What's special about that card is the stereo FM capabilities. IIRC, there were certain Sierra games that could do stereo FM only with this specific card.

Is that different from having separate voices per channel?

Rubix wrote on 2026-01-27, 21:27:

Is that different from having separate voices per channel?

No, I believe that's the same thing.

The card has a pair of Yamaha YM3812 chips, one for left channel and one for right. Each chip can produce up to 9 11 voices of FM synthesis.

Ahh OK, cool! Thanks for the info!

I have one. The install is a bit tricky and you have to do the install from a floppy drive.

Output is pretty clean and there are certain games that have specific support for the dual OPL2 on this card.

cyclone3d wrote on 2026-01-27, 23:26:

I have one. The install is a bit tricky and you have to do the install from a floppy drive.

Output is pretty clean and there are certain games that have specific support for the dual OPL2 on this card.

Would you recommend it for a Pentium 1 era machine? Or does it lack compatibility for that?

This card is good for 386 and 486 maybe, pentium I don't think so.

With a fast CPU, OPL2 needs software to add delays between writes to its registers - but there's plenty of games that lack the delays.
Pentium is definitely fast enough to cause problems.

Thanks a lot!

Rubix wrote on 2026-01-28, 11:00:

Would you recommend it for a Pentium 1 era machine? Or does it lack compatibility for that?

i run it on my Pentium MMX just fine. There are some games that do not take into account the delays between commands that the OPL2 needs, but that is an OPL2 problem. In fact, i find the CT1330 far more speed sensitive than the 8 bit PAS.

I managed to go around that by mucking around with certain games OPL drivers, increase loops between OPL2 commands. This card is far superior to the CT1330.

Also if there was ever a rank of cards with digital sound support for games this card would be second only to the Sound Blaster standard.

About the 16 bit PAS:

The PAS 16 is backwards compatible with the 8 bit PAS, but in digital only. PAS+ and PAS16 use an OPL3 which will not translate well to games that use dual OPL2 feature of the 8 bit PAS. There are some games that do support stereo OPL3 on the PAS 16 though. PAS 16 (vast majority of models) also requires -5V line, and its MVSOUND.SYS driver takes 2K more than the old driver for the 8 bit PAS. PAS 16 also includes the MV201 Thunder chipset which gives you Sound Blaster support. That may save you an ISA slot if you do not care about stereo Sound Blaster. Not all PAS16 have a wavetable connector and PAS 16 MPU-401 is wonky at best.

So for me the 8bit PAS is definitely a unique card that will always have a slot reserved for it.

Yep. This is a nice little unicorn - rare, and also unique abilities with FM. The SBPro 1.0 had a similar dual OPL2 setup, but support for that is much more limited.

Tbh this would be about top of my list for a replica if someone were to design one - although with so many SMD components it would be a devil to assemble, on par with the AdLib Gold. Still, just like the AdLib Gold, the prices 8b PAS go for are so high it might be worth it.

dionb wrote on 2026-01-29, 10:24:

Yep. This is a nice little unicorn - rare, and also unique abilities with FM. The SBPro 1.0 had a similar dual OPL2 setup, but support for that is much more limited.

Tbh this would be about top of my list for a replica if someone were to design one - although with so many SMD components it would be a devil to assemble, on par with the AdLib Gold. Still, just like the AdLib Gold, the prices 8b PAS go for are so high it might be worth it.

I would love a replica too, although for preservation i wish all the good cards would be FPGA'ed. I don't care what anybody says, that is the future. There is already an FPGA 486 motherboard out there, where the main chipset is on FPGA. It is very much incomplete, because it's missing a DMA controller and still needs a lot of work. But i see the future where we can have a portable laptop, with a good screen, maybe integrated scanline generation for the retro feel. With an FPGA as chipset with a flexible configuration, where you could control FSB with single MHz granularity, MHz control over PCI and ISA buses, and a dedicated FPGA just for sound including all the good ones connected to a high quality DAC. CPU's last forever, so pick your socket. A Pentium MMX downclocked to 133MHz and 1.8V you can probably shave 10W out of CPU power consumption. Passive cooling is an option and long battery life too.

I'm rambling too much and getting a bit out of topic, but seriously, maybe in 10 years this could be a reality.