Sunday, April 20, 2014

Scoring Vintage ISA Sound Cards' Gaming Suitability

I have tried to make an objective rating system to judge the gaming suitability of a particular vintage sound card.  I have avoided including more subjective qualities like measurement of audio output quality.  My basic standard for rating each element of a sound card is as follows :

0 - Not present or not widely supported
1 - Useful but often troublesome or problematic
2 - Mainline support
3 - Superior Features
4 - The Best of the Best

1. Gameport
0.00 - None
0.50 - Crippled (2axis/2buttons only) or Non-standard : Covox Sound Master
1.00 - Standard : Sound Blaster 1.0-Pro 2.0
1.50 - Speed Sensitive : Sound Blaster 16-AWE64
2.00 - Speed Adjustable : Gravis Ultrasound

2. MIDI Hardware Interface
0.00 - None
0.50 - Not Widely Supported : IBM Music Feature, Pro Audio Spectrum, Gravis Ultrasound, Adlib Gold
1.00 - Sound Blaster MIDI
1.50 - Widespread UART MPU-401 Hanging Note Bug : Sound Blaster DSP 4.11-4.13
1.75 - Minimal UART MPU-401 Hanging Note Bug : Sound Blaster DSP 4.11-4.13 & CT-1747
2.00 - UART MPU-401, Sound Blaster DSP <= 4.05 or DSP = 4.16
2.50 - MPU-401 Hardware Emulation
3.00 - Roland MPU-401 or 100% Fully Compatible

3. Music Synthesizer
0.00 - None (Digital Only)
0.50 - Not Widely Supported : Innovation SSI-2001, Covox Sound Master, IBM Music Feature, IBM PS/1 Audio/Game Card
1.00 - Game Blaster
1.50 - Gravis Ultrasound, Creative CQM : Later Sound Blaster 16 & AWE32s, most 32s, all AWE64s
2.00 - OPL2 : Adlib, Sound Blaster 1.0-2.0, Thunderboard, Covox Sound Master II
2.25 - Dual OPL2 : Sound Blaster Pro 1.0, Pro Audio Spectrum; OPL3 : Sound Blaster Pro 2.0, 16, AWE32, 32; Pro Audio Spectrum Plus/16, Adlib Gold
2.50 - AWE32/64 EMU-8000, Waveblaster 1/2, OPL4
3.00 - Ensoniq Soundscape, Yamaha DB50XG, SW60XG, Roland SCB-7
4.00 - Roland LAPC-I, SCC-1 or SCB-55

4. Digital Audio Output
0.00 - None (Music Only)
0.50 - Not Widely Supported : IBM PS/2 Speech Adapter or Compatible, Covox Sound Master/Plus, Covox Voice Master
1.00 - Covox Speech Thing or Disney Sound Source, Roland RAP-10, Covox Sound Master II
1.50 - Adlib Gold, Pro Audio Spectrum
2.00 - Sound Blaster DSP 1.xx, Microsoft Windows Sound System, Gravis Ultrasound
2.25 - Sound Blaster DSP 2.00
2.50 - Sound Blaster DSP >= 2.01, Thunderboard
2.75 - Pro Audio Spectrum Plus/16
3.50 - Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16 <= DSP 4.05
3.75 - Sound Blaster 16 >= DSP 4.05, Sound Blaster AWE32
4.00 - Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold (SPDIF)

Thus if you add up the total scores, you can get a good idea of the overall suitability of an ISA sound card for DOS gaming. A Sound Blaster 1.0 or Gravis Ultrasound gets a 6, Roland LAPC-I or SCC-1 would rank a 7, a Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold a 10. A Sound Blaster AWE32 with SCC-1 would probably rate the highest at 11. Note that only the highest score for each individual category is counted. A basic AWE32 gets a 2.5 in the synthesizer category, not a 4.5.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks this was fun to read. Haven't messed with my retro stuff since 2010 but from what I recall I think I had an AWE64 w/o a midi connector. But I also had an Aural Vortex 3D that did have a midi connector, which I then connected a cheap NEC version of the Yamaha DB50XG I bought off eBay.

    The vortex was a PCI card, but I seem to recall it not needing much configuration to get the midi part working on it

    So I use the AWE64 for it regular sound effects capability and the vortex w/midi to synthisize General Midi. The midi sounds freaking awesome, so much better than either just the awe64 or of course an older sound blaster 16

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  2. Roland Roland! Yeah baby!

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