j^aws wrote on 2020-01-23, 19:57:
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There's no denying that one system is never enough.
However, your approach of using an oddball set of resources is not the best way to approach multiple sound card systems as it is asking for incompatibilities.
I know all too well, that's why I've backed off that approach.
Also, I don't understand what you mean by 'wanting it all at the same time' - why would you want a GUS playing at the same time as a Sound Blaster Pro, or an AWE playing alongside a Game Blaster, for example?
You can cover the most popular sound standards across the 80s and 90s without compatibility issues by using standard resources and with multiple cards. And of course, have specialised builds for more exotic sound cards.
So you don't need to swap cards or reboot between cards. Just select the card and go, and switch to another one instantly. At least, that was the theory. Didn't quite work like that in practice.
That said, lots of games have separate settings for music and digital audio. Usually SBPro2/SB16 + GM is the best option, but with multiple cards doing GM and various digital audio options there can be quite a lot to choose from. AWE+Game Blaster is unlikely, but GUS and AWE are contemporary and you can combine those two in four different ways for starters. Which is why I'm pairing those two in my Pentium MMX system.
If you need ISA slots, an industrial backplane can house 9+ slots, and resources can be managed with batch files/ dip switches, for example.
Yep, actually have one of those - but no need: with 5 ISA slots on a regular motherboard I already had more slots than I could concurrently get to run anyway (at least, with things requiring IRQ, DMA and particular base I/O). Does remind me: I need to get a suitable SBC for it - I managed to destroy the Pentium 4 SBC it came with :'(
The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-01-23, 20:01:
why would you want a GUS playing
GUS is overrated, yes.
Really, everything by AdLib, Audiotrix, Creative, Ensoniq (at least, the ISA cards), Gravis, Roland and Terratec is overrated. Yes, a lot of it is good, sometimes even very good, but hardly worth the premium you pay for it in terms of audio quality vs price.
My reason for wanting GUS is mainly nostalgia - I had a GUS Max from 1995 to 1999 and it was my first sound card, so that's what later era DOS gaming sounded like for me. And where it's natively supported I do generally prefer it to SB16 or WSS digital audio as well.