• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

"Best" PCI audio card for Windows 98SE/DOS games?

F

Fire-Flare

Experienced Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2009
Messages
273
Location
Washington State
I'm building a system for playing older games, but the motherboard I want to use does not have ISA slots.

I've heard that a Sound Blaster 128 PCI card will work under Windows and also when I drop into DOS mode.

If that's accurate, will it be compatible with most games out there, or is there a better option?
 
Fire-Flare said:
I'm building a system for playing older games, but the motherboard I want to use does not have ISA slots.

I've heard that a Sound Blaster 128 PCI card will work under Windows and also when I drop into DOS mode.

If that's accurate, will it be compatible with most games out there, or is there a better option?
Click to expand...

PCI Sound cards are mostly useless in DOS - I recommend the Yamaha Audician 32 Plus as it has a genuine Yamaha chipset on it which gives you the following:

1/ true Adlib sound (OPL2) for older games (not the crap emulation of clone cards and SB cards without the OPL labeled chip)
2/ excellent SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 compatibility (which is perfect for most SB compatible games)
3/ true OPL3 sound for the games that support it (Aka Adlib Gold)
4/ MIDI out via the joystick port and no hanging-note bug that plagues most SB16 cards (eg for use with Roland MT-32)
5/ works great with SoftMPU for intelligent MIDI support for games that need it (eg for use with Roland MT-32)
6/ can buy them Brand new for cheap on eBay (at least as of a few months back when I bought mine).

The only negative is the amplified line out is a bit noisy, but if you disable it (via jumper) and set it to line-out only, it's superb. I ditched my AWE64 from my K6 machine for this card.

Anyhoo, check out some of the online reviews:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Yamaha+Audician+32
 
Last edited:
dJOS said:
Same, I've got a Super7 board with 2 ISA, 5 PCI slots and even AGP (which I dont use).
Click to expand...

I'm doing a retro-themed build inside an IBM 5150 case without altering it. Only have room to use an ITX board.

Found one with a Pentium M processor, 4 IDE channels, and a floppy connector, but no ISA, just PCI. :(
 
dJOS said:
Same, I've got a Super7 board with 2 ISA, 5 PCI slots and even AGP (which I dont use).
Click to expand...

Mine has no AGP slot but I use a S3 Virge and it's decent at 3D games but my machine is pure DOS... I have an IBM P4 system with an AGP Geforce2 in it it for all my 9x and XP gaming.
 
TravisHuckins said:
Mine has no AGP slot but I use a S3 Virge and it's decent at 3D games but my machine is pure DOS... I have an IBM P4 system with an AGP Geforce2 in it it for all my 9x and XP gaming.
Click to expand...

lol I also use the S3 Virge - compatibility is excellent! I also have a PCI Geforce 6200 which I can swap in for FPS games if I want to.
 
dJOS said:
lol I also use the S3 Virge - compatibility is excellent! I also have a PCI Geforce 6200 which I can swap in for FPS games if I want to.
Click to expand...

The Virge is fine for all the DOS FPS I play... even handles Blood with VESA with no problems. Now it can't play Quake higher than 320x200 (or whatever the default is) but the game runs great otherwise.
 
dJOS said:
Oh ok, was the original MB beyond repair?
Click to expand...

The whole system worked fine, but wasn't quite powerful enough for some games I wanted to play.

The case has been a great-looking monitor riser for my main PC, but now I'd like to use it to play games that Windows 10 won't load.
 
Fire-Flare said:
The whole system worked fine, but wasn't quite powerful enough for some games I wanted to play.

The case has been a great-looking monitor riser for my main PC, but now I'd like to use it to play games that Windows 10 won't load.
Click to expand...

Oh, why wouldn't you just get another system rather than modify a museum piece like that? :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top