🚀 go-pugleaf

George Adams wrote:

> Sorry if this is a FAQ - if there's a document or something addressing this
> issue already, I'll be grateful if someone can point me to it.
> 
> There's a lot of great games that I remember from my youth (Rocky's Boots,
> Robot Odyssey, Star Flight I/II, Star Control 2, most Lucas Arts games, etc.
> etc.) that I'd like to be able to play again, and also introduce to my
> children.  (hey, they're low-res but they're still fun!  :-)  )
> 
> Rather than tearing my hair out trying to get DOS and DOS sound emulation
> working under WinXP, I think I'll just take my old P-166 and build a legacy
> machine out of it.  It'll probably run DOS 6.22 and maybe Win3.1.  Might
> even put a 5.25" drive in it just for kicks.
> 
> So I'm wondering, what soundcard would be the most compatible for old games
> running in a pure DOS environment?  Obviously I could get an old original
> AdLib or Soundblaster for total compatibility, but I'd really like to get
> the last, greatest DOS-based soundcard that was well-supported by games
> before the Windows 95 era.
> 
> What would that be?  Looking around on eBay, I see things like :
> 
> - SoundBlaster Pro (CT1600)
> - A bunch of SoundBlaster 16 varieties (SB 16 Basic, SB 16 Pro, SB 16 Value,
> SB 16 ASP)
> - SoundBlaster 32 and AWE32
> - SoundBlaster AWE64
> 
> etc.  Obviously the quality improves as you go on through the history of
> Creative's cards, but I don't want to get a card that sounds great under
> game X but gives up downward compatibility such that game Y can't work with
> it or can only work unreliably.
> 
> I hope that makes sense.  Any help would be appreciated - thanks!
> 
> 
> 
> 
I'd go for any of the Awe64's as they had loadable midi patches (called 
sound fonts) which would improve the music playback in some of those DOS 
games.  I say some because some DOS games used FM synthesis to produce 
music and some would actually use good midi sound.
Come to think of it, I think the Awe32 line had some midi support but 
the midi patches were all in the card's rom.