Soundblaster 32 vs Awe32 or AWE64 \ VOGONS

Soundblaster 32 vs Awe32 or AWE64

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First post, by candle_86

Posted on 2020-05-29, 14:18

candle_86 Offline

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I'm seeing cheap under 30 dollar sb32's on eBay, but the awe cards trending near 70, is there a big difference between them. Can a 32 with the Simms populated be just as good or is it worth spending more. I will be using this on my Pentium mmx system for 95 and dos games launched from 95.

Reply 1 of 8, by austinham

Posted on 2020-05-29, 14:46

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candle_86 wrote on 2020-05-29, 14:18:

I'm seeing cheap under 30 dollar sb32's on eBay, but the awe cards trending near 70, is there a big difference between them. Can a 32 with the Simms populated be just as good or is it worth spending more. I will be using this on my Pentium mmx system for 95 and dos games launched from 95.

my pick would be a sound blaster32 CT3600 with ram and a good sound font. that is unless if you have ram for a awe64.

Reply 2 of 8, by derSammler

Posted on 2020-05-29, 15:04

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With a Sound Blaster 32 you lose compared to the AWE32:

* on-board RAM (can't use AWEUTIL for GM emulation therefore)
* real OPL3 (not on all AWE32 cards, either)
* wavetable connector

But you still get all the bugs like SB Pro 2.0 mono-only, hanging notes, etc.

Best card imho is the AWE32 CT3900.

Reply 3 of 8, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2020-05-29, 15:36

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derSammler wrote on 2020-05-29, 15:04:
With a Sound Blaster 32 you lose compared to the AWE32: […]
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With a Sound Blaster 32 you lose compared to the AWE32:

* on-board RAM (can't use AWEUTIL for GM emulation therefore)
* real OPL3 (not on all AWE32 cards, either)
* wavetable connector

But you still get all the bugs like SB Pro 2.0 mono-only, hanging notes, etc.

Best card imho is the AWE32 CT3900.

The CT3600 came in 2 different configurations that I am aware of - I have both:
1. No on-board RAM
2. On-board 512KB RAM

Will AWEUTIL work for GM emulation if you install SIMMs on the model without onboard RAM?

There are also a few different models that were called SB32:
CT3930 - Vibra16 chip - CT2501 (and has real OPL3)
CT3600 - CT2502
CT3620 - Classic AWE32 chips - CT1741/CT1745
CT3670 - AWE64 chips - CT8903/CT1745T - Creative Labs lists this as an AWE32 PnP IDE - see below.

See here for an old discussion:
sbpnp32 vs sbawe32

And here is a full write-up on the SB32, AWE32 and AWE64 options.
http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2012/07/s … 64-options.html

The CT3670 can also be flashed with the AWE64 firmware if you want to disable the IDE interface on it... it then basically becomes an AWE64 with SIMM slots. This is non-reversible.

Creative Labs list of all their different sound cards:
https://support.creative.com/kb/showarticle.aspx?sid=10846