gear wrote on 2020-01-20, 18:58:Secondly, for DOS games, if i want a little "enhancement" of the game sounds only a 3 connectors cards can do this or sound card with a 1 or 2 connectors pair with an amp, or want ever, are able to split sound (low frequencies + all others) ?
Does an amp add something to an expandeur, for video games ?
One of the last creative labs sound cards to work with DOS are audigy sound cards, so with their connector I should have 5.1 in DOS games isn't it ?
You are barking up the wrong tree.
DOS games were from an era where 11kHz mono digital audio was pretty common, and music was often provided by an OPL2 FM chip (or OPL3 in OPL2 compatibility mode) with a few channels of mono synthesis. DOS audio sucked.
Some later and more ambitious DOS games used the OPL3 to its full extent, but despite everyone having OPL3 for years, game devs mostly stuck to OPL2 for compatibility. Least common denominator and all that.
Really fancy games might have used the AWE or GUS for wavetable MIDI. That would provide TWO WHOLE CHANNELS of music. SB Pro / SB16 owners would get their 11kHz mono samples panned left/right to track on-screen action. At this point, game audio was almost on-par with 60s music production.
If you were ridiculously rich, you might have owned an MT32 or Sound Canvas. Those are external modules (mostly -- a few rare cards notwithstanding), provide hardware delay and modulation effects (read: reverb and chorus), and support panning. So they sound nice in stereo, and if played back on a Dolby Pro-Logic system, will probably sound pretty good in 4-channel L/C/R/S. If you were still playing DOS games when DPL II came out, you can now add a fabricated stereo surround channel.
None of the later Windows-era 4.0/5.0/5.1/7.1 sound cards have anything to add to those early games. The extra channels were almost entirely designed to support DVD playback, but will benefit 3D audio standards like EAX or A3D as well. I would say the vast majority used the stereo line out into stereo speakers and called it a day.