The "T1" variable in your SET BLASTER statement is limiting you to plain jane mono Sound Blaster mode - you can set this to another value that lines up with later SB models depending on the games you are playing: Tx - This the sound card type in SET BLASTER. T1 = original SoundBlaster, T2 = SoundBlaster 1.5, T3 = SoundBlaster 2, T4 = SB Pro, T5 = SB Pro w/ FM Synt, and T6 = SB 16 or AWE series.

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

I always learn something!

@AshtonCoolman

Жыл бұрын

This is great information! What an awesome community we have here.

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

J always finds the things we miss! Great info, I agree!

@RetroTinkerer

Жыл бұрын

@@UncleMikeRetro yep that was also something new to me, learned about it recently when reading about SBEMU OPL3 emulation configuration.

@YourNotTrustySouthernNeighbour

Жыл бұрын

I almost decided to type in that comment, but never did 😅

Thank you for sharing such experience. Doom II's sound wasn't on earth but from Mars!

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for stopping by, my good friend! 😎

Imagine if Realtek made a legacy emulation sound card with an integrated speaker for any PCs including the Gateway 2000

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

Ha! I'd have one on instant order from Amazon 🥰

I really enjoy your videos. Really nostalgic and relaxing. While TV music sounds fine to me, Doom is way, way off. Such a shame. Interesting card though. I wish I had room for more PCs, especially clean OEM stuff.

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

Glad you like them! Your comment makes my day! I agree! I thought Doom 2 was way off myself. That was the main reason for asking the audience their opinions. As I keep these systems original in every way possible, I will have to deal with that! Now to add Win95 to the computer, keep the pure DOS option, and play some Diablo!

I played Terminal Velocity, 3D accelerated at the time, completed it too if i remember right. The amount of just scouring and asking around for things to do that was quite something to actually acquire the patches, it wasn't easy. And it took an S3 Virge DX card out of all things. Now before you cry "3D decelerator" hold your horses, it was a decent experience in most S3D titles, out of the few that existed, except Screamer. The game would run 640x480 which under CPU rendering wasn't really a viable option, and it was pretty fluid as well, except in the face of large particles with transparency, which, get it, S3 rendered beautifully and correctly in this game, which is not something we've seen in its Direct3D implementation at the time! The Virge wasn't fast but it wasn't unusably slow, it's the Direct3D drivers of it that were unusably slow and overall just very broken.

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

I love the direction you are coming from! Yes, I also had (still have) an S3 Virge DX card and Terminal Velocity. I CANNOT remember what the experience was like. You are jogging so many memories for us! I may dig it out and do a "decelerated" video just for fun 🤣

@SianaGearz

Жыл бұрын

@@UncleMikeRetro Direct3D Virge was a horrible experience. Playing Moto Racer, i mean you could do 512x384 custom resolution, it helped the slowness, but not the graphical corruption. And Moto Racer was among the more compatible titles... I think the budget 2D/3D card i ended up settling on and not terribly hating was a Permedia 2. I did loan a Voodoo 2 a few times but didn't get to keep it. I did have a Voodoo 3 eventually, i just grabbed it off the shelf and stashed it away when they became obsolete and worthless, didn't end up using it, but i can no longer find it, perhaps someone threw it out. They threw my boxed GUS ACE out and some other things. Can't find the CT3980 either. For my actual PCs that i used i found first ELSA TNT2 to be more useful and then the ELSA Geforce2mx, this is why Voodoo3 went unused. There were already Glide emulators at the time to keep playing at least the Windows games which ideally needed Voodoo. I'm poking Moto Racer these days again. I can have it running software rendered very well, with some trickery, but getting Direct3D on a modern machine leaves me with some graphics corruption, even with dgVoodoo and such. Might need to hack it a little. Software rendering doesn't have texture filtering, so it's pretty obvious, unfortunately.

This is really just an Uncle Mike ASMR video right here. Getting my money's worth!

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

Ha! I will try more and more to soothe your frazzled nerves with retro goodness 🥰

@thisoldtech2

Жыл бұрын

A little Uncle Mike to help you get to sleep at night? :D

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

Ha! Uncle Mike Pillow Talk 🤨

There was one 3D Accelerated version of Terminal Velocity which was the version that used the S3 proprietary API. Forget what it's called.

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

You just reminded me that I have the card this version came from and probably the accelerated version on a disc somewhere.

very cool video, which gateway 2000 tall tower do you have ,, i bought the gateway 2000 166xl tall tower with windows 98 se ,, iam going to look for that isa sound card

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

Thanks, Jim! I "rescued" this system about 1.5 years back (I have a restore video up) and it is the G6-180, OC to 200 MHz BTW, the sound card is behaving VERY nicely in Win95 and I made a pure DOS boot disk with the bare mouse/sound drivers to boot into DOS for gaming too.

I have a vivo. You need to use general midi whenever possible as the opl emulation is not very good. It also emulates sound blaster cards for sounds where Ensoniq is not an option. So try to use Ensoniq for sound options where you can.

@UncleMikeRetro

8 ай бұрын

I will try that! Next time I boot the good old Family PC 😁

My only gripe is that I kinda wish the sound of Terminal Velocity and others were as loud as Doom/Ascendancy. Not sure if that's sound normalization or if the game was truly quieter by default... It sure does sound nice though... no complaints here.

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

I kept the sound level for TV, maybe I should have turned it up? It was quiet.

Hey, thanks for the link to the correct drivers. I also have this soundcard but haven't tried using it in a pure dos environment. I might just do that to check out the fm synth stuff. Doom2 sounds awful. Like the instruments are not properly initialized for some reason. Have you tried using "set dmxoption=-opl3" then running doom2? Also I think 1.666 broke instruments?

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

Hey-o! No, I haven't tried that command! And yeah Doom2 sounds crap 😄 not sure what's broken.

@ratix98

Жыл бұрын

@@UncleMikeRetro i think I figured it out and its always going to sound like crap. Its not emulation issues. It sounds like its using the soundscapes midi wave table poorly for "adlib emulation." It sounds nothing like actual fm synth. How sad. I tired playing leisure suit larry 6 and heretic and it was dreadful.

The hell what happen to my beloved doom

@UncleMikeRetro

7 ай бұрын

bit of a sound shit show!

Hi Mike... That Doom II music was painful to hear, you are the kind that want to see the world put in fire right? 😂

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

I am! And yes, that Doom 2 was pitiful!

yeah i think the adlib is off cause its one of those cards that uses the wavetable for the sounds and not a proper clone of fm synth

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

Right? Good catch. It is way off in Doom2

@Pickle136

Жыл бұрын

@@UncleMikeRetro did you try general midi yet?

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

@@Pickle136 I have not. Not yet.

Sounds too off-beat lol

@UncleMikeRetro

Жыл бұрын

yes! it does. Software rendering and all!