🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 4 Dec 2003 23:34:07 -0500, "George Adams"
<g_adams27@hotmail.NOSPAM.com> 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!

Any flavor of SB16 will be as about as good as it gets wrt compatibility with
dusty dos code, compatibility with your old p166 pci/isa box,  plus a decent
helping of extra functionality for more recent games that would actually have
used it "back in the day".

SB Pro was 8-bit only and dodgier (if such a thing can be fathomed) than the
SB16 series. And some of the dustier bits and chunks started dropping by the
wayside with the progression through SB/AWE 32 & 64, which could portend
compatibility issues.

How much does a fully functional SB16 card go for on eBay? I must have a few
of those laying about among the decaying carcasses, some of them are the
SCSI-2 versions and with the DSP installed...

/daytripper

MediaVision made a great card called the Pro Audio Spectrum 16,
or PAS16 as it was known.  Fully DOS compatible, OPL3 synthesizer,
great audio quality etc.  There's even an [undocumented] way to get it
working under Win2K and WinXP.

Another alternative is to ditch the separate system idea and use one of
the really wonderful free arcade emulators that are available nowadays.
I run MAME32, CCS64 and a few others.  They handle all the original
game roms from the "good 'ol days" (playing Missile Command, Star
Wars, Tempest, Centipede etc etc under Win2K is a kick and a half)
and are fully DirectSound and input device compatible.  If you're a fan
of the older, simpler and essentially more fun games then definitely give
these emulators a try.

Rick

"George Adams" <g_adams27@hotmail.NOSPAM.com> wrote in message news:bqp1s20210c@enews1.newsguy.com...
> 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!
>
>
>
>

On Thu, 4 Dec 2003 23:34:07 -0500, "George Adams"
<g_adams27@hotmail.NOSPAM.com> 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!
>
Get a genuine Creative Labs Sound Blaster, any model
*EXCEPT* the ViBRA series, which don't use DMA the
same way and I've heard can confound some games
that expect the "standard" Low/High DMA channels.
(ViBRA models do 16-bit sound over the 8-bit DMA channel
in 2 byte-sized transfers.)



Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom
 
            D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
           www.daqarta.com

George Adams wrote:

> 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.

You've got two good choices:

Sound Blaster AWE32 (NOT SB32)
or
Gravis Ultrasound MAX

(Or, alternatively, you could get an SB16 (preferably non-pnp) plus an 
Ultrasound ACE.)

Both cards do good GM sounds, GUS' SB emulation is via software but 
usually works wonders (MAXSBOS). Some games use multichannel digital 
music (tracker stuff) and these always support GUS natively, and sound 
wonderful.

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.

Zdark wrote:

> 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.

That's not quite how it goes. An AWE64 is basically just an AWE32 with 
the Creative Software Synth applet thrown in, and in PnP - which is not 
actually a good thing if you want to run DOS games. The AWE32 had 512k 
RAM as standard and could be expanded with SIMMs up to 8 megs.

The original non-PnP AWE32 was the best of the AWEs, IMO.

On Thu, 4 Dec 2003 23:34:07 -0500, "George Adams"
<g_adams27@hotmail.NOSPAM.com> 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
>

Sound Blaster 32/AWE32 and the AWE64 are practically identical in
terms of capabilities.  Basically a SoundBlaster16 PNP with the
addition of hardware wavetable MIDI.   As such, it's probably the best
choice for compatibility and sound quality.  For gaming, it really
doesn't matter which of the AWE family you get.  The WavSynth software
emulated an extra 32 wavetable voices but nobody ever used that for
games.  Without the software, you've basically just got an AWE32 that
takes only proprietary memory.

Don't bother with the SBpro.  it's just basically a stereo version of
the original Soundblaster, and while it's not too bad, the shipping is
likely to be more than the card's worth.  You could probably get an
ISA SB16 for about the same amount.
----------------------------------------
Thanks,
MCheu

On Sun, 07 Dec 2003 17:06:50 GMT, Zdark <Zdark@konkast.net> wrote::

>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.

You've might want to know that the AWE32 and the AWE64 were nearly
identical from a technical standpoint.   

The big hardware difference being that the AWE32 was expandable via
30pin SIMMs, the AWE64 had to use proprietary modules (which were hard
to find even when the AWE64 was still produced).  The biggest
difference for most people was the addition of a software wavetable
synth (called WaveSynth) that added an additional 32 wavetable voices
to midi playback (thus the 64 in the name).  There were a few other
technical differences between them, but these aren't even really worth
mentioning from the point of view of the end user.

Both have onboard RAM and both can accept third party midi patches.
For gaming though, neither the midi patches nor WaveSynth are a
consideration, as no games ever used the extended WaveSynth voices
(many actually conflicted with it), and very few used any extended
midi patches.
----------------------------------------
Thanks,
MCheu

The best is an original non-PnP SB16.  Not an AWE32 or 64.

But you have to pair it with a Roland SCD-10 or SCD-15 Soundcanvas for
excellent MIDI!



On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 22:11:26 +0200, Prism
<prism_emf@no.yahoo.canned.co.meat.uk> wrote:

>George Adams wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
>You've got two good choices:
>
>Sound Blaster AWE32 (NOT SB32)
>or
>Gravis Ultrasound MAX
>
>(Or, alternatively, you could get an SB16 (preferably non-pnp) plus an 
>Ultrasound ACE.)
>
>Both cards do good GM sounds, GUS' SB emulation is via software but 
>usually works wonders (MAXSBOS). Some games use multichannel digital 
>music (tracker stuff) and these always support GUS natively, and sound 
>wonderful.

On Sun, 07 Dec 2003 20:16:33 +0200, in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems, Prism
<prism_emf@no.yahoo.canned.co.meat.uk> wrote:

>Zdark wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
>That's not quite how it goes. An AWE64 is basically just an AWE32 with 
>the Creative Software Synth applet thrown in, and in PnP - which is not 
>actually a good thing if you want to run DOS games. The AWE32 had 512k 
>RAM as standard and could be expanded with SIMMs up to 8 megs.

Not 8, 32! (2x16MB)
But the AWE32 could only utilize 28MB of it, or something like that.

And I've never had a problem with PnP + old DOS games, since there is
a "PnP driver" (or whatever you want to call it) and a config program
to set up the card so it works "as a SB16" in DOS. Have played many
old DOS games with my AWE64 without any problem.

Of course, I might only have been lucky... ;) 

-- 
May all spammers die in horrible pains!

>>> 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.

Hardware MPU-compatible MIDI support is available for the external
MIDI interface only. The wavetable needs a driver to be used as a
MPU401-compatible MIDI device. However, most games work with it as
well.

>>(...)The AWE32 had 512k 
>>RAM as standard and could be expanded with SIMMs up to 8 megs.
>Not 8, 32! (2x16MB)

Same goes for the SB32 PnP, but there are also some versions without
RAM sockets.

>But the AWE32 could only utilize 28MB of it, or something like that.

Yes. Additionally, using the OPL chip and the memory banks cost 2
voices, thus only 30 voices are left. Some instruments use multiple
voices. Thus, a good 4MB or 8MB wavetable upgrade often provides
better sound than the SB32/64 EMU chip with only 1MB. Or upload a good
GM patch set into the RAM...

>And I've never had a problem with PnP + old DOS games, since there is
>a "PnP driver" (or whatever you want to call it) and a config program
>to set up the card so it works "as a SB16" in DOS. Have played many
>old DOS games with my AWE64 without any problem.

In my case, the SB16 compatible part worked well after plain BIOS
initialization. The Wavetable and the other remaining components
needed to be initialized first by the PnP tool, though.

Rob wrote:
> The best is an original non-PnP SB16.  Not an AWE32 or 64.
> 
> But you have to pair it with a Roland SCD-10 or SCD-15 Soundcanvas for
> excellent MIDI!

An original, non-pnp AWE32 is just a non-pnp SB16 with the EMU chip added.

Peter Emanuelsson wrote:

> Not 8, 32! (2x16MB)
> But the AWE32 could only utilize 28MB of it, or something like that.

Correct! My memory seems to be hazy as well....:(

> And I've never had a problem with PnP + old DOS games, since there is
> a "PnP driver" (or whatever you want to call it) and a config program
> to set up the card so it works "as a SB16" in DOS. Have played many
> old DOS games with my AWE64 without any problem.
> Of course, I might only have been lucky... ;) 

The PnP drivers suck up precious memory.... that's the worst part of it. 
  I could barely get Ultima VII Part II working with a non-pnp card, a 
couple of kilos more drivers and it would have been no go.

Prism <prism_emf@no.yahoo.canned.co.meat.uk> wrote in message news:<3fd4e32e$0$1159$39db0f71@news.song.fi>...
> Peter Emanuelsson wrote:
> 
> The PnP drivers suck up precious memory.... that's the worst part of it. 
>   I could barely get Ultima VII Part II working with a non-pnp card, a 
> couple of kilos more drivers and it would have been no go.

The bare minimum you need to do is run CTCM at boot up via the
autoexec.bat.  It doesn't stay resident in memory, it just initializes
the PNP card and is gone.  That's all it does.  It's not a driver. 
You may also wish to initialize the volume using the mixer as well,
but there's a switch you can add to the line that calls it so that it
won't stay resident either.  With that switch (which sadly I don't
recall), it would just set the volume at boot up and exit.  You can
verify this if you do a mem check after boot up.

If I remember correctly, there were a few other files that Creative
added that *did* stay resident but none of these need to stay in
memory.  The mixer, I already mentioned.  Even if you don't run it at
all, the card will still work, just with default treble/bass and
volume settings.   The only other one that was AWE specific was
something called aweutils (or something like that).  That one doesn't
even need to be run if you're not going beyond the standard wavetable
midi set, or using FM.  It's been a long time since I used my AWE, so
I don't recall the filenames, but it's certainly possible to use this
card without adding any TSRs to memory.

=========================================
Thanks,

MCheu

Thanks VERY much to everyone who replied!  I decided to go with a non-PnP
AWE32 (CT2760) after finding *one* online store that was selling it (not
even eBay had 'em!)  If that doesn't work, I'll try a sure-enough SB16
(looks like there's tons of models of 'em though - I'll take the advice to
avoid any with the Vibra chipset).

I found this site to be quite helpful in identifying different SB models:
http://www.tarigon.de/tramp/sblist.html

(daytripper, to answer your question: SB16's on eBay are around $10 on a
good day - probably typically more like $2 - $5)

On Tue, 9 Dec 2003 23:26:43 -0500, "George Adams"
<g_adams27@hotmail.NOSPAM.com> wrote:

>Thanks VERY much to everyone who replied!  I decided to go with a non-PnP
>AWE32 (CT2760) after finding *one* online store that was selling it (not
>even eBay had 'em!)  If that doesn't work, I'll try a sure-enough SB16
>(looks like there's tons of models of 'em though - I'll take the advice to
>avoid any with the Vibra chipset).
>
>I found this site to be quite helpful in identifying different SB models:
>http://www.tarigon.de/tramp/sblist.html
>
>(daytripper, to answer your question: SB16's on eBay are around $10 on a
>good day - probably typically more like $2 - $5)

Thanks for that - hardly worth digging them out of the rubble that is my parts
closet ;-)

George Adams wrote:

> Thanks VERY much to everyone who replied!  I decided to go with a non-PnP
> AWE32 (CT2760) after finding *one* online store that was selling it (not
> even eBay had 'em!)  If that doesn't work, I'll try a sure-enough SB16
> (looks like there's tons of models of 'em though - I'll take the advice to
> avoid any with the Vibra chipset).

Avoid the "value" models too. I was ripped off with my first PC & given a
"value" SB16 instead of the real thing.

> I found this site to be quite helpful in identifying different SB models:
> http://www.tarigon.de/tramp/sblist.html
>
> (daytripper, to answer your question: SB16's on eBay are around $10 on a
> good day - probably typically more like $2 - $5)

The AWE32 is a pretty good card. I've got one from (I think) 1995 here, and I
was surprised by the audio quality. Be forewarned that it is physically
massive, and you may have some difficulty fitting it in your computer's case.
There are two sockets at the end of the board: those are for 30pin SIMM ram
modules.

I wonder if removing the ISA slots from motherboards was partially to drive
new hardware purchases. There seems to be a flood of perfectly good
second-hand ISA devices still around.

Io wrote:
> 
(snip)
> I wonder if removing the ISA slots from motherboards was partially to drive
> new hardware purchases. There seems to be a flood of perfectly good
> second-hand ISA devices still around.


Sure it was.  They didn't delete ISA slots, retain the mb dimensions,
and fill the freed up real estate with PCI slots.  They shrank the mb
and retained the (too few) number of slots (PCI, of course).

Yeah, there is a flood of functional ISA devices to be had.  Pretty
cheap.  Free, when I pull 'em outta the trash.  Major label modems,
sound and video cards.  The monitor I'm looking at right now is
controlled by a free Diamond Viper PCI.

Also a flood of "old" computers (mostly 133 MHz P54C's around here) with
both ISA and PCI slots.  Last month I rescued 5 of these of a computer
shop's trash, 2 full-size towers and 2 mini-towers with AOpen mb's and
1995 AMI BIOS, and 1 mini-tower with 1998 Phoenix BIOS.  Yesterday I put
a surplus 2.5 GB into one of the full tower boxes, gave it some EDO RAM,
and installed an OS.  Lovely email machine.