VOGONS


First post, by Mau1wurf1977

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Another quick Sound card roundup. This time with the game GODS, which many of you might be familiar with.

The interesting thing about this Intro music is that is uses both, FM and digital voice!

Cards used in this roundup:

Sound Blaster 1.5 (OPL2)
Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 (OPL3)
Sound Blaster AWE64 GOLD (Creative OPL clone)
ESS AudioDrive 1868F (ESS OPL clone)
DOSBox (SB16 max sampling rate)

I packed all files in a single convinient ZIP file: http://www.mediafire.com/?ydpm7al7gvtekk4

After having listened to the files I noticed that only the SB 1.5 plays the song as intended. All the other cards have parts of the digitized vocals missing...

I tried DOSBox and it's doing the same thing. So I thought a bit and the only thing different with these cards is that the 1.5 is IRQ7 and the others are all set to IEQ5.

I jumpered the SB 2.0 Pro to IRQ 7 and, just like magic, it plays the tune flawlessly...

So conclusion: GODS needs your Sound Blaster at IRQ 7!

Now I went back and tried all the other cards with IRQ7. The SB Pro 2.0 and AWE64 GOLD now worked (I didn't do another recording though), but the ESS card still cuts of some of the digitized vocals despite setting and initializing it to IRQ7.

Looks like I found my first game where the ESS AudioDrive isn't 100% compatible with Sound Blaster...

Same thing under DOSBox. Configure it to IRQ 7 and all is good...

Reply 1 of 8, by Mau1wurf1977

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

My take / comments on these cards:

Sound Blaster 1.5: Can hear some of the "Computer is thinking / processing" sound at the beginning.

Sound Blaster Pro 2.0: Noise / Hiss right at the beginning.

ESS AudioDrive 1868F: Least noise / Hiss right at the beginning. The "beep beep" instrument right at the beginning is quite a bit louder. Possible that ESS has a different balance between voice and FM volume than Creative. Note that I set the mixer to max on all cards for master, voice and FM.

Sound Blaster AWE64 GOLD: Noise / Hiss right at the beginning.
. The voice "Into the wonderful" sounds very clean and present. FM instruments sound slightly different (Creative OPL clone)

DOSBox SB16 Emulation: Sounds great, no noise, clear voice, authentic sounding FM

My ranking:

1. SB Pro 2.0 (Less noise than SB1.5 and AWE, authentic OPL sound)
2. AWE64 GOLD (Very clean digitized vocals which seem to be strength of this card, FM instruments sound different, but are nicely balanced with voice vocals)
4. Authentic OPL sound, but quite noisy / can hear the computer "think"
5. ESS (Not fully compatible with this game, despite setting to IRQ7, Balance between Voice and FM isn't right, least noisy card however)

Reply 2 of 8, by Mau1wurf1977

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Did a recording of the same Intro music on my CM-32L. Note that this another game which triggers a buffer overflow error on MT-32 (Old) units...

It uses custom patches and even has some vocals going 😀

Here is the file: http://www.mediafire.com/?92c428lf84hi72w

Reply 3 of 8, by HunterZ

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I'm almost 100% positive that DOSBox defaults to IRQ7 for SoundBlaster, so I'm surprised you had to change it from 5 to 7, unless you had previously manually set to it 5?

Reply 4 of 8, by Mau1wurf1977

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
HunterZ wrote:

I'm almost 100% positive that DOSBox defaults to IRQ7 for SoundBlaster, so I'm surprised you had to change it from 5 to 7, unless you had previously manually set to it 5?

Having this installation of DOSBox for so long (actually it's D-Fend reloaded which auto updates itself every now and then) I can't remember anymore. I might have changed it to 5 because my SB Pro 2.0 and AWE64 cards all default to IRQ5.

At some stage Creative changed from 7 to 5. I believe the MONO Sound Blasters where all default IRQ7, but my installation disc for the Sound Blaster 2.0 already display IRQ 5 as default 🤣.

I have now also set my Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 cards to IRQ7...

Still how is it possible that on IRQ5 you get partial digital vocals? I mean I would understand it if there was no digital vocals whatsoever, but to have them work only partially is quite weird...

Reply 6 of 8, by Mau1wurf1977

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Yea weird. Oh well I learnt something. IRQ7 it is 😁

What was the reason for Creative to switch from 7 to 5? The printer port?

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 7 of 8, by HunterZ

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Yea weird. Oh well I learnt something. IRQ7 it is 😁

What was the reason for Creative to switch from 7 to 5? The printer port?

I think so: http://www.oldskool.org/guides/oldonnew/sound

Reply 8 of 8, by Mau1wurf1977

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

As per findings at the top of this thread: "The Many Sounds of:" - A look at various different sound cards and the sound they produce in DOS games

I have recorded the GODS Intro music one more time on my Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 but this time with output filter OFF:

GODS Intro SB Pro 2.0 filter OFF