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SOUND
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1996-05-19
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┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ SOUND CARD REVIEW II │
│ │
│ │
│I. Contents │
│ │
│ A. Disclaimer │
│ B. QuickIntro │
│ C. SoundBlaster-16 │
│ D. Pro Audio Spectrum-16 │
│ E. Gravis UltraSound │
│ F. Acknowledgements │
│ │
│ │
│Author's Disclaimer │
│------------------- │
│ │
│Maybe I'm all wrong about this. Maybe there will be a new version │
│of the emulating driver that will fix all problems. Maybe I didn't have │
│the card itself all the way in the bus slot. Maybe if you bought a GUS │
│and a SB you'd be in sound heaven. Who knows....? │
│ │
│QuickIntro │
│---------- │
│ │
│This article will basically review 3 sound cards based on performance, │
│based on the opinions of the original author (Tony DiNitto), a small portion │
│of the article was changed for clarifications and the differences of formats.│
│ │
│SoundBlaster-16 │
│--------------- │
│ │
│To start off I'd like to talk a little about the Sound Blaster │
│16. The Sound Blaster 16 is a great card and I found its installation │
│a snap, merely running a little program and putting in the card itself. │
│It's sound performed nicely in most areas I was interested in and it │
│was also compitable with the regular Sound Blaster in case older games │
│didn't support the SB16. Unforunately the mixer, which was a program │
│that controls the volume and various other things, was not the easiest │
│to understand and also if you ever wanted to use it you had to have an │
│estimated 20k of DOS drivers in your memory to get it to run. Therefore, │
│if you were in a game and had headphones without a volume control there │
│was no way to control the sound at all unless you exited out of the game │
│and went through the mixer program and you had to hope that you loaded the │
│drivers otherwise it didn't work. The SB16 will probably be around for │
│quite a long time, since most games comes out supporting it or it's little │
│brother, the original SB. The SB16 uses the FM technology, which is widely │
│used in other popular sound cards. Creative Labs, the makers of Sound │
│Blaster, also provided an internal CD-ROM interface, which I consider │
│a good deal. │
│ │
│Pro Audio Spectrum-16 │
│--------------------- │
│ │
│With the PAS16, installation was quicker incredibly fast and easy. It's │
│great emulation of the SoundBlaster is excellent and had little or no │
│difference can be heard, it could also emulate the Adlib and the │
│ThunderBoard sound card. │
│ │
│With this card there were no drivers that ever needed to be installed to │
│do something. I believe it had a mixer but I never tested it considering │
│that it had the capability of turning the volume up and down by hitting │
│CTRL-ALT-D, U, or M <Down, Up, and Mute>. Those controls worked in most │
│games except say DOOM and maybe a couple others that used the Ctrl and Alt │
│key. I would say, this is much better than SB16 considering the fact that │
│it has yet a better volume control without taking much of your memory. │
│ │
│I suggest you take this card over Creative Labs's SB16, and you can save │
│around $10 if you buy it other than SB16. This card also uses FM. │
│ │
│Gravis UltraSound │
│----------------- │
│ │
│Ah, here we are the true sound card to talk about. Everyone I've │
│met has a different opinion with this sound card. This sound card, │
│unlike the others, uses wavetable synthesis. What that means is, instead │
│of using fake instruments such as FM, this one uses true and realistic │
│instruments. This card sounds great when playing MIDI files and such. But │
│wait, everyone knows that such a great thing has its drawbacks and that it │
│does. First off, it's patches, instruments when playing sound, requires 15 │
│or so megs of harddrive space. So you say "Ah...I've got 15 megs of drive │
│space." But wait theres more, if you run a program that uses the GUS it │
│uses its patches so it goes off and looks for them and tries to load them │
│making the game sound like its scratchy or like a skipping record. If you │
│have a HD thats slower than 20ms then forget ever buying this card until you │
│get a faster one. After reading the small troubleshooting section, I went │
│to DOS to defrag my hard drive and that helped a little just to play one │
│game. Thus, this made the GUS installation not very fun nor easy. The fact │
│of hearing junky sound and thinking that's what it'll sound like forever │
│will almost make you have a heart attack after paying more than $120 for the │
│card. After I went through a day or so of installing and fine tuning the │
│GUS, sounded great. │
│ │
│In its midi files instead of coming out as a plink plink it sounded like │
│a big band playing with all their might delivering great rich and full music.│
│If you like the full and rich sound you'll like the GUS. If you like the │
│plain, easy to listen to sound that gets to the point without the other │
│instruments go with a PAS16 or SB16. The GUS, as it sound to me, puts in │
│every single instrument it can think of without it ruining the sound. At │
│times it sounded like a marching band, since it puts so many instruments │
│in one selection of music. Many programs that come out are now supporting │
│the GUS and many companies, like Sierra, have distributed "sound patches" │
│that you run and it will make most of their games support the GUS. I tried │
│one of them and couldn't get it to work at all, but I didn't take too long │
│on that either. It seems that GUS is not for the impatient people, nor │
│the cheap ones. If something still doesn't support the GUS you're gonna │
│have problems. I don't care what the little ad says "emulates SB, MT-32, │
│General MIDI", I say you're going to have problems. Instead of the SB 16 │
│or PAS 16 emulation this board requires you to use a driver that will │
│support different cards. You type SBOS for Sound Blaster emulation and it │
│takes up arout 20k of DOS memory and it then pretends that a GUS doesn't │
│exist. │
│ │
│So you can't use a GUS for music and a SB for sound. It's one or the other. │
│Unlike the flawless SB16 or PAS16 emulation, the GUS uses the crazy │
│little drivers. Well, I tried to use the MT-32 emulation in a few games │
│and it sounded pretty darn good about 80% of the time and in other parts │
│it would sound like it was getting instruments confused. For example │
│instead of the normal bong in a grand father clock it used a bunch of off │
│tuned horns. Its Sound Blaster and Adlib emulation is hardly the best │
│either. The SB emulation will almost definitely not run in any game that's │
│programmed in protected mode, like DOOM and so forth, giving you a lock up │
│if you try it. It also locks up in other games also. If it does work it │
│usually comes out pretty lousy compared to the real thing. Emulation with │
│this card is terrible. You should not buy this card relying on it to make │
│great emulations of other cards. │
│ │
│I can't really give a true rating than the above advice, I'll hear one │
│emulation that's quite amazing, then the next one sounding like a mad │
│man with a twisted vocal cord. │
│ │
│There is however Advanced Gravis's UltraSound, which cost more than SB16, │
│PAS16 or the original GUS. This board, which has an astonishing 32 digital │
│channels (14 at the full 44 kHz, 16-bit sampling tables on your hard drisk, │
│and you can swap them out.) If you don't like the sound of an acoustic │
│guitar, for example, you can replace it with a third-party audio wavetable │
│sample. And the board, which is MIDI-compatible as well, sounds great. │
│Unlike the RAP-10, the UltraSound has a Sound Blaster emulation mode so │
│good that it sounds better than the Sound Blaster itself. │
│ │
│Acknowledgements │
│---------------- │
│ │
│SoundBlaster is a registered trademark of Creative Labs, Inc. │
│ │
│Any other trademarks are property of their respective owners. │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘