PCXT Sound Blaster Possible?

[suww37]

I am very happy with the support of cms with this pcxt core update. Suddenly I started to wonder, is it possible to support soundblaster on the pcxt core?

[spark2k06]

Apart from MIDI and DSP, we already have everything that a PCXT can take advantage of in terms of sound:

https://trixter.oldskool.org/2018/08/03 ... ss-system/

Especially DSP makes little or no sense in such a system. I don't think I'm going to spend more time on it in a nutshell.

[suww37]

Apart from MIDI and DSP, we already have everything that a PCXT can take advantage of in terms of sound:

https://trixter.oldskool.org/2018/08/03 ... ss-system/

Especially DSP makes little or no sense in such a system. I don't think I'm going to spend more time on it in a nutshell.

Do you mean that there are very few dsp games available for 8088?

[spark2k06]

Do you mean that there are very few dsp games available for 8088?

Yes, and possibly none of them can be better enjoyed on PCXT than on ao486. Honestly, it doesn't pay off at all.

[spark2k06]

https://trixter.oldskool.org/2018/08/03 ... ss-system/

And to this thread, the most relevant comment on the subject, by the author of the original post:

If you’re asking “what sound devices saw the most usage on XT-class systems”, then in order it would be PC speaker, then Tandy/PCjr audio, then Adlib. Past that, you have only a handful of games supporting a specific device and the numbers are too small to be statistically significant. Covox was not used on XT-class hardware for games because of the high CPU demands of playing digitized audio through that device.

Adlib was clearly owned by more people, as you can tell by the number of games that supported each device. mobygames.com is your friend for this kind of research.

The very first original Sound Blaster was not hamstrung; it was designed to play single sound samples 64K in length or less, and it did. It was only later when people wanted to play continuous streaming digitized audio that a new card with new capabilities (Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 2.0) was needed.

The Adlib was originally designed to be a music synthesis card, and the software it came with was designed to work perfectly on XT-class hardware. Jukebox, Visual Composer, etc. all used CGA graphics modes and ran just fine. So it already ran “at its full potential” (not really sure what you mean here) on XTs. There’s no reason it couldn’t have been used for games; as I wrote in the article, it wasn’t used for games on the XT because when it came out there were barely any XT-class-compatible games being made any more.

[throAU]

Back in the day I don't know anyone who had any sort of sound beyond PC speaker on an XT.

I'm sure such people existed, but even adlib wasn't common on anything prior to the 286/AT era. Even later, 386-sx and up was where sound cards started becoming more commonplace.