Sound Card comparison - Digital Speech - DOS Game Wing Commander II

It is obvious that a Sound Blaster sounds different than a Roland MT-32. However I always wondered if the digital speech part of old Sound Cards also varied between cards.

Well there are definitely differences, but they are quite subtle :-)

In order to really hear all the details you have to listen through headphones. Through your average PC speakers the recordings will pretty much sound the same.

For this video I have recorded four different Sound Cards:

- Sound Blaster 1.5

- Sound Blaster Pro 2.0

- ESS AudioDrive (Sound Blaster Pro Clone)

- AWE 64 GOLD

I used Wind Commander II, a very popular game and very likely you are familiar with the part of the introduction which I used for this recording.

Well I am very curious as to what differences you heard and what your oppinions are!

Enjoy!

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Sound Blaster
• DOS
• Games
• ISA
• Wing Commander
• Retro
• Digital Speech

[Mau1wurf1977]

It's fascinating isn't it :D Back in the day you were happy whatever card you had, but now that you can afford to try all of them you can see the differences.

I 100% agree with your assessment by the way

[Mau1wurf1977]

DOSBox?

Just select Sound Blaster. PAS isn't supported through DOSBox I believe. GUS is supported, but it's tricky to install and won't give you better quality.

[ShagittariusIntros]

The only one I don't hear the popping in is the AWE 64. The rest all have the annoying pops at the end of many statements.

[Mau1wurf1977]

@ShagittariusIntros Yup that's exactly what I found as well.

[Mau1wurf1977]

I just fired up DOSBox and had a listen.

It sound very clean, no noise of course. However if you listen carefully you can also hear a faint click whenever someone stops speaking.

All cards have this, apart from the AWE64 GOLD. I listed many times and the AWE64 somehow avoids that "cutoff" sound after someone speaks.

But all in all DOSBox sounds fantastic.

[Jivemaster2005]

I'm still amazed how Creative could become the market leader and create an industry standard with it's crappy soundning cards...it's the same mystery to me how Microsoft could become market leader...but that's slowly changing now (thank god)

[Mau1wurf1977]

@Jivemaster2005 I believe for a couple of reasons. It was Adlib compatible but you got a free joystick port as well (back then you usually had to buy a joystick port card which also cost a bit).

And because they where cheap. There was Roland with MT-32 and other modules, but they cost a fortune. Still there where alternatives.

Also don't forget that this game is almost 20 years old. Back then cpus where slow and digital speech was very taxing.

[Chaniyth]

To me there is a significan't difference in the sound quality between the Sound Blaster 1.5 and Sound Blaster 2.0 however both have a "pop" sound at the end of the audio file. Sound Blaster 2.0 has less "noise" during the speeches though so it sounds cleaner.

AWE64 Gold has the best overall audio quality though, much less "noise" and eliminates the audio "pop" at the end of the audio sequences. :)

[Alianger]

Which card would you say is better in general: Gravis Ultrasound, Pro Audio Spectrum or a Sound Blaster variant? (this is for Jazz 1 btw) I'm really stumped when it comes to these setups in DOSBox.

[F2bnp]

Even with earphones I can't make out any difference :(

Good try though :P

[Mau1wurf1977]

@GL1zdA Yea the ESS is surprisingly good! I never had one as a kid, but now I got 2 of them so I included them in the test...

Although they are PnP they will "just work" without loading any software or initialisation. They do however make a really loud POP when you reboot. Hurt my ears the first time :-)