what sound card do you use in your old pc?

[Soviet Conscript]

finally got a DOS pc up and running and i was thinling about sound cards. right now i'm useing a sound blaster 16 which seems to be the standard for the time. it sounds pretty good overall with my old games but i was wondering if there was any other cards that offered more bang for the buck without suffering combatibility.

i have a HUGE ISA awe32 card but have yet to try it out. i'm assumeing this card is backward compatible so if a game does not support it it will just play it like it was a SB16. anyone know if its even worth switching to it? i also read that the top of the line for older sound would be the roland mt-32. anyone use one here?

[Gameguy]

Personally I use whatever comes with the PC, which are pretty much Soundblaster-16 compatible. I think one of the ones I have doesn't work well with some DOS games as the sound gradually fades lower until it can't be heard, but it might just be the drivers. I have a few older PCs around, if I can't get a game working properly on one I'll just try it on another one. If I happened to come across a Roland MT-32 I'd keep it though, they are good sound cards.

I don't have a Roland MT-32, but I've seen comparison videos on youtube and you can hear a difference with the sound. It's mostly with older games as some were designed with it in mind, I'll just list a couple of videos for you to compare.

Monkey Island 2 opening;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lTz2nkPNXA

Monkey Island 2 opening with Roland MT-32;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsui2EqOjYo

[Push Upstairs]

I needed Win98 sound along with good DOS sound so I have a Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer.

I can't even imagine what this computer would have cost *new* in 1998/1999. Base computer + 384mb of RAM alone would have made this thing astronomical. Then add a Voodoo 3 and a Live! X-Gamer card? Yikes.

[Gapporin]

From what I've read, the Gravis Ultrasound gives most other sound cards a run for their money, but the compability is somewhat lacking, so if you're planning on building a PC, you might want to keep both a Sound Blaster card (16 is a good choice) and an Ultrasound hooked up in your computer system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravis_Ultrasound

[phreakindee]

For my pure DOS machines, usually a soundblaster 16 ISA card. It will work with everything I have tried it with. Adlib, Midi, AWE etc.
An AWE32 is pretty much interchangeable with an SB16 and will support nearly anything before as well. Nice high quality cards.
I use an ESS Audiodrive PCI in my Windows 95 machine, which is also nearly identical in sound quality and compatibility to the SB16 cards. In fact I have had better luck with that card than some Sound Blaster PCI cards of the time for DOS games.

Still, Roland and Gravis cards have their advantages on certain games so it may depend on what you really want the most out of it. Otherwise most SB16 cards and clones tend to work perfectly fine for 99% of games.

[gokugohandave]

godamn that roland sounds sweet.

[aaron7]

I've got an AWE64 in my DOS gaming rig. Mostly because I always wanted one when they were new haha

[Ze_ro]

I've got an AWE64 in my DOS gaming rig. Mostly because I always wanted one when they were new haha

Do you have any compatibility problems with games? Or does it just work if you pick SB16 mode for games that don't know later models? Does it require drivers?

I have an AWE64 sitting around that I've considered putting in my DOS machine to replace the SB16 currently in there, but I was always worried it wouldn't be worth the trouble getting it to work.

--Zero

[Jorpho]

I've always understood that it's supposed to be SB16 compatible. I've been reading all kinds of weird things about MIDI that I've never really understood, though.

There are actually drop-in replacements for the Miles drivers used by some games, though I've never been clear on why exactly they are necessary.

[Soviet Conscript]

Do you have any compatibility problems with games? Or does it just work if you pick SB16 mode for games that don't know later models? Does it require drivers?

I have an AWE64 sitting around that I've considered putting in my DOS machine to replace the SB16 currently in there, but I was always worried it wouldn't be worth the trouble getting it to work.

--Zero

well, i have a awe32 with full ram in my one DOS pc and to be honest i'm not crazy about it. i think its basicly the same as the awe64 but the 64 is cleaner sounding, at least for later games.

i think the awe64 is a decent sound card for later win95-98 era gameing but i don't know about DOS. i don't think to many games support its features. the midi port gives issues as its even less compatible then the sb16's port if you want to use midi devices through it like an mt-32 (this is fixable with drivers and some screwing around) and for the record i personnaly have run into compatibility issues. Cyclones for instance, i coudn't figure out why i wasn't getting sound then i read the box side. "compatible with all sb16 and sound blaster compatible cards (except awe series)"

i've consided replaceing it with a sb16 for better compatibility but since i already have anouther dosbox with a sb16 and i do use this particular pc with later dos games that do tend to support the awe more i decided to just leave it in there. as for a general all around dos pc though i would just stick with a sb16.

[Soviet Conscript]

well, after 4 months with my mt-32 i finally got it working. replaced my sb16 with a slightly newer version and reinstalled the drivers. sounds awsome.

it does seem to have issues with some games though, mostly sierra games because of an issue with the sb16's midi port not being able to use the correct protocals. i've been told the midi port on ensoniq sound cards its much more compatible. anyone have any experence with ensoniq sound cards? any good? game compatibility?

[Ze_ro]

I bought an MT-32 just recently. Got it set up, and it seemed to be working great... but now after about 10 minutes of playing a game, all sound (including regular sound effects not from the MT-32) starts to crackle, and eventually cuts out. At that point, I tried running the "DIAGNOSE" program that was installed with the SB16 software, and it claims it can't find a soundblaster at IO address 220 (which is where it definitely is installed). If I turn the computer off and on, it works fine (at least for another 10 minutes or so).

My theory is that the card is somehow overheating and eventually "crashes". Anyone had this happen to them? Maybe my Gameport-to-MIDI breakout cable is bad or something? (Joystick and MIDI-Out certainly work).

I still have an AWE64 and GUS that I'd like to try out, but is the whole "MIDI on Gameport" a standardized thing? Like, the same cable should work on the GUS too, or would I need Gravis's official MIDI box? I'm a little hesitant to try, because while SB16's aren't hard to find, I certainly don't want to fry my GUS.

I have empty memory slots on my GUS. I probably only have 256k of RAM on there. Is it worth trying to fill this up? Even though they're not SIMMS, they look like standard RAM chips, so I'm guessing they can be found pretty cheap, but would it actually provide any noticable difference in games?

--Zero

[diskoboy]

My NT4 rig still uses an old Sound Blaster PCI128 I bought in 1998.