Yamaha Audician 32 Plus YMF718-S Review

[@ytreview4390]

I have such card since my first computer based on K6-2-266. And I still love it for sound in the games and music

[@TheRetroCollective]

Hi Phil, this video is super useful. I've given you a mention and linked to this video in my latest video which is uploading now. Great channel thanks

[@philscomputerlab]

Sweet, thanks :D

[@astrocity8311]

Just got one thanks to this video. Keep up the good work for retro stuff.

[@raysmith5124]

Had 1 of these great all rounder back in the day

[@PierreVonStaines]

Another great review, I'll be purchasing on of these also! Thanks for the info Phil!

[@philscomputerlab]

PierreVonStaines What's great about these card is that they very cheap and easy to find. The Audician 32 Plus seems to be just one "version". If you look out for any card with a 718-S chip, you should find a lot. But one thing I like about the Audician is that comes NIB, with box, manual, driver. That's quite special.

[@BaumInventions]

I think here is the right place to share my Information : I Own a IBM ThinkPad 310E (Win98) and it is equipped wit a YMF715E-S Soundchip. I had problems to start FM Tracker Software in DOS Mode. I got NO SOUND from all Tracker Programs even after i have installed all the right Drivers and configured setupsa to all the right settings.The Soundcard is detected and is working fine in Windows, but still no Sound in DOS Mode from FM Trackers (for example TTPDEMO) . Then i watched your Video and you Said that Duke is switching some games to Stereo... So i started Duke3D in DOS Mode and after that my Tracker Programs WORKED! Thanks for The DUKE3D Tip!!!! You are Awesome.

[@philscomputerlab]

That's great to hear :D

[@magnum333]

Thank you for creating this video, just got one

[@cndctrdjful]

Thanks for the video. Just found this card in an old machine. Can't wait to install these drives

[@outtheredude]

Just bagged one of these off eBay! Looking forward to getting it for my Celeron 400A build soon. Thanks for this video and all the resources Phil! :-)

[@outtheredude]

Has been installed since mid 2017, with a DreamBlaster S1 daughter card added on more recently mid 2018 for MIDI wavetable synth. Duke Nukem 3D sounds awesome with this combo! :-)

[@VampiresCrypt]

bought this card after watching your excellent review on it, now thinking about getting an S2 Midi module :D

[@blakecasimir]

Descent's music gave my sub a bit of a workout! If I had the space for a retro PC I'd seriously consider one of these cards.

[@BoomBox02]

I came across this video after watching your latest video titled "Retro PC Pickups". I did a google search for information regarding this sound card and here i am. I have a couple of old Toshiba laptops that have this sound chip in them. I didnt know the drivers are still available on the Yamaha site. I might have to download the latest version and see how it goes. As the laptops are at the moment, they have the best sound out of all the laptops i have owned including late model i7 gaming laptops with subwoofer. I find that most laptop speakers these days dont sound as good as they use to.

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice. It will be interesting to see if the drivers work for you notebook, I don't see why they shouldn't though. If they work in DOS, please let me know of your model number of notebook, this could make them interesting to others!

[@BoomBox02]

No problem. All the software in this video looks the same as the software i have loaded onto the Toshiba so it may be compatible. I have some time off work soon so i'll get the laptops out and i'll be able to play around with the drivers then. I'll keep you posted.

[@BoomBox02]

Hi Phil. Just an update on how i went with the drivers. I downloaded the latest Yamaha Windows 95/98 Audician driver from your website and updated my 2 Toshiba laptops without any issues what so ever. Some info about my vintage laptops are as follows. One is a Pentium 133 Toshiba Satellite 220CDS running Windows 98 and the onboard audio is a Yahama OPL3-SAx Sound System. The second Toshiba is a Satellite Pro 440CDX. It has a Pentium 133MMX and is running Windows 95. It has the same onboard sound as the 220CDS. The quality of the speakers/onboard sound in these old laptops is incredible (Clear crisp and vibrant) compared to some of the crap being put into laptops today. My Asus ROG gaming laptop sounds like shit compared to these Toshiba's. Hope this info helps out others. Cheers

[@AladimBR]

Hey Phil, I didn't have a sound card with Yamaha chip. Last week I saw on the local "Ebay" a card for USD 20, didn't mention model or chip, only that was Yamaha ISA. From pictures was in pretty good condition (almost like new) - I bought it, got today and for my surprise, it is 99% identical to the one on this video (every component, layout, everything). The marking on the chip shows it is a 719 chip (the Audician 32 on your video has the 718) and it was sold under the Genius brand (it is printed on the PCB, just below the Atmel IC). I don't know if there are differences 718vs719, I would think they are equivalent. These cards are pretty expensive, hard to find in 2023, I guess for once I got lucky.

[@philscomputerlab]

Awesome!

[@DeadlyGamingLV]

After watching this video I went on ebay and ordered up 2 of them for now. For $20 new in box that's not bad at all and the guy has quite a bit of them for sale.

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice! Yea they are great sound cards.

[@thiagolaj]

Hi I have two YMF 719 cards and I detect a bug in this card SB Pro emulation. In game Prince os Percia 2, the digital sound hang the computer after some seconds in the intro game.

[@ruxandy]

Also, it has weird pauses in games such as Prehistorik when digital sounds are played back (the YMF7x4 PCI cards don’t have this issue). Still a great card, though. We already know that there’s no such thing as a perfect DOS sound card :)

[@thiagolaj]

@@ruxandy I'm try to use the UNISOUND universal ISA PnP Sound Card Driver for DOS with this card. And .... the problem is gone!!! :-) This proves that the original driver is not always the best for the hardware. Search for this driver on Vogons web site and try it to test the Prehistorik sound problem and tell me the result please.

[@UncleAwesomeRetro]

I found this card in the dumpster right now, and as I thought, Phil probably has a review on it :p. It's like, you have any question on the performance on some old hardware, search in this channel and get your answer.

[@philscomputerlab]

Haha, I still have a ton of sound cards to go through, but I'm taking my time, there is no rush :D

[@UncleAwesomeRetro]

Awesome! :)

[@davidp4456]

I’ve come back to this video for a bit of inspiration. I mow have 3 of these cards. The first one I found wasn’t working after installing drivers and trying it in a 486 and two SS7’s. The second one was the same, so I bought a third which was no better. I spoke to the vendor who suggested Unisnd drivers and they all worked! I just can’t get these cards to work with the Yamaha drivers. I even bought a Yamaha PCI YMF724 (X Wave something?) and I couldn’t install that either. I have a number of sound cards and have never had a problem other than with these. The only common denominator is me and Im not sure how I’m doing it wrong.

[@philscomputerlab]

UNISOUND works for you? These drivers are great, just use those. As for official Yamaha drivers there are many versions floating around...

[@philscomputerlab]

PCI is entirely different card BTW.

[@davidp4456]

@@philscomputerlab Thanks for your reply Phil. Yes I’m aware of that. 🤭. I just happen to be jinxed by anything Yamaha. I’ll give them another go when I have more time. Btw. Congratulations with the Patreon channel. Your content has been super helpful over the years. As time goes by I find myself moving on to projects that require a soldering iron and a steady hand. The retro community is such a helpful place for great info. B/w D

[@philscomputerlab]

@@davidp4456 I've done a bit of soldering and recapping but it's always something I'm dreading...

[@davidp4456]

@@philscomputerlab 👍Me too. My fascination with PC’s is about not being beaten and learning how it works. I’m just venturing out with component repairs and I may have to use a large hammer and a scraps bin. I’m always impressed by those guys on the near continent who persevere with hardware mods and fixes. I want revive my first 386 PC which is a small format Epson that doesn’t use standard parts and has a power supply problem, and my mothers still perfect Ambra 386 that has battery rot and blew up when I tried it a couple of years ago. The Ambra is the same as Linus Torvalds pioneering Linux work station, so it would be a nice but difficult rescue.

[@Reaperman4711]

I just got one of these with the wavetable area of the board populated, but that QS1000 mine has is super-flakey in a 'try it again when its not recognized' kind of way. I suppose I should be pleased that there even is MIDI. And I do really like that dos setup screen.

[@emil8367]

Thanks for sharing. Can you please share more information about this small extension - Wavetable ?

[@philscomputerlab]

It's likely a DreamBlaster S2. You can purchase it new.

[@emil8367]

@@philscomputerlab many thanks !

[@jimbob5885]

hate bother you again like watching all your videos they very imformative and cool ,, my question,,,,, is my dell dimension xps D300, 300mhz that has the optinal onborad sound ,,, a (Yamaha OPL3-SA3) is this the same as the isa yamaha card for playing dos games,, my computer is running windows 98 se ,, thanks

[@philscomputerlab]

Depends how it's connected, could be through PCI not ISA..

[@TechieZeddie]

Just got the card, and I love it! It's not without some issues, but they seem minor compared to the SB16. No hanging note bug, cleaner sound, and no MPU bugs either. Also, no config.sys drivers to load, so PC boots faster and you have more conventional memory. The setupsa.exe needs to be ran to initialize the card (autoexec.bat), but it does not stay in memory. I'm not sure if it's just a fluke, but since I installed the card (and the Windows 98 SE driver), Windows is less stable. I get random hard locks now.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea it's a nice card. Make sure you grab the latest Yamaha driver, the one on the CD are out of date.

[@TechieZeddie]

I used the one on your site. I'm guess that is probably the latest since Yamaha is probably not actively updating the drivers for this card now, lol.

[@redavatar]

I bought this card, installed it and ... boy this card needs a few tweaks to sound OK. On default, it sounds horribly metallic, too sharp yet too much bass at the same time. Editing the INI improves things a bit but even then there's a lot odd sounds going on so it's very sensitive to interference. I haven't had this problem with any Sound Blaster card in this system and I've had 3. The software in Windows also looks very tacky compared to the clean and nice Sound Blaster software. Still, OPL3 sounds good and after tweaking, it sounds good too and has little noise (although I prefer some noise over the weird whining noises you hear a times).

[@redavatar]

UPDATE : I gave up on this card. Its compatibility leaves a LOT to be desired. I tested some 400 games with it and over 10% of all games had severe sound issues ranging from no sound at all to crashing the game to not even wanting to start the game unless I disabled sound (examples: Battle Isle 1&2, Cruise for a Corpse, Cannon Fodder, Pinball Illusions, Pizza Tycoon, Superhero League of Hoboken, Syndicate, UFO Enemy Unknown, Innocent Until Caught, Heart of China, Elvira 1 & 2, Sensible Soccer ... - these are pretty big classics). Besides these there were dozens of games that had smaller issues like reversed stereo, stutters, lower quality sound, volume issues, ... No dealbreakers but combined with the above it soured my experience quite a bit. The DOS software is buggy too - sometimes it would load volume settings fine, next reboot it would randomly change the sliders unless I entered the program again. Windows software was also a far cry from anything Creative made with a really ugly music player that looked liked a psychopath designed the graphics. So yeah, it sounds great IF it works. Compatibility is THE main important factor for me though and a 90% "success" rate with only 75% of games sounding the way they're supposed to ... I'd rather just accept a slightly noisy SB16.

[@augusto1604y]

@@redavatar Working good on my 5x86 socket 3 and Pinball Illusions. No problems on my games installed.

[@ziginox]

ZV is Zoomed Video, it's probably a special mixer input for ZV devices in the PCMCIA slot of notebook computers. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoomed_video_port

[@AmstradExin]

What is the difference between this and the version with two crystals and without the OPL Logo? I have one, same part number: A151-A00. No OPL Logo, one extra OSC (24.576Mhz) and the YMF 719E-S?

[@Raptor3388]

I have this card as well. Exact same PCB, part numbers are written on the top of the PCB instead of near the ISA slot.

[@TheSwillMan]

when you say the card is SB Pro compatible, does that mean it supports true SB Pro stereo? (like in Wolf3D)

[@RodBeauvex]

Can't comment on Wolf 3D, but it is stereo in Impulse Tracker. Shockingly clean too. One of the best implementations I have ever heard.

[@kunka592]

7 years late to reply, but yes, it supports true stereo in Wolf3D and sounds great. I think if your machine is too fast though (like Pentium 3 1.4GHz), it starts sounding odd - not sure if Creative cards also have this issue. With a Pentium 2 233 @ 166MHz, it works well though. Apparently you might have to set the Sound Blaster volume in the mixer to 1, as mentioned by Phil in one of the comments here: " Yea someone discovered this bug. What you need to do is set the the volume for Sound Blaster in the mixer to 1. It won't actually affect the volume, but how much movement the other sliders give. Try it out!"

[@user-yv2cz8oj1k]

I had that exact card, it was always great clarity though I always thought it lacked a lot of depth in the lower registers compared to other cards.

[@SonicTheJackrabbit]

Hmm. I might consider pairing this up with an AWE64 Gold if I build a retro gaming PC at some point. Probably would be easier than hunting down a specific SB16 or AWE32 model with an actual OPL chip and no MIDI hanging note bug or crackly output.

[@KLund1100]

Dude!!! Can you put a link to that small wavetable card you show early in this video. Or at least a model number or some such. I have this card but need to upgrade it but no luck finding anything. Please Post !!! ThX

[@philscomputerlab]

DreamBlaster S1 or S2 from Serdaco out of Belgium!

[@JimLeonard]

You said in the video that the Sound Blaster Pro has the left and right swapped -- did you mean the driver for that game had it swapped, or did you mean the actual sound blaster pro swaps left and right?

[@philscomputerlab]

Jim Leonard The actual Sound Blaster Pro has L and R swapped.

[@JimLeonard]

philscomputerlab That can't be right. I have real SBPros in systems and they don't have L and R swapped. Some software doesn't support the Pro properly and will initialize things in unknown state (WOW II modplayer comes to mind), which can cause the bytestream to be one byte off which will swap L and R,, but the actual hardware is fine in systems it was intended to run in (ie. normal bus speeds).

[@GreySectoid]

Does it work well in DOS?

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes!

[@cdwhiley]

Do you think this same driver will work for a YMF701B-S chipset? I have this card and no driver for an old Windows 3.1 system I am trying to get sound for.

[@philscomputerlab]

Not that familiar with the different model numbers, but worth a shot! Also you can try the UNISOUND driver project!

[@cdwhiley]

@@philscomputerlab I managed to get windows sound with the driver on your site. But it broke windows completely. Win 3.1. I had to go to a backup c:\windows\system.ini after the installation to get windows to load. But…sound worked in windows. Apparently I need to troubleshoot farther to get DOS functioning and figure out what hung up windows loading. But I can say this…I learned that the driver you have hosted on your site covers all versions of the chipset until it went to a PCI format. So all the ISA Yamaha YMF7xx cards will run with the same driver. Thanks again.

[@pokey4200]

@philscomputerlab Hi Phil. So I picked up one of these cards as well as the dreamblaster s2. Can you tell me is there something I need to enable for the wavetable board? I'm using it in a build inspired by your 4 in 1 retro pc. I have sound but it sounds nowhere close to yours. Thank you.

[@philscomputerlab]

No it should work out of the box.

[@pokey4200]

PhilsComputerLab thanks for the reply. it could be my speakers then I guess. does it matter which connector I use for my cd audio line in?

[@philscomputerlab]

It shouldn't matter.

[@pokey4200]

PhilsComputerLab So I finally figured it out. after uninstalling reinstalling changing slots I noticed the volume control panel only had volume slider enabled... after enabling all the sliders that glorious midi sound came pouring out of the speakers... man I'm glad I bought this card after finally hearing it

[@AncientElectronics]

Wonder if the audition drivers will work with the Addonics a151-910. They look virtually the same and I cant seem to find drivers for that card.

[@philscomputerlab]

Very likely!

[@AncientElectronics]

tried it out today. drivers seem to work on the Addonics a151-910. card looks almost the same except mine has the IDE connector and a few things are placed slightly different like the jumpers. My card also has a curious switch right above the line out labeled "3D" with a on and off position. My DOS drivers also do not seem to ask me if I'd like the program to start every time I boot but maybe that has something to do with using the mouse to select "OK" and not hitting Enter, seems odd but i'll test it next time I boot the machine.

[@philscomputerlab]

You might have the next model chipset, as that one has some 3D Stereo Expand technology.

[@hassanjafary1666]

what is those unistalled chips on yours (qs1000)? is it wave table ic or something? , is there a full version of that card released anywhere?

[@JarrodCoombes]

Great video, but Phil I gotta ask ya, where you from? You've got a sort of Australian/German accent going on there with a hint of something else (asian of some sort??).

[@krnivoro1972]

It has the DMA bug. At least mine (not an Audician, Genius instead). Doors in Wolfenstein3D sound incomplete or do not sound at all.

[@xan1242]

Ah, XGLite, I thought it sounded familiar. You can get a DLS or Soundfont of that, it's pretty popular.

[@philscomputerlab]

xan1242 Cool, I didn't know that!

[@matthewtully1745]

After I run SetupSA I get a run-time error R6001 -null pointer assignment?

[@jonessii]

Seems a pretty solid card and I ordered a couple but I was a bit disappointed in Wolf3D's directional stereosound not working even though this is supposedly SBPro compatible (the directional sound being a Pro exclusive feature)

[@philscomputerlab]

+jonessii Hi! That thing with Wolf3D is actually an Internet myth / legend that doesn't want to die. It actually manipulates the mixer to simulate Stereo. Does the sound come out dead center, or from the wrong sides?

[@jonessii]

Dead center. And yes, I know it's not actual "3D" but more like a stereo hack. All I know is that I've got another SBPro clone which has that feature where it clearly works and it does not work on any SB16 compatibles.

[@philscomputerlab]

Hmm. Well thank you for letting me know. I might have to check it out and see if anything can be done. I think I'll add Wolf3D to the games I test when I checkout sound cards.

[@jonessii]

No probs, appreciate the channel and the reviews. :3

[@philscomputerlab]

***** Yea someone discovered this bug. What you need to do is set the the volume for Sound Blaster in the mixer to 1. It won't actually affect the volume, but how much movement the other sliders give. Try it out!

[@moz2186]

I have this exact card and cannot get it to detect in anything. Do you know if it requires -5v? Are there known problem areas I should look at, caps or crystals?

[@philscomputerlab]

Doesn't require -5V!

[@igorbog88]

Hey Phil. I can pick up the PCI version of these cards, with an integrated OPL3 chip. YMF724 chipset. But it being PCI, I understand it is somewhat limited in regards to compatibility with dos games, even under real ms-dos. So what if I were to use Dosbox (the emulator) on a modern system to run the games... and wanted to run fm music! instead of midi. I'm sure the real thing sounds better compared to the dosbox emulation. Is there a way Dosbox can use the real chip in the system if I set it to FM OPL3? Pass it through somehow? A different build?

[@philscomputerlab]

+igorbog88 I do know of a modified version of DOSBox that allowed this, but I don't know more about it. However I can tell you that DOSBox does a very, very, good job. If you want true OPL3, it's time to build a DOS retro gaming PC :)

[@igorbog88]

+philscomputerlab I looked more into it in the meanwhile and indeed there have been a few svn releases of dosbox with opl3 passthrough capability. SVN Daum by ykhwong is one such build and there are a couple videos on youtube with it working.

[@DxDeksor]

+igorbog88 You can have full support under DOS with that card ! Just use the "SB_link" connector if your motherboard has it :)

[@fabledbooks5512]

Phil - can you help me understand how to hook this up to a Sound Canvas 88, so I can get the best setup for speech + music on DOS games on a 486? I figured out that I can use a gameport midi cable to hook up this card to the Midi IN on the SC, but what after that? Do I connect the L/R OUT from the SC back to the Line IN on the very same Audician card, and connect its Line OUT port to speakers? Or do I need to also install some kind of SB (AWE etc) ISA card and feed the L/R OUT from the SC into the SB card and connect the speakers to the LINE OUT on the SB card? Thanks!

[@philscomputerlab]

That's actually a great idea for a video! I will try to have something for early next week. But yes, the SC output goes into line-in of the sound card, and line-out to the speakers. And then you got to adjust the mixer. Note that the mixer has a big, you need to set SB volume to 1, then everything else should work.

[@fabledbooks5512]

Thanks! I thought about it some more and have come up with 3 options. I am not sure which one is optimal. My objective is to get the best possible quality of digitized speech and also music for old DOS games. Here are the 3 possibilities I came up with: Option 1: Audician Gameport 15 pin gameport --> gameport-MIDI cable--> gameport-Midi cable's 5 pin Midi out --> SC MIDI IN, and gameport-Midi cable's 5 pin Midi IN --> SC MID OUT. And then Audician LINE OUT-->speakers. That's it. No separate SB (ISA) card required. Option 2: Audician Gameport 15 pin gameport --> gameport-MIDI cable--> gameport-Midi cable's 5 pin Midi out --> SC MIDI IN. Then SC L/R OUT--> Audician LINE IN (via Amp/stereo cable). Then Audician LINE OUT -->speakers. Again, no separate SB (ISA) card required. Option 3: Audician Gameport 15 pin gameport --> gameport-MIDI cable--> gameport-Midi cable's 5 pin Midi out --> SC MIDI IN. Then SC L/R OUT--> SB LINE IN. Then SB LINE OUT --> Speakers. Here, a dedicated SB card is required in a different ISA slot in addition to the Audician card. I'm not sure if either of these options will be more prone to IRQ or other conflicts, create hiss or other line artifacts, or blow up the card or pc :-) Since the Audician 32 is fully SB compatible, is it overkill to install another dedicated SB card as in Option 3? Will the Audician be able to mix the outgoing and incoming MIDI with the non-midi components of the game without needing a separate SB card? All I'm looking for is to get the best MIDI quality music from these games to coexist with the non-midi audio components of a game (such as speech, etc). Regards.

[@philscomputerlab]

gameport-Midi cable's 5 pin Midi out --> SC MIDI IN, and gameport-Midi cable's 5 pin Midi IN --> SC MID OUT. You only need the first connection, MIDI out from the sound card to MIDI in on the SC. You no not need the other connection, that's usually for connecting a MIDI keyboard to record the notes.

[@philscomputerlab]

Option 2 is the right one BTW :)

[@fabledbooks5512]

Thanks! I've seen people put together DOS rigs with multiple sound cards in them. But since the Audician is such a versatile all-in-one card (SB + MPU401), I guess I only need this one card. Perhaps a GUS too, but that's another story :-) Thanks much for sharing your expertise. I look forward to your video on this, if you do choose to make one.

[@ButilkaRomm]

Is Yamaha YMF-719E - OPL 3 similar to this card? Would the drivers be the same?

[@railsrust]

Yes. I have a 719 card and the same drivers work on it. There's very little that's different between the two chips.

[@arthur2305]

When I try to install your "95v2343.exe" Windows stops the installation with this warning message : "Could not copy file SA??????.INF." I tried again multiple times but it's always the same message. What am I doing wrong ? I really want this card to work =/ My computer is an old Compaq Portable 486 running on Windows 95.

[@hassanjafary1666]

i have ymf719-s , is this bundled driver work for this yamaha card too?

[@TheLemminkainen]

i have this on my AMDk6 300 mhz rig it works well :)

[@Luffym17]

I ordered this card for my super socket 7 retro PC build. I'm trying to decide what wav table to get though, should I get the DreamBlaster S1 or X1? Thanks.

[@philscomputerlab]

If you can afford the X1, go for that. It sounds quite a bit better.

[@edward_grabczewski]

When using the Yamaha under MSDOS (6.21) then should I use the /OUTPUT:SBMIDI switch in SOFTMPU? My PC is hanging if I include that option.

[@philscomputerlab]

No don't use that option!

[@edward_grabczewski]

@@philscomputerlab I'm not getting any activity from the MIDI port of this card. It might be faulty. I've tried MS-DOS 6.21, Windows 3.11 and Windows 98SE and nothing seems to work on MIDI. I get some faint and tinny sounds for audio. After messing around for a whole day, it may be time to go back to my Sound Blaster cards.

[@RetroComputers]

Hi Sorry where are the links?

[@philscomputerlab]

I've updated the description!

[@RetroComputers]

@@philscomputerlab genius! thank you

[@stefanocolpo]

I'm currently using a SoundBlaster AWE32 in my DOS gaming pc, do you think the Audician 32 is better? My first goal is total compatibility and then the sound quality, and I'm looking for the "definitive" DOS sound card! :)

[@philscomputerlab]

+Stefano Colpo Creative cards really cannot be beat in terms of compatibility. They are the reference in that regard. There are all sorts of versions of the AWE32, so it does depends a little. Check out the VOGONS wiki on the AWE series, that might help.

[@con2botonesnadamas433]

I´ve got this card. When I install Windows 98SE the card drivers (windows ones) are automatically installed.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes, but I recommend installing the newer drivers.

[@colinmccormack7033]

Hi Phil, Great videos, keep up the good work. A question for you: I've recently built a system based on a Pentium II 350 along with CF in place of the hard disk, booting to several operating systems. Installed into which is one of these Audician32 Yamaha cards paired with a Roland SC88 sound canvas. When I boot to any windows 9X, I can use the sound canvas through the sound cards mpu-401 on games like doom or duke 3d and experience the digitized sound effects as well. If I boot to dos, I can only use either one or the other. I.E. If I leave the sound canvas turned off the sound effects will work, as soon as i turn the sc-88 on, they will stop working and the music will work. I've tried several IRQ/DMA/address combinations, but no luck. Have you ever come across an issue like this? Thanks.

[@philscomputerlab]

Did you update the Windows 98 drivers? That's the only thing I can think of to be honest. Windows MS-DOS mode shouldn't behave different to real DOS/

[@colinmccormack7033]

Yes I did. I'll stick at it. thanks.

[@joseluisrojas220]

I have a question. I bought this card and installed the updated driver from within windows 98, but when I go to DOS mode (following your tutorial for dos mode) it doesn't detect the card. I then installed the dos drivers from the cd and it works, but after reboot it doesn't detect it anymore, so I have to reinstall the dos drivers everytime. Is there any tweaking to do with the autoxec or config file? Thanks!

[@philscomputerlab]

+Jose Luis Rojas How do you install it in DOS? On the CD is a folder for DOS I believe. It's caled INSTDOS or something like that. But there are two installation files, and only one will actually save to AUTOEXEC.BAT.

[@joseluisrojas220]

+philscomputerlab I tried both. and as you said one installs it and the other does not. however it only installs it on the current session. after rebooting you have to install it again to get sound

[@philscomputerlab]

Odd, but let's try this. After it has installed, open AUTOEXEC.BAT with EDIT and copy the lines from Yamaha (check before to see what lines it adds). Then navigate into Windows folder (or might be Windows\Command and edit DOSSTART.BAT and paste it there.

[@philscomputerlab]

The other option is, after installing, copy AUTOEXEC.BAT into another batch file, say, YAMAHA.BAT Edit this file and delete everything, but YAMAHA related stuff. Then, every time you're in dos, just type YAMAHA to get you sound card going.

[@joseluisrojas220]

+philscomputerlab Turns out the installer was writing some lines to the windows\command folder, I erased them and now it works! Only now I get a message asking if I want to go back to windows; I press esc and I'm good to go. Oh and to go back to windows, now I have to type "win" instead of exit. Windows 98 can be weird sometimes. Thanks again!

[@BadManiac]

@philscomputerlab Hi Phil, I have one of these in my in-progress DOS PC build, a Yamaha OPL YMF719-S. Using the drivers from your webpage and it works extremely well in almost all games I've tested, using SBPro2 for digital sound and SB16 for music seems to be the sweetspot. But I can't get any of the lucasarts games to work. Indiana Jones Fate of Atlantis just plays random garbled notes, Monkey Island 2 works in adlib mode but fails to initialize in SB mode, and Monkey Island 1 crashes on start regardless what sound setting I use :( Any help would be apreciated. Did you add a SET BLASTER environment variable at all? The installer doesn't seem to do that on it's own?

[@philscomputerlab]

Very likely your machine is to fast. These games run best on a 386.

[@BadManiac]

Oh really? I'll have to test that out. It is a K6-200, I'll disable some cache and downclock it. Thanks!

[@BadManiac]

Well I'll be! All I had to do was to disable the internal CPU cache and Fate of Atlantis runs absolutely flawlessly. I got it in my head that the SCUMM Games were newer than that. Is there a way to disable and enable the cache on a K6 CPU from command line? Not a K6-2, 3 or +, original K6.

[@philscomputerlab]

I can recommend the video "4 in 1 retro PC". Do toggle L1 in DOS, use SETMUL tool. Just google it, there should be a link to a VOGONS thread :)

[@BadManiac]

Yeah I\m aware of SetMul, but it specifically says it only supports K6-2 and up. But I tested it anyways, and it actually lets me disable and enable the L1 cache! So everything works flawlessly now. Can\t thank you enough Phil! :)

[@PierreVonStaines]

Hi Phil, have you got any hints to get the Audician 32 Plus working with Raptor Call of the Shadows. I can get music, but no sound fx. The card is just set to default settings 220, IRQ: 5, DMA: 1. Also can you offer any advice to getting Raptor working in a dos enviroment in Windows 98 as when I run the rap.exe it just keeps throwing up an error and telling me to run setup.exe? Any advice welcomed mate!

[@philscomputerlab]

+PierreVonStaines And did you run setup.exe? Usually that's where you configure the sound card resources.

[@PierreVonStaines]

+PhilsComputerLab yeah ran the setup and set it to sound blaster on both fx and music but for some reason fx done play. if I set it to general midi and use the dream blaster s1 it plays midi alternative sound fx which are OK but not as good as the sample fx. Just wondering if you managed to run raptor under windows 98?

[@philscomputerlab]

Have you tried shutting down into MS-DOS mode and running the game from there? For SFX make sure you select Sound Blaster Pro as the card. The Auto detect should work.

[@PierreVonStaines]

+PhilsComputerLab yeah tried in ms DOS mode and same thing. It works with every other game I have tried just for some reason it's playing the sound fx. Also do you know where I can get a wavetable IDC extension plug or cable to give just some extra space to install the dream blaster x1? Unfortunately my motherboard has some caps in the way and the X1 won't fit on the sound card because of this reason. Cheers

[@philscomputerlab]

Hmm, that's a shame. I will test this game when I do my next project using this card. Interesting question about the ribbon cable. I've used a 90 degree pin header in the past, but haven't used a ribbon cable. You could use a IDE ribbon cable, and use a pin header (which has male pins on both sides) on one end to attached the wavetable module?

[@ahmadmuzaffarzafriy]

Which system board did you use for this sound card?

[@philscomputerlab]

I don't remember 100%, but usually a Pentium 3 system with 440BX chipset.

[@ewanwood]

Phil, would you recommend this card in place of a Sound Blaster Vibra 16?

[@philscomputerlab]

I can't answer that, there are too many factors to consider. I might do a video series on this in the future, the question keeps coming up.

[@ewanwood]

Thanks anyway Phil, I'm just happy I got a response! I reckon I will get one the and just see for myself. Looking forward to your future videos.

[@bradgeels1485]

Where can you buy this Audician 32 Plus card???

[@philscomputerlab]

I believe it's sold out. Good priced retro parts don't have unlimited stock I'm afraid.

[@Pumpkinhead77]

I've got one of these.

[@ThrakaAndy]

Anyone know if the drivers work (or any other alternative) for Windows XP?

[@philscomputerlab]

I wouldn't use an ISA card with Windows XP. A PCI card like an Audigy 2 ZS is a much better choice.

[@igorbog88]

Which "difficult" games did you use to test the soundblaster pro compatibility ? Can you name a few to test myself but will work from within windows 98se running them in a dos box? Because rather by chance I discovered the digital AC97 codec on my analog devices sound chip runs all the games I had (popular titles like Duke 3d and Blood and some other shareware) and emulates the games' SB Pro 2.0 stereo effects perfectly even when I pick 16-bit mixing and 32 voices. I found a list for aureal sb pro emulation on this website that I can use to try it out if its correct www.quantexzone.com/index.php/vortex-of-sound/games-help/101-vosdosgames about the dosbox part. So these games you mentioned?

[@philscomputerlab]

igorbog88 The CD version of Fate of Atlantis, as well as Space Quest 4 CD or Space Quest 1 VGA version are games that cause issues on many PCI based sound cards. So I use those for testing :)

[@cyberloner]

hmm... miss those old school yamaha xg sound card

[@philscomputerlab]

+cyber loner I had two of these Yamaha /NEC wavetable boards. Both died :( I've not got an external MU80.

[@josephfrye7342]

oh yeah there it was.

[@olegalkhimovich4804]

Sold out on ebay :(. If someone got a lot of them new and will try to sell them later at x3 price - go to hell)

[@philscomputerlab]

+Oleg Alkhimovich For real? Man the last time I checked they had a TON of them still left. I also hope that it doesn't fall in the hands of a re-seller :(

[@olegalkhimovich4804]

I checked it about month ago on ebay evercase shop, and there was a lot of them. Heh, retro-gaming becoming more expensive and exclusive. But some days ago i got old pc in working condition fo 2.5$ with chaintech slot 1 mobo on 440bx chipset, pentium III-450, 80gb samsung drive, cd-rom, PCI Matrox Millenium II and... original Creativw Sound Blaster 16 - that was a good deal).

[@KainiaKaria]

The DOS driver for this sound card is ass. I would recommend replacing it with Tiido's SETWMF Driver.

[@philscomputerlab]

@@KainiaKaria Or UNISOUND!

[@Equinoxalpha647]

VR device and head tracking in the setup menu? Ey.. What...???

[@philscomputerlab]

LOL I know right? 3D and VR comes and goes in phases :)

[@Equinoxalpha647]

I have an Oculus DK2 :) its not worth spending 600 pounds to get cv1 :)

[@ThrakaAndy]

ZF Port: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoomed_video_port

[@microsoftafu]

Mine has an IDE port on it. I got it for free.

[@drzeissler]

AWE64Gold or AUDICIAN32Plus that's the question...

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes that's a good one. To be honest, both cards are super and you should be happy.

[@drzeissler]

the audician is more compatible to the old sb-stuff, but I like the AWE64Gold too.

[@SonicTheJackrabbit]

It seems like the YMF219 would be a good way to make up for the lousy CQM chip on the AWE64, assuming if you can set it up to only use the AWE64 for PCM and the YMF219 for OPL that is.