Ensoniq AudioPCI was used as a lot of Creative products. That's what ES1370-ES1373 are. I have the suspicion that they used it longer but renamed it and I don't know the Creative part numbers.

It is essentially a basic AC97 codec. Everything is software. It can only mix 2 hardware audio channels and the 1371, 1373 do sample rate conversion (run at 48kHz in AC97 style). MIDI, 3D audio and effects are all done on the CPU. The MIDI softsynth has some quality limitations that make it inferior to the previous Ensoniq Soundscape cards and certainly not even close to what a Live can do with soundfonts. DOS support will be through the usual AudioPCI/Live/Audigy ISA emulation driver.

Intel often had Creative chips on their motherboards. They used Vibra16 too for example.

swaaye wrote:

Ensoniq AudioPCI was used as a lot of Creative products. That's what ES1370-ES1373 are. I have the suspicion that they used it longer but renamed it and I don't know the Creative part numbers.

It is essentially a basic AC97 codec. Everything is software. It can only mix 2 hardware audio channels and the 1371, 1373 do sample rate conversion (run at 48kHz in AC97 style). MIDI, 3D audio and effects are all done on the CPU. The MIDI softsynth has some quality limitations that make it inferior to the previous Ensoniq Soundscape cards and certainly not even close to what a Live can do with soundfonts. DOS support will be through the usual AudioPCI/Live/Audigy ISA emulation driver.

Intel often had Creative chips on their motherboards. They used Vibra16 too for example.

That is good enough for me. As I am going to install Win98SE as the only operating system, and DOS games will be played through that.
As I can tell from the "quick overview guide" (wikipedia 😉 ), it can do general midi, wich if can be done in Win98SE, are good for Doom and such.

True it's a stereo card, yet it should do 16 midi channels. I had no complaints back in 1998/99, as PCI-128 was a decent card at that time.

It does have a full featured soft synthesizer yes, with chorus and reverb effects too. All in software though. Also, a Live! isn't any better for DOS games because the Live uses the same software synthesizer for its DOS support. For all intents and purposes the Creative PCI cards are all identical for DOS games.

Here's some in depth info about the synth
http://johnengelmann.net/technology/ecw/

I recall Creative actually buying Ensoniq just for their PCI DOS emulation drivers. SB-Link really didn't took off as a result.

swaaye wrote:

It does have a full featured soft synthesizer yes, with chorus and reverb effects too. All in software though. Also, a Live! isn't any better for DOS games because the Live uses the same software synthesizer for its DOS support. For all intents and purposes the Creative PCI cards are all identical for DOS games.

Here's some in depth info about the synth
http://johnengelmann.net/technology/ecw/

Are you shure?
I think my CT4620 sounds way better than my CT4810. Both on the midi side, as well as the SB-Emulation.
Even MT32 in dos, is better on the CT4620. And more easy to set up (just tick MT32 in the mixerset prog.)
Yet that is not the issue here. As for the SB-Link, it should enable legacy sound blaster in DOS real mode or not.
With or without an Creative card.

Actually there is only the CT4600 and CT4650 from Creativce that has SB-Link on the soundcard.
I have seen it more on competing brands of that time period, such as an A-Open 350 sound card.

NJRoadfan wrote:

I recall Creative actually buying Ensoniq just for their PCI DOS emulation drivers. SB-Link really didn't took off as a result.

Have been rethinking this tonight. One other reason could be the fact, that Windows can somehow do some compensation through software.
If that is so, then the demise of Dos and use of Windows, could be why Creative actually did not add SB-Link to the SB-Live card.
They might have had their mind sat on innovation, or just thought that bacwards compatibility was something not to include by default.

I think for Creative it's only AWE64D that has SBLink. AWE64D might be the best DOS card option because it will use its hardware synth. Though I'm guessing AWE64D has a 512K ROM patch set and that isn't exactly great. In Windows you should be able to load a Soundfont and have DOS games use it.

For the ES137x and EMU10K1 cards, there are a few versions of the DOS driver. The original Ensoniq version supported SBPro and Ensoniq Soundscape was the 16bit option. The Creative cards should all have a version of the driver with SB16 support. The OPL3 emulation improves a bit too, but is still awful compared to the real thing. MT32 "emulation" of that time is never impressive if you've heard the real hardware. It wasn't possible to truly emulate a MT32 back then.

Yes. The AWE64-D is in two versions. The CT-4600 and the CT-4650.
I have had this Ensonic thing going in DOS, and yes it is awfull compared to OPL on real hardware based cards.
The general MIDI is by no means bad, as it is better than OPL.

Wich comes down to: Do you prefer MIDI overr OPL or the other way around.
Shure the Ensonic chip can do OPL emulation. Yet...
Is the card a bad choice, if you happen to like MIDI better and only play late DOS games designed for EMM386?

For me. This board is nice, if I am only using Win98SE and a few EMM386 + General MIDI compatible games.
And the rest of the games are then Windows based.
On the other hand... I am going to install the SB-Live as well. 😉

You might be able to use Soundfonts with DOS games via the AWE64D in Windows. I've done this with AWE32 and I assume AWE64D works similarly but stores the Soundfont in system RAM instead of local RAM. It's easy to find Soundfonts that crush those ecw wavesets used by the AudioPCI and Live DOS driver.

Ironically the 2MB patch ROMs on Ensoniq's older cards sounds clearly better than even the 8MB ecw.

On the topic of OPL/FM vs Wavetable preference, for me it depends on the day of week and phase of the moon. 🤣 When I was younger I thought Wavetable was super cool but these days I think I prefer the unique sound of FM over quirky Wavetable. Though a nice Yamaha or Roland card is very good to hear. With General MIDI it is quite useful to have the hardware that the game's soundtrack was composed on and that's usually Roland.

The biggest problem I had with the DOS emulation drivers is that there is no way to output data to the MIDI port to run a MT-32. Same goes for the Windows 95 DOSBox emulation Creative provided (at least for my SB Live!). I landed up finding a solution by running the games in Windows 2000 (!) with VDMSound routing MPU-401 data to the MIDI port back in the day.

Yea to be honest I never use that Creative AudioPCI/EMU10Kx DOS sound stuff anymore. It is flaky and it doesn't sound very good beyond straight up Soundscape/SB16 PCM output. An AWE64D seems much more intriguing if you have SBLink.

Yeah...
I know that Creative never have made any 100% compatible MT32 device back in the day's (Unless it's a really exotic device)
Hence what I call emulation, and not compatible. I know it can not do stuff like changing MT32 sound font and stuff.
I just really think that MT32 emulation on the AWE32 can be made really close to a real MT32.
The LIVE on the other hand, is something comepletely different thing. The sound quality is really clear.
Yet it lack's stuff like reverb and chorus, compared to the AWE32 thing.

My Creative Ensoniq PCI (CT4810), is a bit different. As I use Ensonic's drivers and not creatives drivers.
I have the best result using these as opposed to those produced by creative.
If using Windows drivers, the creative ones in Win98SE. The CT4810 is really a downer compared to SB-Live.
When playing Doom through Win98SE, the instrument's are really awfull.... Bad guitar and plain drums.
The hihat is somewhat distorted and there is no dept to the instruments in general.

Using the AWE32 or the LIVE in eighter DOS or WIN, just gives a (for me) better result.
That is using AWE32 mode in doom or General MIDI mode (the LIVE) in doom through Win.
The LIVE using MT32 in Dos, gives a clear yet cold sound in Monkey island, using MT32 emulation.
And the AWE32 in Dos, gives a more sort of warm feeling, when using MT32 emulation.
The Creative Ensonic Audio PCI is just a downer, when compared to the other two.
Yet it can be used running Monkey -r from dos (think that's the command).

That's how I rate those cards, when I compare them with each other, using standard software (drivers etc.)