried about a true OPL chip either, however the 486 ended up getting 2, the AWE32 and the Yamaha card the Roland SC55 is attached to so was even less of a big deal then I thought.

My P3 1Ghz has a on board Yamaha soundcard which unfortunately doesn’t work in pure dos as it includes OPL3, SB Pro, and DB50XG Midi and all on the PCI bus. However all my Dos games work happily from Win98SE with this card so there is no reason to boot into pure dos anyway.

The Yamaha YMF7xx series of sound cards are quite good and I’d think other PCI sound cards with good legacy support would also be fine if you’re staying in windows for Dos games. Windows games I’d still go for a SB Live! or better (Audigy 2 ZS is my choice) but both can be in the same PC.
If your booting into pure Dos I’d always get an ISA card though.

Davros wrote:

I used a mystique a voodoo1 (then v2) and a sblive all together and all pci

Okay, but (as I prolly won't be building a DOS-only rig...ok, maybe just 1 😜 ) I still need an excuse to use one of my ISA sound cards, or else I have no reason to ever try one of them out! 😜

chinny22 wrote:

My basic sound rundown works like this when I was relearning soundcards last year, it’s not all technically 100% correct but clo […]
Show full quote

My basic sound rundown works like this when I was relearning soundcards last year, it’s not all technically 100% correct but close enough to start getting your head around everything

OPL = Adlib settings in games (doesn’t require IRQ, DMA, etc settings)
Digital = Requires IRQ, DMA, etc, (usually SoundBlaster)
Midi = Midi (typically music for SoundBlaster games)

So if you don’t play games on this PC where you select Adlib, you don’t really have to worry about OPL.

As you may know, midi files don’t actually contain any sound, just tells the midi device what to play (think of it like the midi file as a page of music and the sound device is the orchestra reading the music page, so the better the Midi device the better the orchestra’s instruments are) Soundfonts load different instruments onto your midi device (say a more heavy Bass guitar, Drum etc which suit that game better)

Personally I don’t bother with soundfonts, and just leave it at defaults with a good quality Midi device, most games I play support digital sound so wasn’t overly worried about a true OPL chip either, however the 486 ended up getting 2, the AWE32 and the Yamaha card the Roland SC55 is attached to so was even less of a big deal then I thought.

My P3 1Ghz has a on board Yamaha soundcard which unfortunately doesn’t work in pure dos as it includes OPL3, SB Pro, and DB50XG Midi and all on the PCI bus. However all my Dos games work happily from Win98SE with this card so there is no reason to boot into pure dos anyway.

The Yamaha YMF7xx series of sound cards are quite good and I’d think other PCI sound cards with good legacy support would also be fine if you’re staying in windows for Dos games. Windows games I’d still go for a SB Live! or better (Audigy 2 ZS is my choice) but both can be in the same PC.
If your booting into pure Dos I’d always get an ISA card though.

I will probably be staying within Windows (that is, unless I decide to build myself a 386...if it ever comes to that 🤣), but the minimum system requirements worry me for a bit.
If I ever build another 486, then I'll probably go for an ISA sound card (even if I have free PCI slots and am using Windows 9x) just because I somehow think it fits the build better or something 😜

Sorry for the short replies. It's late and I'm tired atm.

Davros wrote:

I used a mystique a voodoo1 (then v2) and a sblive all together and all pci

Voodoo1 actually tends to cause crackling/static with PCI sound cards. There are some SST vars you can set to help with it though. I had some serious trouble with AudioPCI+Voodoo1.

Beware! Sound cards is a whole universe by itself, a dangerous one. You can get trapped and start to disregard graphic cards, and have half a dozen cards on one system battling for IRQs and such... 🤣

Fortunately I managed somehow to escape, and now have ISA sound cards like SB Pro, SB 64 Gold for my ms-dos games and PCI Yamaha sound cards for my Win98 games, that is it , uff!

😖

Filosofia wrote:

Beware! Sound cards is a whole universe by itself, a dangerous one. You can get trapped and start to disregard graphic cards, and have half a dozen cards on one system battling for IRQs and such... 🤣

Fortunately I managed somehow to escape, and now have ISA sound cards like SB Pro, SB 64 Gold for my ms-dos games and PCI Yamaha sound cards for my Win98 games, that is it , uff!

😖

Thanks. I think I'll stick with just 1 sound card for each rig 😜
But will put an ISA sound card into a rig that has a PCI (instead of AGP) graphics card, also because I've hardly experienced any ISA sound cards yet.
The only experiences is with 2 ISA sound cards: One AWE64 gold which was in a K6-2/350ish build which got dismantled years ago, and my 486 which has a Creative card in it (can't remember which one though, but it was ISA for sure).

I somehow dread and look forward to to finding out about IRQ's, DMA channels and all that stuff! 😜
One of those rigs will probably have Windows 3.11 or 3.1 on it (for using it with this old video capture card I have laying around).

I have mostly Creative cards, a few Aztech cards and a whole bunch of ES1868 cards. I'm leaning towards using the Creative or the Aztech ones for now.
For DOS I'll definitely stick to ISA sound cards!

Thanks for all of your thoughts guys!

Yep, for DOS = ISA SoundCard. No Compromise! 😁

For Windows 9x+ = PCI.

In my hybrid PII 400 system, which runs both DOS+Win3.11 and Windows 95c, I have 4 Sound Cards :

1. Sound Blaster AWE32 CT2760 + WaveBlaster I DB (IRQ 5, A240, P300h, E620, FM:388) - Mostly for using with newer games supporting AWE music, and for using in combination with the SB16.

2. Sound Blaster 16 CT1740 + DBXG60 DB (IRQ 7, A220, P300h, FM:388) - Mostly reserved for sound effects, games using FM-only sounds, etc., and for using in combination with the AWE32.

3. Music Quest PC MIDI Card MQX-32 (100% Roland MPU-401 (Intelligent Mode) Compatible) connected to CM-500. (IRQ 2, MIDI: P330,331h) - For playing games using the MT-32/GS sounds.

4. Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 PCI (Resources assigned by Windows) - For use solely in Windows.

sebaz_ri wrote:

swaaye wrote:

OPL3 is a Yamaha FM synthesizer. You know the warm-fuzzy synthy music of old DOS games? That's FM synth most of the time. Windows 9x games typically use digital recordings instead of real-time synthesis.

Which are the advantages of OPL3 FM synthesizer over a generic FM synth?

it's like Heinz 57 ketchup versus some cheap generic store brand crap.... it just isn't the same!

music in many games were authored based on the OPL2 or OPL3, so in order for them to sound right, you need the real thing (or a licensed clone)

Tetrium wrote:

Didn't the live! have issues when used in combination with a PCI graphics card because of it hogging the PCI bus? And I read that the live! has a minimum requirement of a 133Mhz Pentium CPU.
The Live!'s are still easy to come by, so that's a good thing.

not just PCI video cards, but also AGP from what I remember... later cards probably fixed that problem, but I'm not sure.... no experience with newer sound blasters... I just gave up on creative once they went to PCI

I got a stack of those early live! cards sitting here... one of them is dell OEM I think... all worthless to me compared to the ISA sound blasters... I don't think they can turn to gold as much as the real vintage cards can (ISA sound cards)

Malik wrote:

Yep, for DOS = ISA SoundCard. No Compromise! 😁

For Windows 9x+ = PCI.

I'm still tempted to use an ISA sound card in a Windows box though 😁 . I've been busy finding and downloading the drivers (some of them are really hard to find).

TheMAN wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Didn't the live! have issues when used in combination with a PCI graphics card because of it hogging the PCI bus? And I read that the live! has a minimum requirement of a 133Mhz Pentium CPU.
The Live!'s are still easy to come by, so that's a good thing.

not just PCI video cards, but also AGP from what I remember... later cards probably fixed that problem, but I'm not sure.... no experience with newer sound blasters... I just gave up on creative once they went to PCI

I got a stack of those early live! cards sitting here... one of them is dell OEM I think... all worthless to me compared to the ISA sound blasters... I don't think they can turn to gold as much as the real vintage cards can (ISA sound cards)

I know, I also have a stack of Live!'s laying around here, including one of those Dell ones (I believe it was the SB0200). Was one heck of a ride finding a driver for that card! (And I'm not even sure it'll work).
Also those Vortex drivers are hard to find. In the end I found a website for Turtle Beach and downloaded everything that could possibly be a Vortex card driver, even though I don't know which driver belongs to which card as the model numbers and card names don't match!
The Aztech FTP also had 1 Vortex driver (I think, it's model number somewhat matched the one on the card), also downloaded! 😁

I hardly have any sound cards that are more modern then a Live! btw.

Tetrium check these out:

https://plus.google.com/photos/10811747109024 … =CPKIpone-7W2UA

I have 2 Vortex 2 cards. I got a Turtle beach a while ago, but recently purchased this new Techworks Vortex2 SuperQuad. Haven't played with it yet, but it comes with a driver disc.

The drivers for the Turtle beach can still be downloaded from their website 😀

Both cards have a wavetable connector, so the NEC XR385 is a perfect match. Allows you to play many of the newer DOS games with fantastic General MIDI music. E.g. Doom, Descent, games like that.