Good to see Tyrian getting some love. Maybe you can give a review on it?

It's always really cool to see a feature that was implemented in hardware like this; has there been any luck with people taking advantage of it in the last two years that you know of?

Hey LGR, try Space Quest 3 with a Roland MT-32, with the surround sound speakers

This sound card is compatible with OS/2 Warp?

Please! when you want to test any FM chip, please run the game Megarace. There's no better FM sound track than that.

I still enjoy MIDI music that's done well. There's a charm to it, in that there's no sound engineering (you know, crazy effects and white noises) to divert your attention. You simply need a good melody, a catchy tune, in order to make MIDI music work, and there's no other way around it.

tarstarkusz - FM synthesis is how the OPL series generates sound. What you're thinking of are sample-based sound cards, which sample real instruments and use those for instrument playback.

I still do have a sizeable MIDI and MOD collection (Among other odd old audio formats) Still play some of them when I'm sick of the net...

What I like the most about MIDI on old cards is they are effectively computer controlled synthesisers and are instruments in their own right.

chris Plissken True. I so hate clickbait thumbs and titles.

What is there to click bait..

koekje00005 : Bare LCDs are available, so you technically could build a custom monitor. Or use a laser-show system with a suitable target canvas.

look into the xi 8088 project

Yeah it really has earned a spot in my sound card rotation simply for its clarity! Except for the few games that the audio peaks a bit, but there's a good chance the next revision corrects that.

That was my first thought!

@ Speedy: To be honest it would be even more interesting to use the OPL3 synthesizer capabilities with a MIDI DAW, like you would with a onboard MIDI wavetable on the soundblaster cards. Because using OPL3 soundfonts is okay but i'd rather use actual synthesis from the hardware.

I'd love to do that too, but I think that's a bit beyond the scope of the card since you'd need a whole bunch of additional hardware. I'd prefer to see someone make a modern program that lets you control the OPL3 via MIDI anyways, since that could be used with PCI cards on a modern computer instead of being limited to ISA on a retro rig.

Yeah, newer windows versions probably wouldn't even recognize the Onboard synthesizer anyway as a General Midi Synthesizer. I did that a lot with a Soundblaster 16 (PCI version) and some years later with the Wavetable on a 4.1 card and a MIDI DAW and was always hoping a new card with OPL2 or OPL3 synthesis would appear somewhere. Or even USB versions. Or at least something like the Roland Sound Canvas boxes only more affordable. But then again, I'd probably rather use that as a Keyboard version, like some of the Yamaha PSS series.

I plan to! It's a rather unfortunate story.

I forget...are the 'AdLib company' and Creative Labs the same thing? I know I had a rather nice speaker set from CL a while back.

VulpisFoxfire No, they're not. Because AdLib went bankrupt, but Creative Labs still sells Sound Blaster cards and various speakers. Further evidence: AdLib was a Canadian company. Creative Labs is based out of Singapore.

VulpisFoxfire : AdLib and Creative were major rivals.

Short version: early Creative Sound Blaster sound cards had the same midi synth chip as the Ad-lib meaning you could treat the Sound Blaster as an Adlib in most game setups and it would work.

I have Warcraft II but haven't played it for lack of a DOS machine. I'll check it out

That would be awesome.

I think I've got the code setup now for surround

RESULTS twitter.com/lazygamereviews/status/968182985752182784

Now that's fast turnaround!

More like a quad core Motorola 68000 ;) I know it is never going to get used to its full potential, but I wants one anyway!

"I know it is never going to get used to its full potential, but I wants one anyway!" it'll be used as soon as trackers support it.

I want a 8-core MC14500. That would add up to 8 bits total. (that's not as far-fetched as one might think. I have 14 pieces, could in theory build a 14-bit processor with them)

Haha, thanks

I wanted to write the same thing, give Planet X3 Adlib surround support!

yes! tell mr 8bit to stop jogging in jeans and use that time to add surround to x3

Thank for all the likes! 👍

thought the same...

May when the 8-bit guy finishes X3 it will support this OPL3 surround mode.

just a friendly PSA (no snark intended) "master" is Meister in German, so Brewmeister or (fully German) Braumeister :)

YensR all fixed thanks man

DiIseDabber me too!

white and black... ahh yess!

Thanks for watching!

twitter.com/lazygamereviews/status/965981008238727169

@LGR: Like I said on Facebook, that's why I said that. @Novedicus: See above. @Brandon Taylor: I know that... I'm just stating it would be cool to collaborate with the company making them and do a LGR special edition or something.

*what it looks like / how it looks.

Thank you.

It's a really simple bus, so it's ripe for DIY.

^^^^^ This ^^^^^

Correct, and that's really my main complaint here. There are only a handful of games I've found that get that result (one being Xargon) but I'm still hoping it's dampened in a later revision!

Xargon (and many songs that share the same CMF format) were always loud due to the way they set the OPL registers. Not many other games set the global registers the same way. Is it definitely a problem with the card amplifying the signal too much, as opposed to the recording level being set too high during capture? Just wondering whether the card is designed for speaker output rather than line output.

Günter v. G. Why not? You can make one yourself if you wish.

You sure about that? Anyway, what blows me away the most is that there's people like Clint who actually want that old stuff. IRQ conflicts and himem allocations were messed up stuff for 12 year old only german talking, no internet having me. I for one am glad for the ez tech we have today. But it's great seeing other people deal with the tech of yesteryear and enjoying themselves. It's why I come back here after all.

It's probably much easier to create an ISA card than PCI Express one. And that's mainly because this technology is so old.

Yeah if you're looking for a dedicated OPL2 card it's a great option.

Thank you!

Lo-Tech and Serdashop come to mind for making new retro PC parts. But nah, it's not quite possible to build a _completely_ new 486 out of newly-manufactured parts. Yet.

AFAIK some 486 motherboards were produced for industrial applications until mid to late 2000s. Not sure if they still are

Problem is getting a) the CPUs and b) the chipsets for controlling everything. Some generic chips can still be bought new. But most stuff needs to be bought as new old stock and they are getting ever more rare. However people could use FPGAs to emulate those missing chips with high accuracy, but this takes away a bit of the nostalgia and authenticity …

I did start a project to make a "new" 386 or 486 board, based around an original CPU, but with an FPGA for pretty much everything else. But, there were a few things that put me off finishing it - it's obviously not the simplest of projects to begin with, but doable, and there is already a fairly decent 486 core with VGA and OPL2/OPL3 that runs on the "MiSTer" board. Although, it's not currently the fastest 486 atm. It runs at 90 MHz, but is probably closer to an SX 33. lol Wolf3D runs just fine, and it has basic "Sound Blaster" support alongside the OPL core. DOOM - not so great. Maybe 4-5 FPS right now, but there is definitely room for improvement / add-ons, like CPU speed-ups, MPU-401, my own Wavetable core, CD-ROM loading support etc. Might be worth looking again at the "modern" 486 project, but tbh, there wasn't a huge amount of interest on Faceplant.

Arne Schmitz : As long as the design will fit, CPLDs will usually be the better alternative to FPGAs- no setup delay.

Dude I'd be happy to try that, feel free to shoot me more info at Clint@Lazygamereviews.com

Email sent! Go check it out when you have time, it's worth it!

RESULTS twitter.com/lazygamereviews/status/968183472182448128

Woooo! It works! Have fun with that! I use it all the time (but then again I made it so that's expected).

That's what I was thinking, never hearing this game before. That sounded like some professional arcade-like implementation of FM music. It kind of made every other game here sound amateurish in comparison. : P