Haha, FM emulation was terrible on these. I think this emulator was later reused and improved for the Live! series of cards, though I don't think it ever sounded pleasant.

i have same is this support xp?

rain wrote on 2024-02-15, 11:03:

i have same is this support xp?

Yes, there are WinXP drivers on Creative's website for it.

The relevant file name is: SBPCI128Setupus_w2k.exe

Does it use a TSR for its real DOS emulation mode? I think the answer is yes but best to ask.

I remember Creative gave me one of these at one of the Conferences back in 96/97 (just after they brought Ensoniq iirc), can't remember be very impressed back then.

GL1zdA wrote on 2024-02-15, 11:00:

Haha, FM emulation was terrible on these. I think this emulator was later reused and improved for the Live! series of cards, though I don't think it ever sounded pleasant.

Yup, the FM synth emulation on SBLive and Audigy cards sounds slightly better than this. I have some recordings of that here.

BTW, I noticed that there's a driver CD image for the SB128 on archive.org. I checked it against my own CD, and it looks like mine is slightly newer, and my image is a bit larger. The DISK.ID of my CD is as follows:

1Sound Blaster AudioPCI 128
2S128-CDS1D-W1-E6
3(MID : 9x-32767 WDM-32454 NT4-32769)

Not sure if that makes any difference, but I can upload my image somewhere if anyone wants it.

Deano wrote on 2024-02-15, 11:07:

Does it use a TSR for its real DOS emulation mode? I think the answer is yes but best to ask.

Yes, it uses SBINIT.COM to initialize the card and that stays resident in memory. According to MEM /A /C /P it takes up 2KB.

I think the card also needs EMM386.EXE to be loaded. This means that some games like Turrican II won't work with it.

@Joseph_Joestar

Thank you for that review. It will definitely give people unfamiliar with this card a good idea of what to expect.

I would be curious as to whether it works with SBEMU and how well it does so versus the stock DOS software.
SBEMU: Sound Blaster emulation on AC97

darry wrote on 2024-02-15, 12:17:

Thank you for that review. It will definitely give people unfamiliar with this card a good idea of what to expect.

Cheers! That was indeed my intention, to showcase the Sound Blaster 128 fully so that people new to the retro PC scene don't accidentally grab it based on just the name. 😀 Surprisingly, I didn't see many YouTube reviews of this card, so I figured I might as well post something here.

I would be curious as to whether it works with SBEMU and how well it does so versus the stock DOS software.
SBEMU: Sound Blaster emulation on AC97

The later revisions of Ensoniq Audio PCI cards are AC'97 compatible, so it might work. I haven't tried that personally, but maybe someone else who has can chime in.

I use this 8MB .ECW set with my Audigy 2 in pure DOS and I think it's quite decent.

Of course using a better .SF2 through a Windows command prompt like Joseph describes on his Audigy 2 guide sounds much better, but for a true pure DOS solution it's not bad.

GL1zdA wrote on 2024-02-15, 11:00:

Haha, FM emulation was terrible on these. I think this emulator was later reused and improved for the Live! series of cards, though I don't think it ever sounded pleasant.

Couldn't you fix that by always selecting Adlib or OPL2 in games' setup options instead of SB16 or OPL3. I think I remember doing that with the SBLive and Audigy Dos drivers and it sounded better than when selecting OPL3.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-02-15, 10:33:

Speaking of which, General MIDI works by using ECW sets for the softsynth, which is Ensoniq's proprietary format. The driver CD contains three sets in total: 2MB, 4MB and 8MB with the last one arguably providing the best quality. You can switch between these sets from the driver panel at any time. This card doesn't support soundfont loading (.SBK and .SF2 files) only the aforementioned ECW sets. The driver panel also allows you to use an external MIDI device instead of the softsynth, but unfortunately, this only works for Windows applications (e.g. Windows Media Player). DOS games will always use the softsynth, regardless of what you select in the driver options.

Great review, I have two questions:
Does the GM midi and MT32 options on this (using the ECW sets) under real dos sound better or inferior to the AWE series using Aweutil /EM option.

Also do you know if the GM Midi and MT32 emulation is the same in real dos as using a SBLive or Audigy (or did they improve that part compared on the SB128).

Riikcakirds wrote on 2024-02-15, 16:51:

Great review, I have two questions:
Does the GM midi and MT32 options on this (using the ECW sets) under real dos sound better or inferior to the AWE series using Aweutil /EM option.

It's a matter of taste I suppose. Check the General MIDI recordings that I've linked to in my first post and judge for yourself.

What I can tell you is that General MIDI works very reliably on the SB128 in pure DOS. Meaning, every game recognizes that a General MIDI device is present and functional without any special adjustments. You simply select port 330 in setup and it works.

Also do you know if the GM Midi and MT32 emulation is the same in real dos as using a SBLive or Audigy (or did they improve that part compared on the SB128).

I can't be entirely sure, but it sounds very similar to my ears. I have recordings of both here so you can check for yourself.

On a different note, I'd like to emphasize once again how simple it is to get SPDIF output working on this card in pure DOS. First, you just need these lines in your AUTOEXEC.BAT to initialize the card:

1SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
2SET SBPCI=C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\AUDIO\DOSDRV
3C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\AUDIO\DOSDRV\SBINIT.COM

This assumes that your sound card is already correctly configured under Windows, as it will use all the settings from there. Naturally, HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE must be loaded in your CONFIG.SYS as well. By default, the card makes High DMA use 7 but I manually change it to 5 under Device Manager > Resources, because that more closely matches Creative's older cards. Next, as long as SPDIF is enabled in the Windows driver panel, it will also work in pure DOS. This is regardless of whether you actually select the "Restart in MS-DOS mode" option or create a custom PIF file. I think it's because of the following settings which get saved in the SBPCI.INI file:

1; Digital Settings
2SPDIFMode=1
3SPDIFRec=true
4
5; Waveset - path and file name of current waveset
6SynthFile=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\Eapci8m.Ecw

And that's all it takes for the card to use SPDIF output in pure DOS. I find this remarkable because every other PCI sound card that I've tried either disables SPDIF completely in pure DOS, or needs some hacky workaround to make it usable. Oh, and if you're wondering about SPDIFRec=true, that just allows your analog sources like CD audio (using a standard analog cable) to be mixed in, so they can be output via SPDIF. Yet another nice feature of this card.

Now that's how reviews should be, all the important points nicely put together! Excellent work @Joseph_Joestar, thank you.

Thank you for your effort, especially for the sound files that I am familiar with. One of my boards has this sound card, or at least a variant of it, onboard. FM not bearable. Gap in knowledge: Why was there no final DOS (FM) compatible PCI sound card? Why not simply install or integrate the cheapest FM chip? An OPL3 chip would not have been necessary, CQM would have been sufficient in comparison. The hard break with DOS and ISA was understandable back then, but from today's retro perspective, this break was a bit too extreme. Or am I missing something?

konc wrote on 2024-02-15, 17:51:

Now that's how reviews should be, all the important points nicely put together! Excellent work @Joseph_Joestar, thank you.

Demolition-Man wrote on 2024-02-15, 19:15:

Thank you for your effort, especially for the sound files that I am familiar with. One of my boards has this sound card, or at least a variant of it, onboard. FM not bearable.

Cheers! Glad you guys enjoyed the review.

Demolition-Man wrote on 2024-02-15, 19:15:

Gap in knowledge: Why was there no final DOS (FM) compatible PCI sound card? Why not simply install or integrate the cheapest FM chip? An OPL3 chip would not have been necessary, CQM would have been sufficient in comparison. The hard break with DOS and ISA was understandable back then, but from today's retro perspective, this break was a bit too extreme. Or am I missing something?

There was a PCI version of the AWE64 at one point. It's discussed in this thread. And yeah, Creative kinda stopped caring about FM synth accuracy by the time PCI became the norm for sound. But other companies like Yamaha and ESS did have some PCI sound cards with proper FM synth.

Thanks, I didn't know anything about the AWE64 PCI. The other PCI sound cards are once again quickly in the SB-Link area. I have never even seen a board with an SB Link connection. The Sound Blaster 128 PCI doesn't have such a port? Nevertheless, “all” DOS games work. I have an ESS Solo sound card that I would like to test under DOS. According to Phil(s Computerlab) it's one of the best PCI DOS sound cards, it sounds good and is compatible. Would this be a good alternative to the PCI 128 card?

Demolition-Man wrote on 2024-02-15, 20:56:

Thanks, I didn't know anything about the AWE64 PCI. The other PCI sound cards are once again quickly in the SB-Link area. I have never even seen a board with an SB Link connection.

Yeah, motherboards which have a SB-Link connector are somewhat rare. There's a list of them in this thread.

The Sound Blaster 128 PCI doesn't have such a port?

Unfortunately, no.

I have an ESS Solo sound card that I would like to test under DOS. According to Phil(s Computerlab) it's one of the best PCI DOS sound cards, it sounds good and is compatible. Would this be a good alternative to the PCI 128 card?

The Solo-1 is one of the best PCI sound cards for DOS gaming, with excellent compatibility and a great sounding FM synth implementation (ESFM) which is nearly indistinguishable from genuine OPL3. However, compared to the SB128, the Solo-1 doesn't have built-in General MIDI support, though you can attach a wavetable daughterboard to remedy that. It also doesn't support EAX or A3D under Windows, if that is something you are looking for.

Small update: I was looking over the SBPCI.INI file to see if there are any other relevant settings for DOS gaming, when I noticed this block:

1; Switches - Self-Config, Sound Blaster emulation enable,
2; Joystick enable, CD-DA enable, MM KeyBd enable
3SelfConfig=true
4SBEnable=true
5JSEnable=true
6KBEnable=false

Nothing out of the ordinary right? Well, notice how the developer's comment mentions CD-DA yet there is no such option listed below. This made me curious, so I opened SBCFG.EXE using Norton Commander's viewer and found a reference to CDDAEnable right next to the other settings listed above. Then, I added that line to SBPCI.INI so that the relevant block now looks like this:

1; Switches - Self-Config, Sound Blaster emulation enable,
2; Joystick enable, CD-DA enable, MM KeyBd enable
3SelfConfig=true
4SBEnable=true
5JSEnable=true
6CDDAEnable=true
7KBEnable=false

And sure enough, this made the card pull digital CD audio over the ATA interface in pure DOS! To make certain of this, I powered down the computer and physically disconnected the analog CD audio cable. Then, I powered the PC back on, started Tomb Raider and got CD music playing properly. Pretty cool, eh? If anyone's curious, here's how the card's initialization feedback looks when this setting is enabled:

Unfortunately, this isn't perfect, as there is some distortion on the CD audio during heavy disk access. Also, a CD which contains audio tracks needs to be in the drive for the card to initialize correctly while this setting is enabled. Both of these issues make me think the developers chose to hide this option for a reason. Still, it's interesting that there's a sound card which can pull digital CD audio from the ATA interface in pure DOS.