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ESS 1688 Sound Card: Is it true that it can't do 16bit sound in DOS?
- Thread starter barney
- Start date
twolazy
Veteran Member
Good question. I have a couple of these cards pulled from compaqs 486s. I do know in windows it was indeed 16 bit, but in dos I believe it acted similar to IBM mWave dolphin gear. Meaning the card itself had no samples, ram. etc, and used special drivers to grab samples from system ram instead, and do sound blaster emulation. I do know I had 0 problems playing doom2 on it years ago, if I recall correctly, it used sb pro 2.0 mode. You may be right on no 16 bit sb support in dos, but i do recall it having a windows sound system mode also, which would have been 16 bit. Not many games supported this mode though. 
At least duke3d does!
The only saving grace of ESS cards in my opinion, is the emulated midi/mpu-401 samples, when you can get it to work correctly. I actually perfer its emulated midi over a sb16/awe! Plus they had audio rack for windows and a few other cool programs for the time.
At least duke3d does! The only saving grace of ESS cards in my opinion, is the emulated midi/mpu-401 samples, when you can get it to work correctly. I actually perfer its emulated midi over a sb16/awe! Plus they had audio rack for windows and a few other cool programs for the time.
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Thanks for the detailed info. I will only be using it in dos, so I won't be able to have the 16 bit support. I've been using it for sime time now, and I must admit it still sounds pretty acceptable for all the games I have played so far. One thing I did notice is that my Ess 1688 is probably the easiest card I have ever installed on a DOS machine by FAR! It installs flawlessly.