Old soundcard for retro box

[Gamer_V]

If I ever have to buy an old soundcard, thank you.

Otherwise; Why did you revive such an old topic? (Dred it... I'm starting too:P)

[kreats]

Because I have valuable information to impart?

Also, I've only recently worked all of this out - so may as well relate it while it is fresh in my mind.

Besides, I couldn't let someone saying an AWE64 was a good option be the final word on this.

[dosraider]

edited by myself.

[kreats]

Wow, thanks for that dosraider - makes me not want to ever post here again.

Good to know when you post an answer to a q here you get:

1) people questioning why you posted in the first place
2) people criticizing you for being a ' connaisseur ' (sic)

Way to go guys.

[dr_st]

You know, I have never used an AWE32/64 myself, but have heard nothing but good from those who did use them. At the very minimum, even if a game doesn't support its advanced features, it still gives you everything SB16 gives you, am I not right?

If not, please explain what the problem with the AWE cards might be.

[dosraider]

edited by myself.

[Gamer_V]

Didn't mean to insult you, but you could have started a new topic...

But, as long as a game supports it, what's wrong with an AWE? What the clayface said!

[Kazer0]

Dos raider, please shut up right now. Thanks. He posted valuable information, which is allowed according to our rules. If you have something important to add, then you can revive a topic. Now never backseat moderate again.

[kreats]

Gamer_V: I could have, but it's better to reply to a topic than to start a new one (or so I've been led to believe). What's the difference anyway?

I gave up on the awe64 long ago.. so a little hazy. I vaguely remember CTCM eating up EMS though. It was a real struggle to get music in Ultima VII even when whittling down my autoexec.bat and config.sys. I think this is a problem with all pnp cards?

EDIT: come to think of it, I'm not sure CTCM is required in pure dos. One clear differentiator however is that neither the awe32 or awe64 have a wavetable connector for a daughterboard - which ends up being very handy.

dosraider: I didn't change anything in my post apart from a couple of typos - I think you'll notice that it was edited *before* you made your first posting. So I guess I'm going to have to assume you are damaged in the head.

[Gamer_V]

But why is it bad? I mean, if you make an old computer nowadays you're sure to make sure it has enough memory... And if the quality of the sound is good, I don't really see a problem... However; nice list.

[Unknown_K]

I think you left out the soundblaster pro 2.0 model (8 bit in stereo). The soundblaster 16 does not emulate this card 100% and many old games miss out on features if the sound card is not 100% pro compatible.

Also the Ensoniq Soundscape series was supported in many old games and sounds excellant.

I still use the SBpro 2.0 + Gus max combo in my 386/40 and the SB16+DB50+Ultrasound PNP in my Pentium 200mmx

When DOS gaming was new I had a sb16+soundscape

[dr_st]

Nobody was backseat moderating anything. Dosraider just seemed a bit pissed at the way Kreats made his response seem too arrogant. I may have not seen his original post, so maybe it did look something like that. I didn't pick up any negative vibes, even though Kreats "last word" thingy was obviously aimed at me.

[dr_st]

I gave up on the awe64 long ago.. so a little hazy. I vaguely remember CTCM eating up EMS though. It was a real struggle to get music in Ultima VII even when whittling down my autoexec.bat and config.sys. I think this is a problem with all pnp cards?

As far as I know, CTCM is required, ONLY in Pure DOS, for ALL Creative PnP cards.

However, I have never experienced any problems with it. It doesn't it any memory as far as I know, only initializes stuff. And if it does eat EMS or XMS, who cares? That's something you always have a plenty.

Also, when it comes to compatibility with games, Creative PnP cards give next to 0 issues, because they are natively supported by so many games and because they are backwards compatible with their previous model. Hence I'd assume AWE32 and AWE64 would always work at least like SB16 does, and I have yet to see a game where SB16 didn't work (and that's from personal experience, seeing as I do have this card).

Now what you say about the quality of MIDI music on the Roland being higher than that of the AWE, or maybe being supported by most games - that can be true, I don't know that.

[kreats]

geez.. nothing changed in my post. That guy is clearly off the planet.

dr_st: Nothing was aimed at you, it was a tongue in cheek comment to justify me reviving the thread (not that I should really have to justify this).

Unknown_K: Yep I think you're right - as I recall the sb16 doesn't do stereo when it should in some games. But you have to put up with 8 bit sound and I'm not sure that's a trade which is worthwhile if you want to play a greater range of games.

[dr_st]

dr_st: Nothing was aimed at you, it was a tongue in cheek comment to justify me reviving the thread (not that I should really have to justify this).

That's right. I really don't think you should justify reviving an old thread, when it's done in the manner you did it. You've been perfectly fine. Maybe Dosraider overreacted.

[kreats]

Oops, I meant Conventional Memory.. you need 590k or so for ultima (this is a factor as you can't use EMM386 because Ultima VII uses its own memory manager). Can you run ultima VII with full sound and sfx with no issues?

I think you'll find that it is a well accepted fact that MT32 produces the best MIDI for dos games - but don't take my word for it - search the web.

Or better yet - read this article: http://crossfire-designs.de/index.php?l ... soundcards

EDIT: Link working now - check it out, it really is a good read.

[dr_st]

Oops, I meant Conventional Memory.. you need 590k or so for ultima (this is a factor as you can't use EMM386 because Ultima VII uses its own memory manager). Can you run ultima VII with full sound and sfx with no issues?

I know for a fact that CTCM doesn't eat a bit of conventional memory when EMS is enabled, read, when EMM386 is on. I don't know if it eats it when EMM386 is disabled (and you'd have no upper memory and no EMS too).

I never tried Ultima VII, but 590K is an amount that I'd think you'd never be able to gather without using EMM386 or an alternative upper memory driver.

So Ultima VII doesn't work with EMM386? Screw it then, I say. I'm tired of dumb games that don't work with EMM386. I'm dead serious.

But that doesn't have much to do with Creative, does it?

I think you'll find that it is a well accepted fact that MT32 produces the best MIDI for dos games - but don't take my word for it - search the web.

I'm willing to accept your word for it. But I may do the search later and see what I can come up with.

[kreats]

Well it makes sense that it wouldn't eat any conventional memory when ems is enabled would it - that's pretty much the whole point of using emm386.

Yeah well pretty much the entire point of building my dosbox was to play the ultima series though - so it was significant to me - and the issues I had when I was using an awe64 made me go back to a sb16. It didn't really matter because I wasn't using the awe64 for music (the awe64 is basically a sb16 with a wavetable onboard anyway).

So what I get from using a sb16:

SCSI connector
Volume control on back of card
Wavetable connector
No hassles running Ultima

What I lose? Well probably a tiny bit of signal to noise ratio. But through my dodgy speakers I don't think it matters all that much.

I never tried Ultima VII, but 590K is an amount that I'd think you'd never be able to gather without using EMM386 or an alternative upper memory driver.

You'd be surprised - all you need is set blaster, ctmouse and himem.sys for a minimal boot.

[dr_st]

Well it makes sense that it wouldn't eat any conventional memory when ems is enabled would it - that's pretty much the whole point of using emm386.

Heh. If all DOS drivers were so smart as to use EMS when it's available, we wouldn't have had any problems with freeing up conventional memory, now would we?

[kreats]

EMS is just a hack to get around the 640k limit - developed by quarterdeck originally (qemm) and purchased by microsoft who then incorporated it in dos as emm386. The drivers can't know about the memory until a memory manager is loaded.

The mind boggles at why origin used their own memory manager however.