You could save yourself some time by recognizing the commercial DOS sound drivers. Like the Miles real mode and protected mode drivers. Such drivers usually translate midi files (stereo) to FM with a conversion bank.

I don't really understand, why would that help?

When I see the file SBPRO2.MDI in the listing of System Shock for example, then I know it plays FM music in stereo. It plays music from XMI files, which is extended midi, not a native FM format. The midi to FM translation banks are CIT.AD (OPL2/mono) and CIT.OPL (OPL3/stereo). Many games from that time have similar or identical drivers.
It would help you to understand the above when making such a big list. Also because it means there is a difference between native FM music and converted FM music.

Is that true OPL3 stereo or balance panning as with Wolfenstein?

List of dual OPL2/stereo games (I think that's what you meant?) from nerdypleasures. Not sure if complete:

1990 Christmas Card - The Seasoned Professional
B-17 Flying Fortress
Castle of Dr. Brain
Conquests of the Longbow
David Leadbetter's Greens
DragonsSphere
EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus (patch)
F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0
Formula One Grand Prix
Gunship 2000
Harrier Jump Jet
Hoyle's Official Book of Games Volume 3
Jones in the Fast Lane
King's Quest V (patch)
Leisure Suit Larry 5
Leisure Suit Larry 1 VGA
Lord of the Rings Volume 1
Lord of the Rings Volume 2
Mixed-up Fairy Tales
Mixed-Up Mother Goose (patch)
Pirates! Gold
Police Quest III
Quest for Glory II (patch)
Return of the Phantom
Sid Meier's Civilization
Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon Deluxe
Space Quest I VGA
Space Quest IV (patch)
Special Forces
Strike Commander

When I looked these up on YT, most uploaders didn't seem to know about the stereo as many were set to mono (either that or video recorded in mono).

Where is Supaplex? 😐

Summer Challenge.
Winter Challenge.
Prince of Persia 2.
Gods.
Golden Axe.
Heroes of Might and Magic 2.
Stone Age.

BTW thanks for the list, I've been searching for one.

I wasn't aware that Heroes 2 for example had adlib support, I have just been using youtube and vgmrips up until now. Will check these out soon. 😀

Going through this mobygames list now: http://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attr … t,50/p,2/so,1a/

ommadawnyawn wrote:

List of dual OPL2/stereo games (I think that's what you meant?)

Your replies seem to indicate that you do not understand what I tried to say. Come on, look in Heroes of Might an Magic 2 sound folder there is the exact SBPRO2.MDI file I talked about.
I will leave it at that....

gdjacobs wrote:

Is that true OPL3 stereo or balance panning as with Wolfenstein?

The OPL3 stereo mode is not a panning trick. Though it is hard left/right only.

Well not completely, I'll have to look into it later, but I was actually replying to gdjacobs there. Right now I only have like 20-30 DOS games via GOG available and settings are different there.

I was hoping someone here would know of games that they remember if they were made for OPL3 specificially so I could separate them from the OPL2 list.

Edit: Gods is one of two examples I've heard of FM and PCM/samples being combined for the music. The other is Blue Force. Do you guys know any others? The game 7th Guest seems to have some midi songs and some adlib songs, but not mixed from what I could tell.

gerwin wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

Is that true OPL3 stereo or balance panning as with Wolfenstein?

The OPL3 stereo mode is not a panning trick. Though it is hard left/right only.

Yeah you can direct each OPL3 channel into either left, right or both outputs at the same time, so the OPL3 chip itself is hard left, hard right, and hard middle only. SB mixers don't even support mixing them left and right, it's purely left output to left speaker with volume, and same for right channel.

But if the original music is meant for single OPL2 chip (9 mono channels), depending on sound driver it can be played back on dual OPL2 chips (9 channels left, 9 channels right) or single OPL3 chip (18 channels, left/middle/right selectable) with stereo effects, like two channels playing same tone but with a bit different volume on right and left channel, or other slight differences. The only thing is the OPL3 has a rythm mode that is identical to a single OPL2, so a single OPL3 can't play rhythm mode stuff meant for two separate OPL2 chips.

Anybody take advantage of rhythm mode?

There are 2 main OPL2 cards. One is the Sound Blaster Pro CT1330 and the other the original Pro Audio Spectrum. AFAIK the PAS predates the Sound Blaster Pro. So Creative, being the lamest asshole company they were, pushed a different way on how the OPL2 chips are accessed. I'm not sure if this is totally correct but on the Pro Audio Spectrum the OPL2 chips are accessed starting on address 388h and on. Sound Blaster Pro however can be accessed for AdLib compatibility on 1 OPL2 chip only via 388h and in order to use the 2 you must use the 2x0h region, standard SB ports.

So for instance a game like Formula One Grand Prix, supports dual OPL2, but on the Creative card only. Unless a game was programmed to support each card individually you can't always hear dual OPL2 music.

So more important than having a list of supported dual OPL2 games is to differentiate the ones that only support SB Pro, PAS or both.

Good info though the point of the thread is to sort out the YMF262 chip games for making chip specific soundtrack lists, not necessarily to help with getting the right card or settings to get dual opl 2 out of a game.

carlostex wrote:

There are 2 main OPL2 cards. One is the Sound Blaster Pro CT1330 and the other the original Pro Audio Spectrum. AFAIK the PAS predates the Sound Blaster Pro. So Creative, being the lamest asshole company they were, pushed a different way on how the OPL2 chips are accessed. I'm not sure if this is totally correct but on the Pro Audio Spectrum the OPL2 chips are accessed starting on address 388h and on. Sound Blaster Pro however can be accessed for AdLib compatibility on 1 OPL2 chip only via 388h and in order to use the 2 you must use the 2x0h region, standard SB ports.

SB Pro and PAS, both are Adlib compatible with ports 388h/389h, they just do it a bit differently.

On SB Pro, write to 388h/389h area writes simultaneously to left and right FM chips, so you get mono out.

On PAS, write to 388h/389h area writes only to one chip, but its output is connected to both left and right speakers via mixer setting.

For SB Pro dual OPL2 access, 2x0h/2x1h is the left chip and 2x2h/2x3h is the right chip, directly accessible.

For PAS dual OPL2 access, you'd need to write mixer to connect only left FM chip to left speaker and right FM chip to right speaker, and then 388h/389h is the left FM chip and 38Ah/38Bh are the right FM chip.

So, they are are completely Adlib compatible. If you want dual OPL2 stereo FM, your sound driver better know which card you have so it can use the four contiguous SB addresses or four contiguous PAS addresses, there's no difference in that. Except the PAS needs special mixer init first and SB just works. And since their DAC portion is different, games would need a card specific PCM audio driver anyway so they might as well have the card specific FM driver as well.

To update, I've now made a retro sound chip tribute page and separate pages for each chip/card with some info and links to the most impressive OSTs. Adlib's still WIP though.

http://minirevver.weebly.com/impressive-vgm-b … sound-chip.html