Closest I've seen in terms of FM Synthesis would be the Avance Logic ALS4000(outputs FM Synthesis just like a real YMF262, but it doesn't hold its notes as long). I know it's SoundBlaster Pro compatible, but I did hear it has SoundBlaster 16 support, although I never tested it, so I don't know if it works or not.

EDIT: Whoa, what? The website for the ALS4000 says it has support for OPL4. Seriously??? I need to test that out!

And in fact, it is SoundBlaster 16-compatible. According to this site, at least: http://www.orpheuscomputing.com/als-4000.html

The SETMUSE program for X-Wing doesn't complain when trying to detect a SoundBlaster 16 while I'm using my ALS4000, however it always fails at finding what IRQ the sound card's set to. Because of this, I couldn't get the SoundBlaster 16 support to work, but I'll give it a shot again tomorrow and report back.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I'm just wondering which PCI sound cards have the best Sound Blaster 16 emulation in DOS, mostly in terms of digital sound, and FM synthesis.

My take on this...

If you don't have ISA slots, I take it your machine isn't slow?

Old DOS Games with FM only: DOSBox - FM in DOSBox is great and many older games really really struggle with PCI sound cards and also speed issues. Basically it's a matter of which ones and not if games won't run.

Newer DOS Games that support General MIDI: Plenty of options - Sound card support with new Games is much better. Games like Doom or Duke Nukem 3D use newer drivers and many / most PCI sound cards will work fine.

A cheap option which I have personally used is the Ensoniq AudioPCI and it's Creative rebrands. Others have suggested Aureal Vortex 2 based sound cards.

So if you can tell us what kind of games you will be playing, we could be more specific.

Update on the ALS4000: its SoundBlaster 16 support actually works! But there's a catch: it will only work under Windows. Under DOS using Avance Logic's drivers, only the FM Synthesis works correctly. With some custom drivers, you'll get support up to the SoundBlaster Pro, but that's about it. I can't get any DOS drivers for the ALS4000 where the SoundBlaster support reaches up to the SoundBlaster 16. But it works very nicely under Windows 95, I'll tell you that much. Should work even better in Windows 98.

Be advised of one thing with the ALS4000: its integrated YMF262 acts just like a real one: in certain games, the YMF262 will output a bunch of scrambled notes if you use it on a computer with a CPU faster than 133MHz. I never understood why this is.

Ace wrote:

Update on the ALS4000: its SoundBlaster 16 support actually works! But there's a catch: it will only work under Windows. Under DOS using Avance Logic's drivers, only the FM Synthesis works correctly. With some custom drivers, you'll get support up to the SoundBlaster Pro, but that's about it. I can't get any DOS drivers for the ALS4000 where the SoundBlaster support reaches up to the SoundBlaster 16. But it works very nicely under Windows 95, I'll tell you that much. Should work even better in Windows 98.

Be advised of one thing with the ALS4000: its integrated YMF262 acts just like a real one: in certain games, the YMF262 will output a bunch of scrambled notes if you use it on a computer with a CPU faster than 133MHz. I never understood why this is.

I'm fine with that. After all, there isn't really much of a difference in overall sound between the SB Pro and the SB16, since most DOS games just use 8-bit samples.

Me me, what about my questions please 🤣

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Others have suggested Aureal Vortex 2 based sound cards.

I suspect those who suggest a vortex card for fm synthesis probably have not heard fm on a sound blaster. Vortex 2 will play fm music and you might like tit, but it is nothing like you get with a sound blaster [maybe i just mean opl cards]. As you say, dosbox sounds fine.

I admit I never heard one, but it was strongly recommended to me as good hybrid card (DOS and W98)

The good old Sound Blaster Live does a pretty good job imho even though the FM synth can sound a bit cheesy sometimes 😀

I've also heard Vortex2 has convenient and good enough SB Pro support - no need to load up EMS. Kreshna might be able to help in this. (I think he's a bit busy now - long time no see 😁). He's more into 3dfx Voodoo and Aureal Vortex stuff.

PCI-DOS-Audio is mostly inconvenient, and troublesome. For a PCI-only system, the best option is to use Dosbox., provided the system is fast enough. When it comes to PCI-only motherboards, most of them are Pentium 4 or late Pentium III mobos. And if so, Dosbox will be just fine.

Of course, if you want authentic "feel" then ISA-based solution is the best.

Yea and it's easy to find and quite cheap!

A Yamaha YMF278 based card would fit the bill. They carry a Yamaha OPL4 chip -- which will give you as genuine of an OPL3 sound as anything.

I have a PCI Yamaha YMF724 DS-XG in my PIII rig and it has real SB Pro 2.0 hardware support using a PC/PCI (SB-Link) cable. This Yamaha board also uses a real OPL3 chip.

I've never come across a more SB compatible PCI card than this 😀

I also have a YMF724, but it seems those damn Yamaha sound cards don't like me. I only found 3, two YMF740s integrated on two motherboards, both of which are dead, and a YMF724 I got last Saturday that stops any computer I plug it into from POSTing.

Why would a sound card stop a computer from POSTing? I've had this problem with certain defective ATI graphics cards as well, but have no idea why this would happen.

If I get that YMF724 fixed or get a replacement this Saturday, I'll be sure to record its sound for anyone who wants to hear the YMF724(or any PCI-based Yamaha sound card) in action.

I would certainly be interested to hear fm music played through it, compared to sb pro 2 and sb16.

If you have a wavetable board, the Aureal Vortex2 boards (SQ2500) is your best bet on PCI compatibility. However, it's FM is pretty bad, which is why I run all MIDI through my Roland daughterboard.

What interest me the most is compatibility vs. AudioPCI, especially when it comes to Sound Blaster speech / sound effects support.

I will look into this once my card has arrived!

In my experience, ESS based cards have 99.99% compatibility, no matter they are ISA or PCI. ESS is the S3 of the soundcards 😉
No SB16 compatiblity, but SbPro sounds right. Do not forget some DOS games have native support for their chips, and their ESFM sounds a bit better than standard FM.
The few PCI cards with SB16 support are ALS4000, CMI 8x38 range, and of course the Creatives, PCI64/128, Live and Audigy.

Any particular PCI ESS cards you would recommend?

I say if you want a PCI-based ESS sound card, go for a Solo-1. Those have ESFM in them, the other PCI ESS sound cards like the Maestro-2 use a different clone of the YMF262 that's notably inferior in every aspect to the ESFM.

Now, just how can ESFM sound better than true OPL3? It doesn't even replicate OPL2/OPL3 with 100% accuracy, but it comes pretty damn close.