Dual soundcards for old games

[EverythingIBM]

Alright, so, for christmas I got an awesome AWE64 soundblaster card. It uses the new EMU sound canvas for some more modern sounding midi files, but does provide sort of a weird emulated OPL3 option as well. Also, my DOS games often require a soundblaster specifically (to play both CD audio and sounds).
Now my computer has onboard crystal audio and crystal FM synthesis. The problem here is that I absolutely love the crystal FM synthesis (OPL3 variant), however, since it's only soundblaster compatible, sometimes I can't get both sound and CD audio on games, either one or the other, or none at all!

So... with that in mind, I wanted to:
A) use the updated MIDI canvas for some new flavour now and then.
B) use the soundblaster for DOS games for better audio support.
C) retain my favourite Crystal FM Synthesis.

The solution: use both soundcards!

And here's what I did for the cabling:

On the left picture you'll notice I routed the soundblaster's "speaker audio out" into the computer's integrated "audio in" line. This is so all the soundblaster audio will be routed to the "audio out" from crystal audio. The green circle indicates audio out.
On the right picture I used a weird CD cable I found in my magical "cord box", it has two CD heads so you can plug in two audio devices, which lead into one head... therefore both soundcards can receive CD audio. Ironically, I was just imagining that I'd need one of those when I found it in my cord box... I honestly forget where I got a weird cable like that... it had a weird white plastic attachment on the end too.

So basically that part just requires the right cables.


Now I can select from the MIDI list which MIDI canvas I want to use, including crystal FM audio, or the creative ones.

Note: as I said, the AWE64 has an emulated OPL3, which is OK, but I can totally tell it's not the real deal like crystal FM synthesis. It has a weird... high attack and flanger effects it would seem.

Anyways, I'm still testing it out, but so far seems to be good! At least I got some more options for MIDI now.

[NamelessPFG]

That frankly looks too big to be an AWE64, plus there's the more standard RAM slots. It's probably the older AWE32. Still a good find.

I always wondered what sort of cabling mess I'd have to go through on a vintage DOS/Win9x-era gaming PC to make it sound proper for everything-ESPECIALLY if there's a Roland MT-32/CM-32/LAPC-I involved. Then there's the potential for driver hell with so many sound devices. (Mostly Sound Blaster 16/AWE, the Gravis Ultrasound, and the aforementioned Roland stuff for the DOS era. For the Win9x era, it's mostly the Sound Blaster Live! vs. the Aureal Vortex2 cards-basically a matter of EAX 2.0 vs. A3D.)

[EverythingIBM]

That frankly looks too big to be an AWE64, plus there's the more standard RAM slots. It's probably the older AWE32. Still a good find.

I always wondered what sort of cabling mess I'd have to go through on a vintage DOS/Win9x-era gaming PC to make it sound proper for everything-ESPECIALLY if there's a Roland MT-32/CM-32/LAPC-I involved. Then there's the potential for driver hell with so many sound devices. (Mostly Sound Blaster 16/AWE, the Gravis Ultrasound, and the aforementioned Roland stuff for the DOS era. For the Win9x era, it's mostly the Sound Blaster Live! vs. the Aureal Vortex2 cards-basically a matter of EAX 2.0 vs. A3D.)

No, it's an AWE64. It says it on the physical card, it says it on the MIDI canvas list I provided (above crystal audio synthesis), it says it in the drivers, and it also says it when choosing soundcards for my games.

It's just ISA that's all: most ISA cards are fairly big.

And wikipedia even has a screenshot of it:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sound_Blaster_AWE64.jpg
Looks exactly the same as mine. AWE 64, ISA.

Anyways, the audio stuff is fairly easy now, I've got it all to run nicely.

Windows 98 usually installs all the common soundcards automatically (crystal audio and soundblaster alike: I didn't have to install the drivers for either: but I could if I wanted to as I have them).

[NamelessPFG]

But there's still that proprietary RAM expansion interface common to AWE64s...

...wait. I misinterpreted your screenshots-mistook the motherboard toward the left side for a sound card in an expansion slot because of the RAM! Ugh, I feel stupid now.

So you're using Win9x's own drivers...wouldn't have that luxury with the Live! or Montego II (Vortex2), but I could've sworn I had to provide Creative drivers for my AWE64 Gold as well. Perhaps I'll give it another shot if I can be bothered to set up another Win9x box in the future. (I'm not using my BP6 for it; Win9x kills the purpose by not supporting dual CPUs.)

[EverythingIBM]

But there's still that proprietary RAM expansion interface common to AWE64s...

...wait. I misinterpreted your screenshots-mistook the motherboard toward the left side for a sound card in an expansion slot because of the RAM! Ugh, I feel stupid now.

So you're using Win9x's own drivers...wouldn't have that luxury with the Live! or Montego II (Vortex2), but I could've sworn I had to provide Creative drivers for my AWE64 Gold as well. Perhaps I'll give it another shot if I can be bothered to set up another Win9x box in the future. (I'm not using my BP6 for it; Win9x kills the purpose by not supporting dual CPUs.)

Yes, windows 98 SE actually preinstalls a lot of hardware I've been throwing at it. Maybe the regular 98 didn't?
Windows 95 MOST LIKELY wouldn't as the AWE64 is 1996 (unless Bill Gates was telepathic and programmed the driver before the soundcard came out, or, creative gave microsoft the drivers before it was released).

About the pictures, yeah, I can see the illusion there (the RAM you mistook is probably to the integrated Matrox Mystique), the card is placed in the utmost last ISA slot, and the camera's cheap lighting didn't help either (distorting field of depth).

I really like my windows 98 machine: I can run my old software painlessly. And the old graphics and sound hardware is still good (better than a lot of the low-end garbage made today).