VOGONS


Favorite ISA Sound Cards

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First post, by swaaye

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This is one of my favorite pieces of hardware from DOS times. The hardware wavetable MIDI cards just shocked me when I went from my SBPro to a Ensoniq Soundscape. Doom was unbelievable, TIE Fighter was so much more powerful, etc. It was amazing. The best part was the interactive sound that game programmers put into their games with the flexibility of MIDI. TIE Fighter is the best example of this IMO.

There were tons of different DOS MIDI cards to choose from, some really stunk, others were shockingly accurate. Roland, Creative, Ensoniq, Turtle Beach, Logitech, Yamaha: the list goes on and on. It was a time when cutting costs was seemingly less important than making a good sounding card (at least for some). So, what was your favorite?

I had 2 Soundscapes, the original S2000 and then the ELITE (which I still have today). I've also picked up a AWE64 Gold and a SB32 to mess with. When I got the Ensoniq AudioPCI I was disappointed because the quality was a lot lower than the old Soundscapes....and it was all software-based.

I'd say the SS ELITE was my favorite. The onboard MIDI for the SB32 stinks (512K). The AWE64 hasn't really been used much. Though I do like how I can load patchsets onto my SB32's 8MB RAM expansion and play games in Win98SE with even better sound. It's hit and miss with compatibility though.

Reply 1 of 29, by keropi

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NOTHING beats in terms of quality the YAMAHA SOUND EDGE SW-20.... 2MB of rom samples + extra DSP for real-time effexts, fully user programmable.... not to mention the 128kb SRAM for user samples... All game I played with this card rocked hard! better than sb64....

Reply 3 of 29, by Than2069

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I dont know if this is the right place for this but I have about 15 ISA Awe64 golds at my store waiting for new homes. Not that dosbox users are gonna really want them. 😀 For me it was the first time I got the Awe32 to use soundfonts with extra ram

Reply 4 of 29, by ribbon13

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I actually had an Aztech card I just loved because of the way its MIDI sound.. not realistic at all, but really technoish... it was great. It gave me inspiration to do techno remixes of classical music.

Reply 5 of 29, by HunterZ

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I was blown away when I played X-Wing on my cousin's computer. He had a SB Pro and an internal MIDI synth card that was compatable with the Roland Sound Canvas. I didn't really know it, but this was probably about the best setup available at the time. I, having no sound card at the time, was inspired to buy a cheap SB 2.0. I later got my hands on a monstrous SB16 MCD (SB16 + onboard IDE controller for first-generation CD-ROM drives), which was the last ISA sound card that I used before getting a PCI card.

I've since inherited an AWE64 Gold, but have never really used it. I've always wanted to build a DOS box with it but probably never will. I heard the AWE32 was better in that you could install standard RAM sticks to increase the on-board RAM used for soundfonts.

Reply 7 of 29, by swaaye

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AWE cards aren't ideal for DOS MIDI since they have to use big, buggy TSRs to get MIDI support. And, unless you can run the DOS game within Win9x, you can't use soundfonts which limits you to the trash 512K midi waveset on the board.

A SB16 with a Roland Soundcanvas Daughtercard (SCD-10 or 15) is probably the best sounding and most compatible way to go. Almost all games back then had soundtracks scored with Sound Canvas cards so it's the best way to get the right sound. Hard to find though. Or a SB16 with a SCC-1 card.....or the Ensoniq Soundscape (non VIVO) cards cuz they only loaded firmware on bootup, no TSRs, and were pretty compatible and sounded VERY good.

The only good daugtercards are the Roland cards and the Ensoniq Soundscape DB. There are many trash ones, like the Creative Waveblasters.

I have my massive Computer Gaming World magazine collection. There are some sound card roundups from back in the day I could scan.

Reply 8 of 29, by Zup

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AWE cards aren't ideal for DOS MIDI since they have to use big, buggy TSRs to get MIDI support. And, unless you can run the DOS game within Win9x, you can't use soundfonts which limits you to the trash 512K midi waveset on the board.

I had a Soundblaster AWE64 Gold and it didn't need a TSR to get MIDI support. It played midi sound through port 300 or 330. Also, I remember there was some utility (not included with the card) for downloading soundfonts in DOS.

Later, they bought Ensoniq and made the AudioPCI series... the worst sound cards I ever tried...[/quote]

Reply 10 of 29, by swaaye

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AWE64 may not, but I GUARANTEE that unless a DOS game natively supports the AWE, you are required to use a TSR. In other words, if you need to pick General MIDI or anything other than AWE32, you need a TSR.

AWE32/SB32 do not have a hardware MPU-401 implementation. I believe the TSR driver emulates this in software. It's highly documented on usenet if you search google groups.

There was a period when you could not get wavetable out of Doom because of this. The TSR hates DOS4GW. ID added native AWE support in a patch.

AudioPCI was a genuine Ensoniq product, until Creative bought them and released Creative Ensoniq AudioPCI, SB64, and SB128 (all the same board, different drivers.) There were two or more chips. The best of them is the original Ensoniq ES1370. The ES1373 had some adaptations for AC97 I believe and forced resampling....I think....

I bought a Ensoniq AudioPCI direct from Ensoniq for $75, as an upgrade from my Soundscape. It definitely wasn't much of an upgrade......But that board does work a lot better in 9x than Soundscape. And the 4 speaker mode was cool in some games.....

AudioPCI was a compatibility dream though. It is one of the biggest reasons for Creative's purchase of Ensoniq. Ensoniq got a PCI card to be like 90% compatible with ISA sound standards for old games. That was a HUGE problem back then. I bet Audigy still uses that Ensoniq driver (it's rebranded to say Creative now though.) Look for those .ECW files for DOS wavetable (Ensoniq Concert Wavetable)

Reply 11 of 29, by HunterZ

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swaaye: You're right about Creative using Ensoniq's drivers for later PCI cards. I know for sure that my SB Live used the same DOS drivers as my SB PCI128. I found it really annoying that the Live could use SoundFonts in Windows but was limited to ECW banks in DOS, purely due to Creative's laziness.

Reply 12 of 29, by Freddo

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valnar wrote:

SB16 + Roland SCD-15 daughterboard. 100% compatibility and best MIDI possible.

-Robert

Heh, almost the same for me. Although I have a Yamaha XG50 daughterboard instead 😀 Great setup.

Reply 13 of 29, by QBiN

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Freddo wrote:
valnar wrote:

SB16 + Roland SCD-15 daughterboard. 100% compatibility and best MIDI possible.

-Robert

Heh, almost the same for me. Although I have a Yamaha XG50 daughterboard instead 😀 Great setup.

I think my setup takes the retro compatibility cake (although I'm sure I'm not the only one with this setup.

SB16 @ A220 I5 D1 H5 P300 (The address 300 is important!)
Roland SCC-1 @ 0x330
Roland MT-32 on SCC-1's MIDI out port (SCC-1 acting as MPU-401).

Reply 14 of 29, by laxdragon

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I don't see anyone mention the Gravis Ultrasound. I never owned one, I was more partial to the AWE-64 Gold I had. But, I had friends at the time who could not stop telling me how awesome the card was. Hmmm. Any thoughts on that?

Reply 15 of 29, by HunterZ

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I'd like to build a box with:
AWE 64 Gold with full RAM
LAPC-I
SCC-1
Gravis Ultrasound

It would be a nightmare getting them to coexist, plus I'd have to be using a very old computer to get enough ISA slots... Maybe it would be better to dump either the GUS or the SB and use one of the cards' MIDI ports to drive an external MT-32 or Sound Canvas.

I know I'll never manage to do it though, but I don't feel sad because of the recent progress on DOSBox and MT-32 emulators 😀

Reply 17 of 29, by seskanda

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hmm...some interesting tidbits on ISA sound cards; its been some time since a worthwhile thread has appeared about this subject. Anyways, speaking of ECW banks, does anyone know how to convert them to .SF2,.SBK, or DLS? Namely, I am referring to the eapci2m.ecw, eapci4m.ecw, or eapci8m.ecw waveset files. I tried two programs: Audio Compositor & Awave Studio, but alas, neither are able to recognize the .ecw format.

Reply 19 of 29, by seskanda

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Nope. I have versions 2.1 and 2.3 of Vienna, and both refuse to open those files. I even renamed them to .sf2, too, but fat chance! BTW, is there any notable new differences/features in Vienna 2.3, 'cause it seems exactly the same as 2.1 to me.