Favorites
Original Sound Blaster 16 CT1740:
-Low noise
-Real OLP3
-Volume wheel is convenient
-High sampling rate makes it one of the earliest cards that can play modern WAVs
-Much easier to set up than a PNP card. Driver support could not be better. I got it to work well on every version of Windows from 3.11-98, NT 3.51-XP, needing 3rd party drivers only in 3.11. Yes, I was crazy enough to dual-boot every one of those Windows versions thru XOSL on a Dell Dimension XPS P90, the early Pentium machine it came with. I lost track of how much time I spent playing Ultimate DOOM on this machine.

Aztech I38-MMSN834 (AZT 2316):
-Pretty much the same as above. No volume wheel but the integrated modem adds to the retro feel w/o taking up another slot.
-Aztech cards are much easier to find for cheap and much less sought after than non-PNP SB16s or earlier SBs.
-However, it sounds like the later AZT 2320 PNP cards are harder to set up and require the AZTPNP manager.

Least favorites
Sound Blaster Live! CT4780, Dell OEM:
-I see I'm not the only one here who's been burned by the terrible driver support on this card. The card at least works without too much trouble in 2000 and XP, but none of the "SB Live" drivers would install on 98 SE, even OEM drivers. I finally gave in and downloaded the CD from the Vogons driver library, which was loaded to the brim with bloatware. The driver installed but no sound played. After trying several more from the driver library, I finally got this driver to install manually, if anyone needs it: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=656
-TL;DR: Drivers are a 8ITCH to install 😬
-Static noise is also high
-Never got it working in DOS mode

ALS120:
-More static noise than an analog TV when you turn up the volume, but then you change the channel and forget to turn it back down 🤣 Seriously though, this card is so noisy that any digital speech in games becomes unintelligible.
-It also looks very cheap/ghetto/hacked together. I threw it in a 386DX-25 system that was too slow to play most games, just to get it out of my sight 🤣

I might as well rank my sound cards.

High-tier:
ESS ES1869 AudioDrive ISA. Very good FM synth, it is different from OPL, but I don't think it's inferior in any way.
Diamond Monster 3D Audio MX300 (Aureal Vortex 2). With headphones and games that support A3D, this card is unreal. Perhaps the best card for 90s gaming.
Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty Titanium. Maybe the best sound card you can get for Windows XP era.

Mid-tier:
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 SB0240. Not as good as Audigy 2 ZS, but not as bad as Audigy 2 SE. Pretty solid, except prone to EEPROM corruption, which may cause problems ranging from the setup and mixer programs not working properly to bricking the card. Somewhat finicky drivers. Good EAX implementation.
Creative SoundBlaster AWE32 Value CT4335. When compared to full AWE32 or AWE64, you lose the ability to play with sound banks. Does not have OPL FM. But it's a very good card you can just plug into your computer and get good FM and MIDI sounds, at least for DOS gaming. None of the SB16 bugs. Not noisy.

Low-tier:
Yamaha XG YMF744B-R. I'm a big fan of Yamaha YMF744 cards, and this card could be in the high tier, except my copy is a tiny cut-down Chinese card with a lot of features disabled. No MPU-401, no SB-link, etc.
ESS ES1938S Solo-1. Same as above; wonderful chip trapped on a terrible cut-down PCB. It has a MIDI port, which has no pins, and the SMD components are not populated. ES1938S supports SB-link, but it is not present on my card.
Crystal CS4235. It has everything; a wavetable header, all the inputs you would want, WSS support, FM implementation. Except the FM implementation is, well, broken. Dos Storm has a great video on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YcICPfSNiY

I don't think it's the worst DOS sound card; but it is one that looks very exciting on paper and then it's a disappointment in practice. It's also the perfect troll card for a retro build for someone you don't like.

Cards I don't own anymore:

Creative SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 - great Windows card, terrible in DOS.
Creative SoundBlaster 128 PCI - it's a good mid-tier card for a late DOS/early Windows build.

songoffall wrote on 2025-01-21, 19:10:

ESS ES1938S Solo-1. Same as above; wonderful chip trapped on a terrible cut-down PCB. It has a MIDI port, which has no pins, and the SMD components are not populated. ES1938S supports SB-link, but it is not present on my card.

It might be able to be modded to add the extra features. I have a Terratec Solo-1 card that had no MIDI wavetable header. Added one after the fact and it worked great.

I have way too many sound cards to go through them all, so I'll just list some favorites in alphabetical order:

Adlib Gold / Goldlib - Best Yamaha YMF262 implementation there is. Absolute favorite cards for FM playback.

Creative Labs AWE64 / AWE64 Gold - My go-to cards for SB16 / AWE32 support. Has low noise output compared to earlier Creative Labs cards.

Gravis Ultrasound ACE - No fuss classic Gravis GF-1 support. I wish I owned more than one of these.

Gravis Ultrasound Extreme - One of my favorite all-in-one cards, supporting SB / SB Pro and great OPL emulation via the ESS chipset, plus native GF1 (GUS Classic) support all on one card. Output is super clean as well. Only thing that would make it better would be a wavetable header.

Guillemot MaxiSound 64 Home Studio Pro (SC8600) - One of my favorite cards for MIDI support. In addition to standard SB / SB Pro support and OPL emulation via its ESS chip, it can load wave table samples into memory and support an additional wavetable daughtercard. With Roland samples and a Yamaha DB51XG daughter card, you get the best of both MIDI worlds.

MediaVision Thunderboard - My go-to sound card for late 80s machines. It's basically a better version of an Adlib, since it also has a joystick port. SB support is noisy, but still quieter than early Sound Blasters in my experience.

Orpheus II - It's got SB / SB Pro support, native Yamaha OPL FM, GUS support via the AMD Interwave chip, and full MPU-401 intelligent mode support with a wavetable header. Not to mention super clean output, and works in every OS I've tried from DOS through Windows XP. There isn't a better all-in-one ISA card right now.

Roland LAPC-I - Basically a CM-32L in card form, great for late 80s and early 90s when MT-32 music reigned. It is a full-length card, so this does prohibit it from installing in every case (it won't fit in my Tandy TL systems).

Roland SCC-1 / MPU-401AT - Either of these are great for General MIDI playback, plus can act as MPU-401 interfaces with intelligent mode. The MPU-401AT is a little more flexible since it uses a wavetable header, so different daughtercards can be used.

Terratec Maestro 32/96 - Similar to the Guillemot card, this is my other favorite cards for MIDI support. Has standard SB / SB Pro suport via Crystal chip, and built-in Roland samples plus a wavetable header. I paired it with an NEC XR385 (Yamaha DB60XG clone), for both Roland and Yamaha sample playback.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-01-21, 19:22:

songoffall wrote on 2025-01-21, 19:10:

ESS ES1938S Solo-1. Same as above; wonderful chip trapped on a terrible cut-down PCB. It has a MIDI port, which has no pins, and the SMD components are not populated. ES1938S supports SB-link, but it is not present on my card.

It might be able to be modded to add the extra features. I have a Terratec Solo-1 card that had no MIDI wavetable header. Added one after the fact and it worked great.

It can be modded to add a MIDI port, but not the SB-link, unless you design a custom daughterboard with necessary headers and SMD components and solder them to the necessary connectors on the chip.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-01-21, 19:44:

I have way too many sound cards to go through them all, so I'll just list some favorites in alphabetical order: […]
Show full quote

I have way too many sound cards to go through them all, so I'll just list some favorites in alphabetical order:

Adlib Gold / Goldlib - Best Yamaha YMF262 implementation there is. Absolute favorite cards for FM playback.

Creative Labs AWE64 / AWE64 Gold - My go-to cards for SB16 / AWE32 support. Has low noise output compared to earlier Creative Labs cards.

Gravis Ultrasound ACE - No fuss classic Gravis GF-1 support. I wish I owned more than one of these.

Gravis Ultrasound Extreme - One of my favorite all-in-one cards, supporting SB / SB Pro and great OPL emulation via the ESS chipset, plus native GF1 (GUS Classic) support all on one card. Output is super clean as well. Only thing that would make it better would be a wavetable header.

Guillemot MaxiSound 64 Home Studio Pro (SC8600) - One of my favorite cards for MIDI support. In addition to standard SB / SB Pro support and OPL emulation via its ESS chip, it can load wave table samples into memory and support an additional wavetable daughtercard. With Roland samples and a Yamaha DB51XG daughter card, you get the best of both MIDI worlds.

MediaVision Thunderboard - My go-to sound card for late 80s machines. It's basically a better version of an Adlib, since it also has a joystick port. SB support is noisy, but still quieter than early Sound Blasters in my experience.

Orpheus II - It's got SB / SB Pro support, native Yamaha OPL FM, GUS support via the AMD Interwave chip, and full MPU-401 intelligent mode support with a wavetable header. Not to mention super clean output, and works in every OS I've tried from DOS through Windows XP. There isn't a better all-in-one ISA card right now.

Roland LAPC-I - Basically a CM-32L in card form, great for late 80s and early 90s when MT-32 music reigned. It is a full-length card, so this does prohibit it from installing in every case (it won't fit in my Tandy TL systems).

Roland SCC-1 / MPU-401AT - Either of these are great for General MIDI playback, plus can act as MPU-401 interfaces with intelligent mode. The MPU-401AT is a little more flexible since it uses a wavetable header, so different daughtercards can be used.

Terratec Maestro 32/96 - Similar to the Guillemot card, this is my other favorite cards for MIDI support. Has standard SB / SB Pro suport via Crystal chip, and built-in Roland samples plus a wavetable header. I paired it with an NEC XR385 (Yamaha DB60XG clone), for both Roland and Yamaha sample playback.

That's an extremely impressive collection there, friend.

Best: SB X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion PCI card. I still have it and I'm using it in my old Phenom II based daily-driver desktop system.

Worst (actually the cards are Ok, but there's no properly working DOS drivers for them): Currently I have two no-name CMI8738 cards which are unusable in pure DOS environment due to C-Media's broken DOS drivers (or DOS mixer software).

The worst among worst: I had back in the win98 days some Ensoniq based SB card. It was pure trash with the worst FM synthesis emulation I've ever heard.

Hmm...

I have a lot of mediocre cards, but not many that really stand out. However a few that pop out:

Best:
- Terratec EWS64XL - monster of a card, amazing MIDI synth, great sound
- Terratec Maestro 32/96 - almost as great as the EWS64XL, but far easier to work with
- Aztech MMSN810 'Sound Galaxy Basic' - misnomer of a card, supports everything from DSS and Covox to SBPro2 and WSS, and is refreshingly easy to work with - just configure its resources EEPROM and just use.

Worst:
- Terratec EWS64XL - monster of a card, hogs resources, awful to configure, doesn't play nice alongside other cards. Have literally never been able to do a build with this card where it did what I wanted completely in DOS, Win98SE or Win2k.
- Wearnes Beethoven ADSP-16 - Analog Devices Echo chip with wavetable. SB digital audio (DMA) clicks like hell and proves it's possible to mess that up worse than Creative already did, and wavetable has some samples that clip so badly they basically come out the speakers as a square wave, and then there's the Analog Devices FM implementation...

analog_programmer wrote on 2025-01-22, 13:46:

Best: SB X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion PCI card. I still have it and I'm using it in my old Phenom II based daily-driver desktop system.

Worst (actually the cards are Ok, but there's no properly working DOS drivers for them): Currently I have two no-name CMI8738 cards which are unusable in pure DOS environment due to C-Media's broken DOS drivers (or DOS mixer software).

The worst among worst: I had back in the win98 days some Ensoniq based SB card. It was pure trash with the worst FM synthesis emulation I've ever heard.

yeah the broken dos drivers really let these cards down otherwise they would be perfect, ive got a no name chinese L-shaped one and an unbranded typhoon which is pretty much identical to the A-open cobra and many others, the only thing you can get in pure dos with the broken drivers is adlib which is fine for games that only require it like monkey island 1/2 and prince of persia, anything that requires sound blaster for sfx are a no go as it will always give some bullshit irq/dma conflict no matter what board i tried it on, apparently its related to higher speed cpus's.

there are a few alternatives, someone on VCFED patched the setaudio.com to fix this but it doesnt work for me, the same file has been posted here C-Media 8738 dos initialize tool "PATCHED" but they renamed the file, theres also remapCMI, but since im a brainlet and theres no instuctions on how to get it working i havent tried it, also the MXplay driver supports these cards though i havent tried that either, SBEMU on the other hand works great and will have the card fully working in pure dos, running it with /SCFM will enable the hardware OPL3 rather than emulated, the best thing about these cards is the FM synth in indistinguishable from a genuine yamaha OPL3

as for the best card my vote goes to the creatives SB Live (not the shitty dell ones) i have the first live (CT4620) and the first 4.1 (CT4760) so not sure how others models compare, sound quality is good probably helped by the gold plated jacks, in terms of compatibilty ive never had any issues getting them setup and working with any OS/game, the kxproject drivers will have the card working upto win11 so its probably one of, if not the only card that will cover all Os's, the FM synth is not the worst ive heard but its also not the best, for me it just cant compare to the CMI8738.

DudeFace wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:27:

yeah the broken dos drivers really let these cards down otherwise they would be perfect, ive got a no name chinese L-shaped one and an unbranded typhoon which is pretty much identical to the A-open cobra and many others, the only thing you can get in pure dos with the broken drivers is adlib which is fine for games that only require it like monkey island 1/2 and prince of persia, anything that requires sound blaster for sfx are a no go as it will always give some bullshit irq/dma conflict no matter what board i tried it on, apparently its related to higher speed cpus's.

Yes, I have exactly the same IRQ setting driver/mixer problems with CMI8738 cards in pure DOS. The thing that work for me was SBEMU, but I don't like its dependencies from other projects like JEMMEX.

DudeFace wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:27:

there are a few alternatives, someone on VCFED patched the setaudio.com to fix this but it doesnt work for me, the same file has been posted here C-Media 8738 dos initialize tool "PATCHED" but they renamed the file, theres also remapCMI, but since im a brainlet and theres no instuctions on how to get it working i havent tried it, also the MXplay driver supports these cards though i havent tried that either, SBEMU on the other hand works great and will have the card fully working in pure dos, running it with /SCFM will enable the hardware OPL3 rather than emulated, the best thing about these cards is the FM synth in indistinguishable from a genuine yamaha OPL3

I also tried all of these patches with no success 🙁 SBEMU works for me too, which gives me some hope, that someday we may have a proper working DOS driver and mixer for those cards.

I'm thinking on using some modified MXPLAY CMI8738 driver code like in SBEMU project, but I still know very little on how those old DOS drivers work.

I've skimmed through pages 2,3, read 1 and 4, and I haven't actually seen anyone mentioning any "pro" soundcard. I won't pick the most powerful I had, but the most basic one, because it was the first of the class I had, EMU Systems 0404.

The worst, AC'97 things 20-25 years ago. A basic Yamaha XG type PCI card, (had a normal price tag back in the day) using ASIO4ALL drivers could run a single mono channel through DSP with enough samples in sub 20-ms latency which was borderline usable for home studio affairs. On P4, integrated audio had problems. Due to these experiences I've disabled onboard audio since forever and used it only in dire emergency.

DOS/Windows cards that are topical here? Best I'd say is Orpheus II. I have the LT version. The card, for what it is, is superb.
Fortunately "worst DOS/Windows cards" I've never owned, but worked with them in the shop. It would be some cheap CMedia thing from early 00s.

analog_programmer wrote on 2025-01-22, 22:59:

Yes, I have exactly the same IRQ setting driver/mixer problems with CMI8738 cards in pure DOS. The thing that work for me was SB […]
Show full quote

DudeFace wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:27:

yeah the broken dos drivers really let these cards down otherwise they would be perfect, ive got a no name chinese L-shaped one and an unbranded typhoon which is pretty much identical to the A-open cobra and many others, the only thing you can get in pure dos with the broken drivers is adlib which is fine for games that only require it like monkey island 1/2 and prince of persia, anything that requires sound blaster for sfx are a no go as it will always give some bullshit irq/dma conflict no matter what board i tried it on, apparently its related to higher speed cpus's.

Yes, I have exactly the same IRQ setting driver/mixer problems with CMI8738 cards in pure DOS. The thing that work for me was SBEMU, but I don't like its dependencies from other projects like HIMEMEX.

DudeFace wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:27:

there are a few alternatives, someone on VCFED patched the setaudio.com to fix this but it doesnt work for me, the same file has been posted here C-Media 8738 dos initialize tool "PATCHED" but they renamed the file, theres also remapCMI, but since im a brainlet and theres no instuctions on how to get it working i havent tried it, also the MXplay driver supports these cards though i havent tried that either, SBEMU on the other hand works great and will have the card fully working in pure dos, running it with /SCFM will enable the hardware OPL3 rather than emulated, the best thing about these cards is the FM synth in indistinguishable from a genuine yamaha OPL3

I also tried all of these patches with no success 🙁 SBEMU works for me too, which gives me some hope, that someday we may have a proper working DOS driver and mixer for those cards.

I'm thinking on using some modified MXPLAY CMI8738 driver code like in SBEMU project, but I still know very little on how those old DOS drivers work.

the only problem i had with SBEMU, is with a win98 install i was getting some memory error that would prevent win98 from booting, maybe i just didnt set it up properly, so i only really use it on a seperate hdd with dos6.22, im also hoping for a fixed driver as well as mixer that will actually save its settings, since these cards are so common maybe someone will eventually figure it out.

DudeFace wrote on 2025-01-22, 23:46:

the only problem i had with SBEMU, is with a win98 install i was getting some memory error that would prevent win98 from booting, maybe i just didnt set it up properly, so i only really use it on a seperate hdd with dos6.22, im also hoping for a fixed driver as well as mixer that will actually save its settings, since these cards are so common maybe someone will eventually figure it out.

Sorry, it is JEMMEX that is problematic. I messed it with HIMEMEX from the same developer. JEMMEX doesn't support GEMMIS, so we can't start normally any DOS based windows while using it. Also JEMMEX was causing some floppy disk FAT corruption when I was trying to format some real diskettes wile using it. That's why I don't like SBEMU dependencies on JEMMEX project.

analog_programmer wrote on 2025-01-22, 13:46:

The worst among worst: I had back in the win98 days some Ensoniq based SB card. It was pure trash with the worst FM synthesis emulation I've ever heard.

Let me respectfully disagree; Sound Blaster Vibration 128 PCI, the card you are referring to, I don't believe it's a bad card, let alone a "worst of the worst" card.

And then, it depends on what you expect from a sound card. Imagine if I installed an ISA card and started complaining that there is neither EAX nor A3D support.

The Ensoniq based PCI Sound Blaster was a stopgap between SB16/AWE cards and SB Live! cards.

Don't get me wrong, the FM implementation is quite bad, but it's not an ISA FM card, it's a PCI GM card, and the GM implementation is amazing. It can also emulate Roland MT-32, which is another bonus feature, if you use it on a PCI-based 486 computer.

Every card has an era of games it shines with, and this card is very good with 90s DOS/Windows games, especially those that use GM, and even has some early EAX support.

Unlike, say, SB16, you don't have to worry if your particular model has a hanging note, DMA clicking or some other bug. It's also quite noiseless.

I think Sound Blaster Vibration 128 PCI is less of a bad card and more of a misunderstood card.

songoffall wrote on 2025-01-23, 07:14:

I think Sound Blaster Vibration 128 PCI is less of a bad card and more of a misunderstood card.

I've had a SB128 PCI back in the day, and used it actively for about 4 years. Honestly, it's hard to find a good use case for it. You can read my full review of that card here.

In DOS, it sucks because of bad FM synth emulation. In Win9x, it sucks because EAX and A3D are entirely emulated in software, draining your CPU cycles when used. The MT-32 emulation that you mention is also available on SBLive and Audigy cards, and it of course doesn't support custom instruments, making it useless for most MT-32 games.

I guess if someone wanted to mostly play late DOS games, which support General MIDI, it could be ok. There's also the SPDIF output, and the oddity of supporting digital CD audio via IDE bus in pure DOS. But that's about it.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-01-23, 07:27:

and the oddity of supporting digital CD audio via IDE bus in pure DOS.

This is... not a thing. Digital audio extraction requires completely different IDE commands; while it is possible to emulate analog playback this way, it requires the co-operation of both the low-level CD driver (the one that MSCDEX sits on top of) and the sound hardware. There's no way a sound card alone could accomplish it.

jmarsh wrote on 2025-01-23, 07:33:

This is... not a thing. Digital audio extraction requires completely different IDE commands; while it is possible to emulate analog playback this way, it requires the co-operation of both the low-level CD driver (the one that MSCDEX sits on top of) and the sound hardware. There's no way a sound card alone could accomplish it.

Have you read the thread that I've linked to?

Specifically, this post.

Yeah, that's just... gross software shenanigans. Specifically, it looks like it's hijacking the MSCDEX interrupt to intercept audio playback commands and then sending digital audio extraction commands over the relevant IDE port instead. Which opens up all sorts of possible problems when an IDE interrupt occurs due to two different pieces of code now relying on it... not to mention audio issues due to having to perform mixing in software, likely between sources of different sampling rates.
Definitely not a feature of the hardware, and not a smart thing to attempt in the first place. There's way too many assumptions being made for it to work reliably.

songoffall wrote on 2025-01-23, 07:14:

Let me respectfully disagree; Sound Blaster Vibration 128 PCI, the card you are referring to, I don't believe it's a bad card, let alone a "worst of the worst" card.

And then, it depends on what you expect from a sound card. Imagine if I installed an ISA card and started complaining that there is neither EAX nor A3D support.

The Ensoniq based PCI Sound Blaster was a stopgap between SB16/AWE cards and SB Live! cards.

Well, the topic includes "the worst soundcards you've ever owned" and I'm pretty sure that I've never owned some failed or broken soundcards. So, (for me) this SB Vibra PCI 64/128 thing or whatever model it was is the worst card from what I've ever had as a soundcards.

For the worst? Easily C-Media 8738 cards and onboard sound chips.
In addition to lousy VxD drivers and broken proper legacy DOS support, they usually sound terrible due to poor board implementation.
The Rockwell Riptide may follow hot on the 8738's heels (FM synthesizer is completely out of tune!)

In the realm of ISA sound cards, it's much harder to say which is "worst", but if I had to pick any one of them, probably those wedge shaped Aztech cards due to a severely compromised layout and amplifier design.
The Creative ISA cards also tend to be noisy mofos and often have floating op-amps, which are fixable but still... the clicking bugs of the SB16 line are downright unforgivable though. (Yes, once they omitted what I suspect as the cause of the clicking on the ViBRA and later the clicking went away, but then they got a faint ringing noise instead. The AWE64 fixes this problem too, but the AWE64 has CQM... ugh!)

As for the best? Impossible for me to say really.
Most cards tend to have one or two great specific features, but almost never is anything an 'all arounder' for me.
Maybe except the SB Live! cards with the actual EMU10K1 chip, those seem to be jacks of all trades.