Agreed completely, I've used ESS186x cards in dozens of DOS builds. Always been pleasantly surprised with games that are often hard to get sounding correct on other cards, even later SB16s. Nice to know some more technical reasons why it works!

thanks Phil for going over the dos driver install , i was also using that same driver and couldn't change any settings, i will try the drivers you found when i get around to working on my pII machine, as always, awesome video, thanks again

Phil, as always great advice and excellent support to the community by way of the very useful driver files on your website. Thanks for your many contributions to the vintage PC community. I for one certainly appreciate your work!

Thank you for being such an amazing information resource for us retro computing folks!

Great video - loved the demonstrations that showed how incompatibilities sound, that's a great touch.

Been waiting for this video since you mentioned it on Facebook. Thanks Phil!

The Audiodrive is my favorite retro sound card. Yeah, Creatives have the name recognition, the cachet, etc, but really, I only really like the SB Pro 2.0, AWE64 and Audigy2 ZS. Otherwise, ESS all the way. I even like it better than the Audician32 (which is also quite good). It's fortunate that these cards are common as dirt, then! (They were in production for a long time. I remember seeing Pentium II and even some Athlon machines with ISA ESS1869s built into the motherboard. They were almost as common as Ensoniq 1371, and more common than ESS Solo-1.)

That was my favourite ISA sound card back in the day. I actually miss it lol. The last time I used it was on a Duron 1000 and the motherboard had a single ISA slot.

I used to have one of these back in the days. Brings back memories :) I remember that I loved this card.

Quality video as always! Thanks Phil. This was my very first soundcard, back on my 386, carried on till the Pentium era. Now I got one for my DOS build. Great card, highly recommend it for its value.

I had one ES1868 on my first computer. The configuration was: Cyrix 4x86 40MHz (a little beautiful green cpu) / 8MB SIMM / 400MB WD HDD / Cyrus Logic 1MB / ESS 1868 / MS-DOS. Later, when I've installed Windows 95, installing the driver for this card was my first challenge with MS Win 95. Also was the first driver I ever installed. Very very satisfactory sensation when I've managed to hear first Windows 95 sound :). Lost so many nights playing with this computer... great memoryes. You are doing a very nice job reviewing this old stuff. Keep up the good job, best wishes.

3:26 That sound gave me chills & flashbacks to a different time. Loved this video!

Yey to videos about cheap options that allow us to enjoy old games!

"If you want to see more videos like this, please let me know" Affirmative!

Awesome card and video! My first sound car was the ES 1688, used it for many years.

I actually installed this exact card in to a machine yesterday. I quite like the ESS based cards, and there are lots of variants - I've got some with clipping LED's and much more complex output stages too.

Great instructions, great video! Thanks for this.

My very first sound card was its older brother, an ESS688 based unit. I bought it for my Am486DX2-80 machine when I was 15 years old. I had to deliver a few papers to be able to afford it but it was one of my best purchases ever. Of course it's easy to please a 15 year old but my life changed because of this card. DooM came to life and I played it even more often ;-)

Just had to chime in and say I also love these, my first computer I personally owned was a Compaq LTE with one of these in it and that’s what I grew up playing DOS games on, and I still think it’s my favorite FM synth of them all

I like how every game sounded different with other soundchips :D

I just happen to have this card in my collection tho never knew much about it till now. I am adding this one in along side my SB16 CT2290. Don't suppose would be any conflicts. Thanks for this great video and providing the drivers.

I picked up the Labway version of the same ESS ES1868F after watching this video. The Labway version is a little more robust and has metal audio connectors vs plastic. Not a big deal but I always loved when they were metal :) This chip is fantastic. It sounds so good in everything. I was using a SB16 previously but it has the MPU-401 bug which is very annoying since I use a SoundCanvas. This card is just as good (actually to me it sounds better) and no bug. Excellent card and I would never have known without your video Phil. And, of course the drivers you found and thankfully have shared with everyone work perfectly. Thank you again!

Oh, I had one of those but without the IDE CD-ROM and Wavetable connectors. I used to use it as my go-to sound card for OPL3 FM stuff until I switched to a Yamaha YMF724F when I found out that it had genuine OPL3 integrated into its chipset. The FM synth accuracy on the ES1868 is pretty close to a genuine OPL3 but there are some inaccuracies that are most notable when playing music that uses certain OPL3 tricks that take advantage of 4-op mode (such as OSKARI.A2m included with Adlib Tracker II, drum instruments sound like noise on ES1868). It was certainly more accurate than a Crystal sound card and Creative Lab's cards that use a CQM chip (their own OPL3 clone) instead of a proper OPL3 chip for FM synthesis.

It's very interesting to see you showing these things side by side with other cards, because in their day I remember frequently running into issues with ESS cards. Mostly it would be problems with drivers in win 9x, and earned them the title "extremely shitty sound" in the local circle. Maybe we judged them unfairly?

Great video. I was about buying an expensive Soundblaster 32 but now I've got this one for 9€ on eBay :-D

I had ESS internal soundcards in my old (notebook/laptops) in the (19)90s.

Thanks for the review. I indeed noticed a lot of pops with the sb16 on certain games. Will try this out... Thanks.

Nobody can convince me that any early ISA sound card even came close to my 1994 REVEAL Sound Blaster compatible sound card! That REVEAL sound card stood the test of time and lasted until the very last ISA slot in 2004. I miss that sound card. I would still use it today if I could.

This was my first sound card. I grew up listening to Doom, Heretic, and Hexen on this card. Great sound!

Just spent two days installing a Sound Blaster VIBRA16 into my main system. I was very disappointed about it's limited compatibility. I found your channel watching the SB16 ASP (CT1740) video. I now ordered a ESS. Thanks a lot Phil, I subscribed =)

Mine doesn't have the ide controller sadly, but it does still show up in devices for some reason. This is a really good sound card, thanks for encouraging me to use mine that I've had for 17 years in storage and providing the drivers on your website!

I just cracked open a computer which had one in it! Looked it up and this is the first video I stumble on.

Thank you Phil for the tip! Really a good ISA soundcard for a low price. Together with a Dreamblaster S2 it is simply amazing. Thank you, thank you very much. My Win98-Rig is now complete: Abit VH6-II Motherboard 1000 MHz Pentium III 256 SD-RAM GeForce2 MX400 (GeForce 256 is to expensive) ES1868F ISA Soundcard + Dreamblaster S2

This is my favorite video ever, just because of the kindle... My god, that display.... So good.

I was lucky to have an ESS AudioDrive 1868 in my 486DX2 in the 90s. Good times.

*Right! Let's go adventuring!* _Right! Let's go adventuring!_ *Right! Let's go adventuring!* _Right! Let's go adventuring!_

This was my first sound card. I ran that in my AST Advantage 486 SX 33 with MS-DOS 5 and Windows 3.1!

Watching this video again, after finally getting around to putting my 98 rig together (Aopen AX6BC, P3 1GHz, 120GB SSHD, 256MB RAM, SBLive, ESS AudioDrive 1868)... not there yet, but looking to set up in the next week. Don't stop doing what you're doing with these superb videos. Thank you man!!

I have ESS Edison Gold... That was awesome time.

Thanks for doing a video I requested! Yeah, you're right, it's not the same as a Yamaha, but I think I like it.

Indeed! ESS was great.

my first sound card

Sold a lot of those cards in my computer shop between 1997 and 1999, never had compatibility problem. One of the best, if not the best soundblaster emulation for dos gaming.

wow, this is crazy man! i didnt have an isa sound card back then, do you remember onboard sound blaster? lol! port 220 dma1 irq 7 LOLOL those were the days!

Also the 93C66 slot is for an optional EEPROM for storing PNP settings. The empty QX2130 spot is for a "Sound Expander" for "widened" or "spatial" audio. It also includes a bass boost. Adding this would need a few extra electrolytic capacitors.

Phil, now that is another trip down memory lane. My brother's Pentium 90 had one of these bad boys, before that he had an ESS688. It worked flawlessly for our DOS games. FM sound was spot on. I am surprised that this actually performed better than the SB16. Before the ESS, we had a MediaVision Thunderboard. That was a total POS

More like this, please

Great thorough video! I have the ES1898F in one of my builds. I like the sound of it as opl clones go. I love all your DOS stuff... hope you never run out of new content in the category. :)

No wonder Phil likes this sound card.. it has his name written on it!

My first ever soundcard(1997) was from BTC,a ISA soundcard,model name was 1815 it had an Opti sound chip on it,sounded ok back then,also using a ESS 1869 chip ISA soundcard in one of my windows 95 retro machine.

Hands down agree with you, excellent card, wish I could find one now, to think I threw so many away in the past...sigh

Better than My MATE Vince since your outro music is amazing.

I agree. All of my ESS cards work flawless in dos. I always found the sound blasters very finicky. ESS are the best!!!

Hey, Phil! Looking at my Union brand ES1869F, the three CD audio inputs are labeled: the bare four-pin header is "Sony" while the two white, caged inputs are labeled "Mitsumi" and "Panasonic" respectively... my guess is that the card is expecting different source levels from those different inputs and that's why you only barely heard any audio when you plugged your CDROM into the second white port. As always, great video! Thanks for making it!

I have same card like yours but my only mainboard with ISA slots died shortly before I get that card :( And that was board with Socket 370 like yours which died. Thank you for movie, now I know what my card can do :) And my card have few chips more.

I have this sound card in my Pentium 200 MMX retro Windows98 machine and in Windows it just works with the default drivers from Windows98, both sound and music but when I open a DOS game like Doom I only get sound but no music. I then installed the DOS drivers with the setting you are showing in the video and then both music and sound are working in DOS but as I boot on Windows and run Doom i only get music but no sound anymore. Thank You for the great job you're doing helping us retro hardware sick :)

after my SB vibra16 died on me and i had to get another for a fortune which turned out to be the PnP variant and setting it up was a pain in the arse.. this should work wonders in my DOS+Win95 buid. cheers Phil. : )

I have a COMPAQ PREMIERE SOUND ISA card that is ESS, almost sure that the same chipset. They came with the Deskpro 2000 Desktop Series, probably a bit old for a PCI machine, but, yep, nice sound and the Compaq comes with a 3.5W amplifier as well.

+PhilsComputerLab 1:58 That's actually a pre-amp input designed for a spread spectrum equalizer addon. The reason you could hear sound but at a very muffled volume is because that input expects a higher power input.

I use one that is IBM branded on my OS/2 machine. It works great in OS/2, WIN/OS/2, and DOS/OS/2.

I have the older ESS 1688i n my DOS PC. I really like the OPL3 sound is this "Clone". DOS games sounds like my first PC back in 95 with a SB Pro 2 (the real Yamaha OPL3) The MPU401 is great option in the ESS.

That jack that you could only get faint audio from with your cd-rom is actually an output header for internal speakers, common on some hp and packard bell computers

I really do not understand how you are still stuck with below 100k subs. KZfaq algorithm and clickbairts suck so hard. I just want to let you know that you deserve a ton more subs. By the way will you review fx5900xt?

Might wanna pick one of these up someday... Just for fun :)

I found one of these in an old Compaq years ago. I just had it in a draw because I thought it was a cheap card. It is the ES1869 variant and has Compaq written on it, but I just put it in one of my old systems and it sounds great.

PhilsComputerLab That un-amplified four pin header connector is the PC speaker pass-through port.

Just bought 2 Sound blaster pro 2.0 CT1600 own 3 total now. Might recapp them with some good Nichicon audio caps in the future. Might be a interesting project

In the nineties I was always told to get a Creative SoundBlaster or YAMAHA based card instead of ESS. ESS were rumored to have some inaccuracies with the games. So never had one to verify whether the statements were true.

Hi Phil, you should check out Reality Adlib Tracker when testing sound cards under DOS.

Neat, I just found a card at my local flea market, I got it for around $1.46, I think I got a good deal :) Now I just have to test it and see if it works. So far I haven't encountered a sound card that didn't work so I'm not really worried about that.

I had one of these back in the day it was a great cheaper alternative to the sb16

Happen to have that exact AudioDrive ES1868F variant in my sound card collection, heh. As much as I'm a stickler for genuine OPL3, ESFM isn't half bad, and I'd much rather use that than CQM, which has far more numerous and more obvious imperfections compared to genuine OPL3. One thing I noticed with the ES1868F and ES1869F-based sounds cards is that there could be some pretty wild variances between different cards. My ISA sound card collection contains six different ES1868Fs and ES1869Fs, some of which have noticeable differences in their overall output. A few of them has some noticeable high-pass filtering, and they are lacking in bass as a result. One ES1868F, in particular, which looks like some cheap generic crap on a thin, orange PCB actually has the loudest audio output of any of these, so loud that if I set the mixer volume too high, the sound clips quite horribly. It looks to me like a card with a speaker amp that cannot be bypassed, but I'll tell you what, this is my AudioDrive of choice. Unfortunately, I haven't had very good results with the wavetable header. Most of these have really stupidly placed headers, but in every single one of these that I remember testing, the volume of the wavetable header was EXTREMELY high and would cause distortion on my XR385. Perhaps adding a voltage divider, or at least a pull-down resistor directly at the input, would have been a good idea on these cards. The way all 6 of my cards are designed, the wavetable header inputs have the potential to pick up a fair amount of noise from the lack of any pull-down resistors to prevent the inputs from floating.

I had one of these sound cards. It was perfectly functional but wow, the hiss..

Back in the day I always went with Creative brand cards (even those without SB chips) just cause I new they would work better when it came to drivers, however I knew the ESS cards were good quality so if I didn't have the option to get a Creative card I'd settle for the ESS cards. However, by the time I was building computers nobody I knew really used DOS for gaming anymore so I never had to fiddle around with all the config.sys & autoexec.bat settings cause Win95 would handle all the settings... I do remember the first time I went from a basic sound card to a high end one with a good midi wave table built in and game music or even .midi files went from sounding like electronic music to sounding like real instruments though and that's when I realized there was more to sound card quality than just the drivers...

Hi, Phil. I just got my hands on one of these cards. The layout is slightly different, and it came with the MIDI extension daughterboard. If it at all helps the two analog audio inputs on mine are labeled CREATIVE and MITSUMI. There is also an audio interface for Sony as well.

I was aiming to buy a cheap audio card and bought this for 10$, back in the 96'. I had no idea it was good. My expectation at the time was: sb pro>sb16>ess1868 🙂

Holy shit, that is the best view of a kindle I've seen :O. Now I definitely want one :O.

I always wondered why the digital sound crashes in Duke Nnukem 2 on my Audician 32, now i know.

I have one of these cards. Mine is the 1869, I think. It has compatibility with multiple sound cards, adlib, galaxy, sb and sb pro.

Years ago, when I was young and dumb (it persists) I was underestimating these ESS, 'cos it is not a Soundblaster.' :D

I always go for the ESS cards. They are cheaper than the sound blaster and are compatible with pretty much everything in DOS and windows. Compaq computers used them in a lot of their computers. If you have a P2 or P3 compaq with onboard sound, it's probably an ESS chip. I'm using an ESS 1869 in my DOS machine and have had zero issues with it.

I just got one of these for around 1U$D xD revision 1.3a, a bit smaller but with the same ES1868F chip. Im gonna test it on my Pentium II this night

Still have one of those isn't too bad :)

Good video, but we are waiting for the Gravis test :) or any Avance Logic sound card PS. I bought Matrox Parhelia :)

NICE dude :D

I actually had the ES1869 “AudioDrive” soundcard in my old 350Mhz Pentium II...It seemed to producer very pleasant and “warm” sound, even better than my SB16, which seemed clinical and soulless ..Later I tried a RightMark Audio Test, and it seemed that the card was adding way too much even harmonic distortion, which actually sounds good.. Guess it proves how subjective “good” sound is.. One big issue though was the lack of WaveTable synthesis...The Microsoft GS Wavetable synth was absolutely hopeless. Remedied it with Yamaha YSXG100 SoftSynth and Roland Sound Canvas VSC 55..Those days internet was slow..31.6KBPs is what I generally used to get on a good day, and instrumental midi files were a great option.

I remember buying an ESS AudioDrive for my old Packard Bell PC back in the day, but I don't remember which chip it used.

i think these cards sound better than the Sb16! also check out the terratec profimedia gold 16/96. it's an ess 1868 card with much better quality, i think a built in wavetable chip as well as better looks!

Phil if you can, try to find the full Windows 3.x AudioRack application suite. It's pretty useful as a media deck and I lost track of it some time ago. Otherwise it IS a great card. No complaints

I just bought an ASUS P5A Motherboard and the seller gave me this exact sound card. P5A Motherboard with a K6-2 300 CPU and the Sound card U.S. 20.00 dollars for all

Another possibility for the unknown header could be a TAD (Telephone answering Device) connector. You could wire the sound card up to a Voice Modem card directly this way, And it seems reasonable given the time period for the ISA cards. Interestingly i couldn't find any info on the M418 model, and most other models I found don't have the header. I wonder if this could have been a special OEM part that was in a prebuilt machine?

I just bought a jumper-tastic, non-pnp, ESS1688F that I'm hoping to use as a secondary soundcard for when the SB Live's SB16 emulation fails me. Hopefully it sounds as nice as the ES1868F does. Really I just cannot get WC:Privateer, Win3.x and a few others to use that fake SB16.

That lower ‘cdrom’ audio was for a modem audio connection or similar

I was looking for sound cards and I found a Genius Ess Audiodrive Es1868f Isa for USD 2 plus USD 2,85 shipping. Surely I will buy it to have sound with doom, duke3D, screamer rally, tyrian 2000, sim city 2000, and others.

My dad gave me an old mid-tower box with an AMD 386 DX-40Mhz CPU along with a monochrome monitor (1995). So I went to work right away in upgrading, starting with a color monitor (SVGA). I bought a soundcard that ended up being an ESS-based model. It had a music synthesizer program that had a graphical piano keys that were mapped to the keyboard. I played Wolfenstein and Panzer General. Once I got a hold of Doom and X-Wing, then it was clear that I needed a major upgrade. I didn't have a lot of money, but I manage to find a decent 486 motherboard and loaded it with an AMD 486DX-80 Mhz CPU, along with a flightstick. Now Doom and X-Wing playable. I later upgraded it to an AMD 486-120Mhz CPU, Windows 95, and SCSI CD-ROM drive and played MYST. Good times.

Hi Phil liked your video. I have a similar sound card but with a 1869F chipset is there any difference.

It would be nice if one of the opl trackers could add support for ESFM.

I used to own the SB16, and I never had any issues with clicks or weird sounds. Can you upload or direct me to some examples? you mentioned Wolfenstein 3D which at that time was exactly what I was playing (a lot).

If it's similar to another ES1868F board that I see on eBay, the reason that one of the white plugs didn't work is that it seems they're all specific to one pinout, since I guess not all CD audio cables were the same. One is labelled Mitsumi and one is Creative. There is also a non-shrouded one is for Sony, and I can't read the others. The one I am looking at is FCCID# L6NS611

some of the ess cards sound good this may be one of them but it was know for budget low end sound no bells or extras