Specifications

converter 1.5

2000 - 2005 urr Sound Technologies Inc.
15
SoundBlaster Cards
There are a tremendous number of variations of the SoundBlaster family of soundcards. The earliest
SoundBlaster cards (SoundBlaster 1.x) are not supported by converter. Soundblaster 2.x cards are
supported for midi input, but not audio input, since they cannot support even the most basic audio
requirements of converter. SoundBlaster 3.x (SoundBlaster Pro) cards are supported by converter for
both midi and audio input. Newer PCI-based SoundBlaster cards (SoundBlaster pci-128, SoundBlaster
pci-512, SoundBlaster Live!) are not considered to be supported since it appears they do not have
complete SoundBlaster 16 or Pro compatibility – it is provided through a memory-resident driver which
doesn’t seem to support midi or audio input. However, it appears that some people have been able to
get converter to work with some of these cards, so your mileage may vary.
In general, it is safest to
go with an ISA-bus card for true DOS software compatibility
; some PCI-bus cards (perhaps
Terratec?)
may
provide a memory-resident SB16 or SB-Pro compatibility driver that does implement
emulated hardware-level midi and audio input – please let us know if you have success with one.
Even though supported by converter, we advise against using the old SoundBlaster 2.x / Pro
midi interface standard for midi input and output, as it was a problematic interface standard.
Historically, users have had problems with these older cards for anything more than light to
medium midi stream density, and while problems should be relatively rare, reliable results can
not be guaranteed for critical applications. If possible, use an MPU-401 interface instead.
SoundBlaster 16 (or newer)
DEVELOPMENT INTERFACES: SB-16, AWE-64, AWE-32 ( all ISA-bus )
Cards known to work are:
•
SoundBlaster 16
•
SoundBlaster 32
•
SoundBlaster SB-32, AWE-32
•
SoundBlaster AWE-64, AWE-64 Gold
Cards which should also work (since they are supposed to be 100% hardware or “register-level”
compatible with the SoundBlaster 16 standard),
but have not been tested or confirmed
, are:
•
Avance Logic ALS-100, Avance Logic ALS-200, etc.
•
ASound 32/3D PnP, ASound Gold
•
Zoltrix AudioPlus 6400, Zoltrix AudioPlus 3200
SoundBlaster Pro (or newer)
DEVELOPMENT INTERFACES: ESS ES1688 AudioDrive (SBPro clone), AWE-64, AWE-32
While fully (and properly) supported and tested, there are some issues with certain motherboards and
SoundBlaster Pro cards, namely resulting in lost buffers of audio or other DMA-related issues which are
out of our control. These problems do not seem to affect the SoundBlaster 16 standard above, so if
you have the option (for example, buying a 2
nd
hand card), choose a SoundBlaster 16 card instead.
Cards known to work are:
•
SoundBlaster Pro, SoundBlaster Pro 2
•
ESS ES1688 AudioDrive, ESS ES1788 AudioDrive, etc.
Cards that almost certainly should work since they claim to be 100% hardware compatible with the SB
Pro (
however have not been tested or confirmed
) are:
•
Media Vision Delux 3D Pro
•
Logitech SoundMan Wave
•
Terratec Xlerate, Terratec EWS64 XL, Terratec Soundsystem DMX
•
Turtle Beach Tropez, Turtle Beach TBS-2000