As far as the "Audician 32 Plus", that is just a specific model with the Yamaha YMF 718-S chip on it. ANY card with the same or similar chip is going to sound pretty much exactly the same.

The Audician type card uses OPL3 (FM synth) for the music while the Dreamblaster is a wavetable (pre-recorded samples) for the music. Completely different things.

Some of the YMF 71x based cards have a wavetable header that you could hook a Dreamblaster up to.

That being said, if you want the BEST music possible for the 1988-1997 period, you would want a Roland MT-32 as well.

The other option for wavetable is to use another computer to be used for software synths and then output the MIDI output on your retro box to the computer set up with the software synths.

For MT-32 support, you could use the MUNT emulator.

If you want the "best sound/music possible" for everything during that period, you will also want:

Roland MT-32 (old version) as well as either an Intelligent mode MPU-401 compatible card or softMPU
Roland SC-55... maybe a MarkII
Gravis Ultrasound
Sound Blaster AWE32 (not value)
Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold!
Pro Audio Spectrum 16
A card that has real Sound Blaster 16 compatibility - so you don't have to deal with the Sound Blaster 16 shortcomings.

It really more depends on what specific games you are going to play and what the original sound track was composed with as to what will be the best for each game.

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-01-10, 17:10:

As far as the "Audician 32 Plus", that is just a specific model with the Yamaha YMF 718-S chip on it. ANY card with the same or […]
Show full quote

As far as the "Audician 32 Plus", that is just a specific model with the Yamaha YMF 718-S chip on it. ANY card with the same or similar chip is going to sound pretty much exactly the same.

The Audician type card uses OPL3 (FM synth) for the music while the Dreamblaster is a wavetable (pre-recorded samples) for the music. Completely different things.

Some of the YMF 71x based cards have a wavetable header that you could hook a Dreamblaster up to.

That being said, if you want the BEST music possible for the 1988-1997 period, you would want a Roland MT-32 as well.

The other option for wavetable is to use another computer to be used for software synths and then output the MIDI output on your retro box to the computer set up with the software synths.

For MT-32 support, you could use the MUNT emulator.

Thank you for your answer!

Yes, I already researched the MT-32 too. And also munt. But then I read somebody here said that for some games the SC-55 would be better, and I was all confused again 😉

But a mt-32 is something I could hook up on later, for now I need a good card.

I understand that a dreamblaster is not a card? I was watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gEF1CujDbI

Which ISA card would you recommend?

Edited my post above.

An Audician 32 type card is a fine card for ISA.

There were some built that also included onboard wavetable synthesis.

Back in the day I really liked the Opti930 based cards with onboard wavetable.

The top all-in-one cards IMO would be more along the lines of:
Turtle Beach Tropez Plus
MediaTrix Audiotix Pro
ISA Sound Cards with Internal Wavetable

But those are getting extremely hard to find for a good price.

Oh yeah.. and if you want something that supports the most sound standards of all, get an Aztech card with the AZTSSPT0592-U01 chip on it. That way you get Covox / Disney Sound Source compatibility as well:
Aztech Sound Galaxy cards

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-01-10, 17:31:

Edited my post above. […]
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Edited my post above.

An Audician 32 type card is a fine card for ISA.

There were some built that also included onboard wavetable synthesis.

Back in the day I really liked the Opti930 based cards with onboard wavetable.

The top all-in-one cards IMO would be more along the lines of:
Turtle Beach Tropez Plus
MediaTrix Audiotix Pro

But those are getting extremely hard to find for a good price.

Thank you!!

I read your edited post too 😀

So, the best answer would be that the optimal soundcard is different for every game?

I just sold my CT3670 by the way because I thought it wasn't good enough after reading here AWE32 was lacking functions :-p

Not every game... and it is really subjective as well.

It is more of the music side of things.. not so much the digital sound effects though you will get a lot cleaner sound out of a 16-bit card than an 8-bit card in games that support 16-bit cards.

For FM synth (OPL2 and OPL3) music, it really isn't going to matter what card you get as long as the OPL chip is genuine or an exact copy.

Then you have the MT-32 which is great for games that have support / music was composed with:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MT-32-c … _computer_games

Then you have General MIDI which is highly subjective and some game music was composed with an SC-55 series or SC-88.. Those should generally sound the best with what they were composed with... but there are other General MIDI synths that sound really good as well.

Like I said before.. back in the day, the card I had was an Opti 930 based card with onboard wavetable. I used that card up until I got a computer that didn't have ISA slots... still have that card as well as have collected every different card I could find that has an Opti chip and onboard wavetable. The wavetable on that card is definitely no the best possible. The dreamblaster has much better samples.

I would say just get a Yamaha YMF-71x based card with the wavetable header to begin with. You can always do the endless obsessing over the "best" later on. It can turn into a money pit.

Tiemen wrote on 2020-01-10, 17:57:

I just sold my CT3670 by the way because I thought it wasn't good enough after reading here AWE32 was lacking functions :-p

Oops. The CT3670 is just an AWE64 with easily upgrade-able RAM. You can even flash it with the AWE64 firmware if you want to disable the onboard IDE controller.

Thank you, you're really a great help!

I have one more question. So the guy from this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gEF1CujDbI is putting a wavetable header (dreamblaster s2) on a Audician 32 plus? I didn't know what a wavetable header was. I thought a dreamblaster S2 was another isa card which he was comparing to the Audician 32 plus. I couldn't understand the guy, he's talking Finnish and I'm Dutch 😉

If that's the case, then my choice is going to be real easy!

Personally I love the AWE32 CT3900. If you don't care about cost. But you said "best". Add a hardMPU or music Quest clone for bug free intelligent midi, and you have what I've got.

The awe32 has AWE effects/music, opl3, is non-PNP (some models), has PC speaker input, waveblaster, extra ram for midi emulation via soundfonts, dos/win95 drivers, great all round compatibility.

If you want cheap and good, the Crystal and Opti cards are good, as is the ESS audiodrive and some Aztech models. The audician32 is a fine card but I would not use it in pure dos, it's good for dos games under win98.

And btw, you are going to find it hard to play dos games with that cpu. Swap it with a Via C3 Ezra and you can use setmul to slow it down. It's too slow for XP games though. If you are trying to make a single PC do they you are trying to achieve the impossible.

kolderman wrote on 2020-01-10, 18:33:

Personally I love the AWE32 CT3900. If you don't care about cost. But you said "best". Add a hardMPU or music Quest clone for b […]
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Personally I love the AWE32 CT3900. If you don't care about cost. But you said "best". Add a hardMPU or music Quest clone for bug free intelligent midi, and you have what I've got.

The awe32 has AWE effects/music, opl3, is non-PNP (some models), has PC speaker input, waveblaster, extra ram for midi emulation via soundfonts, dos/win95 drivers, great all round compatibility.

If you want cheap and good, the Crystal and Opti cards are good, as is the ESS audiodrive and some Aztech models. The audician32 is a fine card but I would not use it in pure dos, it's good for dos games under win98.

And btw, you are going to find it hard to play dos games with that cpu. Swap it with a Via C3 Ezra and you can use setmul to slow it down. It's too slow for XP games though. If you are trying to make a single PC do they you are trying to achieve the impossible.

Thanks for your answer!

Actually, the DOS games that I play work fine on my Tualatin. No problems at all. Jazz Jack Rabbit won't work because the CPU is too fast, but then I just run DOSBOX on it to play that or slow the cpu down. And yes I'm trying to make a single pc 😀 This is the best solution possible I think. My goal is games from 1982 to 2002.

By the way, not every AWE32 has OPL3 right? The CT3670 doesn't have OPL3 right?

Well if part of the solution is to just use dosBox then sure...I'll be amazed if you can play any pre-1990 game without it.

And no, not every awe32 has opl, the 3670 lacks it and is also PNP, others lack ram banks. The best ones are 3900, 3980, and 2760. The 3670 is an awe64 really.

kolderman wrote on 2020-01-10, 18:49:

Well if part of the solution is to just use dosBox then sure...I'll be amazed if you can play any pre-1990 game without it.

And no, not every awe32 has opl, the 3670 lacks it and is also PNP, others lack ram banks. The best ones are 3900, 3980, and 2760. The 3670 is an awe64 really.

Grand Prix Circuit (1988) runs fine, pc-man (1982) too. I will test some other games too to see if there is any game that won't run 😀

kolderman wrote on 2020-01-10, 18:49:

Well if part of the solution is to just use dosBox then sure...I'll be amazed if you can play any pre-1990 game without it.

And no, not every awe32 has opl, the 3670 lacks it and is also PNP, others lack ram banks. The best ones are 3900, 3980, and 2760. The 3670 is an awe64 really.

The ones that don't have geniune Yamaha OPL3 have CQM, which is Creative Labs' remake, which will not sound quite the same but will still work.

Every once in a while, this same topic gets resurrected. So, I'll recycle my original opinion:

Good options include: […]
Show full quote

Good options include:

• Aztech 2316 and 2320 based cards. First generation cards are noisier but include DSS and Covox emulation (which is groovy). The AZT2316 and AZT2320 (later generation cards) feature SB Pro support and either genuine OPL3 or 100% clones. Some compatibility issues are present such as reversed stereo.
• ESS cards - ES688 cards can come with OPL3 or 100% clones. ES1688 and later feature an onboard proprietary FM synth implementation called ESFM which I feel to be quite pleasant and close to true OPL3, but for some this is a deal breaker. All cards have very good SB Pro support.
• Crystal Semi cards - These cards are the benchmark in SB Pro audio quality (IMO), but versions featuring genuine OPL3 support are rare and expensive. I have a CS4232 card with Crystal's version of OPL3. I really dislike this version of FM synth, but CS4236 and newer chips might be better.
• Yamaha YMF-71x cards - These cards are pretty much perfect and can be modified to be even better. The only weakness is in a lack of support for ADPCM audio which is used by some early Apogee games like Duke Nukem 2.

Aztech cards have been creeping up a bit in price, but the other three lines of card are very inexpensive.

Re: Which ISA sound card is best for DOS/98SE games?

gdjacobs wrote on 2020-01-11, 00:19:

Every once in a while, this same topic gets resurrected. So, I'll recycle my original opinion:

Good options include: […]
Show full quote

Good options include:

• Aztech 2316 and 2320 based cards. First generation cards are noisier but include DSS and Covox emulation (which is groovy). The AZT2316 and AZT2320 (later generation cards) feature SB Pro support and either genuine OPL3 or 100% clones. Some compatibility issues are present such as reversed stereo.
• ESS cards - ES688 cards can come with OPL3 or 100% clones. ES1688 and later feature an onboard proprietary FM synth implementation called ESFM which I feel to be quite pleasant and close to true OPL3, but for some this is a deal breaker. All cards have very good SB Pro support.
• Crystal Semi cards - These cards are the benchmark in SB Pro audio quality (IMO), but versions featuring genuine OPL3 support are rare and expensive. I have a CS4232 card with Crystal's version of OPL3. I really dislike this version of FM synth, but CS4236 and newer chips might be better.
• Yamaha YMF-71x cards - These cards are pretty much perfect and can be modified to be even better. The only weakness is in a lack of support for ADPCM audio which is used by some early Apogee games like Duke Nukem 2.

Aztech cards have been creeping up a bit in price, but the other three lines of card are very inexpensive.

Re: Which ISA sound card is best for DOS/98SE games?

Thank you so much!

Well my choice is clear! It's going to be an Audician 32 plus with a S2 Dreamblaster waveheader.

I want to thank all of you for helping me 😀

Just a quick heads up in case you fit this specific niche. The Audician does not have a PC Speaker header. What this does is let you pipe PC speaker sounds through the sound card. So if you're playing a game that only supports PC speaker sounds (many games <1990), this would help it to sound a bit better. I came across this a few months ago when I decided to play Wizardry 6. It only supports PC speaker, and sounded like crap playing through the actual PC speaker in my DOS system. I ended up switching the Audician for a SB16 Vibra (which I originally had, but replaced with the Audician), and the game was much more enjoyable. Since then, I haven't bothered putting the Audician back in because I couldn't tell a difference between them during game play. The only place it makes a difference is if I'm playing a newer DOS game that supports General MIDI, in which case my Dreamblaster daughterboard does not have hanging note issues with the Audician that it does with the SB.

My personal favourite would be AWE32. Specifically CT3900, CT3980, CT3930, CT2760 — these models have true OPL3 and SIMM slots. Get 32 megs of RAM and you can load great soundfonts, like Masterpiece, Arachno, EMU 8MB one (I like this one the best). In short, the support for SF2 soundfonts is what makes AWE series so great.

There are drawbacks, though. The card will load soundfonts into RAM on every boot, so Windows will take at least a minute longer to boot, and that can be annoying. Also, the soundfonts don't work in pure DOS. The AWE cards are meant to be used with Win95 or Win98.

Roland MT-32 is essential — nothing can copy it perfectly.

Roland SC-55 is the most compatible, vanilla, purist option. Coupled with a nice SoundBlaster clone it will work with virtually any game under both DOS and Win9x. Can't say that I use the module too often, though — but that's a matter of preference.

Yamaha XG cards (SW60XG, DB50XG) and external modules (MU50, MU80) also sound great. SW60XG is particularly interesting: you get an independent MIDI card that doesn't rely on your Sound Blaster (so no bugs ever) but doesn't require extra space and a power supply.

Dreamblaster X2 is a nice option, too (again, best used with a non-Creative card to avoid hanging note bugs typical for a lot of original Sound Blasters). Too bad there aren't many soundfonts available for this daughterboard because it needs a proprietary and expensive SDK to work with soundbanks. Again, the compatibility will be perfect.

Gravis Ultrasound is definitely not essential for gaming. Not many games support it natively — in most cases it's treated as a regular General MIDI card. It's also a tricky card to set up (especially the later PnP/PnP Pro cards). It does have a pretty interesting characteristic sound in MIDI tracks (thanks to ProPatches Lite) that I find best for some games. But it's definitely not suitable to be your only card.

clueless1 wrote on 2020-01-11, 13:03:

Just a quick heads up in case you fit this specific niche. The Audician does not have a PC Speaker header. What this does is let you pipe PC speaker sounds through the sound card. So if you're playing a game that only supports PC speaker sounds (many games <1990), this would help it to sound a bit better. I came across this a few months ago when I decided to play Wizardry 6. It only supports PC speaker, and sounded like crap playing through the actual PC speaker in my DOS system. I ended up switching the Audician for a SB16 Vibra (which I originally had, but replaced with the Audician), and the game was much more enjoyable. Since then, I haven't bothered putting the Audician back in because I couldn't tell a difference between them during game play. The only place it makes a difference is if I'm playing a newer DOS game that supports General MIDI, in which case my Dreamblaster daughterboard does not have hanging note issues with the Audician that it does with the SB.

I put in a special pc speaker in it, it has its own little charm. I played games like that back in the day when I was a little boy. I know what you mean, I have played internal speaker games through my soundcard. Both options are okay for me 😀

jheronimus wrote on 2020-01-11, 14:51:

My personal favourite would be AWE32. Specifically CT3900, CT3980, CT3930, CT2760 — these models have true OPL3 and SIMM slots. […]
Show full quote

My personal favourite would be AWE32. Specifically CT3900, CT3980, CT3930, CT2760 — these models have true OPL3 and SIMM slots. Get 32 megs of RAM and you can load great soundfonts, like Masterpiece, Arachno, EMU 8MB one (I like this one the best). In short, the support for SF2 soundfonts is what makes AWE series so great.

There are drawbacks, though. The card will load soundfonts into RAM on every boot, so Windows will take at least a minute longer to boot, and that can be annoying. Also, the soundfonts don't work in pure DOS. The AWE cards are meant to be used with Win95 or Win98.

Roland MT-32 is essential — nothing can copy it perfectly.

Roland SC-55 is the most compatible, vanilla, purist option. Coupled with a nice SoundBlaster clone it will work with virtually any game under both DOS and Win9x. Can't say that I use the module too often, though — but that's a matter of preference.

Yamaha XG cards (SW60XG, DB50XG) and external modules (MU50, MU80) also sound great. SW60XG is particularly interesting: you get an independent MIDI card that doesn't rely on your Sound Blaster (so no bugs ever) but doesn't require extra space and a power supply.

Dreamblaster X2 is a nice option, too (again, best used with a non-Creative card to avoid hanging note bugs typical for a lot of original Sound Blasters). Too bad there aren't many soundfonts available for this daughterboard because it needs a proprietary and expensive SDK to work with soundbanks. Again, the compatibility will be perfect.

Gravis Ultrasound is definitely not essential for gaming. Not many games support it natively — in most cases it's treated as a regular General MIDI card. It's also a tricky card to set up (especially the later PnP/PnP Pro cards). It does have a pretty interesting characteristic sound in MIDI tracks (thanks to ProPatches Lite) that I find best for some games. But it's definitely not suitable to be your only card.

Thanks!

What do you think about Audician 32 plus in combination with a S2 Dreamblaster? Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gEF1CujDbI

Sounds pretty good right?