Sound Blaster Pro 1.0 - Minor Annoyance

[Great Hierophant]

The original Pro has a problem:  When a game tries to use it as an Adlib or a basic Sound Blaster, the card will only send the data to one of the two OPL2 chips.  This means the sound will only come out of one speaker, assuming you have stereo speakers connected to the card.  No other ISA Sound Blaster does this.  The older cards only have one OPL2 chip and the output is sent to both channels of the audio out jack (which is stereo because of the Game Blaster chips), and the newer cards with the OPL3 chip will output dual-mono if only the OPL2 registers are accessed. 

This problem is hardly insurmountable, a mono adapter will allow the sound to be output to both speakers.  It is annoying that CL could not have sent the data to both chips when it is presented to the Adlib or mono-Sound Blaster ports. 

Since virtually no software takes advantage of its dual OPL2 functionality without also supporting OPL3 cards, there seems to be no reason to use this card over the more common SB Pro 2. 

[Ari]

So that's what happened to the music of Civilization after I'd upgraded from SB 2.0 to SB Pro back in '94... 

I could never figure out why it sounded so weird.

[mace]

Just general crappy Creative Labs design.

[Cloudschatze]

The original Pro has a problem:  When a game tries to use it as an Adlib or a basic Sound Blaster, the card will only send the data to one of the two OPL2 chips.

Odd. Supposedly, data written to base+8/9 and 388/389H is written to both OPL2 chips. Have you noticed this with all Adlib-supporting games?

[pianoman72]

Yes, it is odd.  I use a Sound Blaster Pro 1.0 in the same way with my 386 computer very often, and I have never encountered that problem. 

I made sure to check this potential problem with games such as:  Battle of Britain-Their Finest Hour, Wing Commander I, Dungeon Master, Ultima VI, and quite a few others which use either Adlib or the original Sound Blaster for their sound.  I have absolutely no problem hearing all of them on both speakers, with Mono sound.

[BlueMax]

I only know ONE game that specifically lets you choose either OPL3 or 2xOPL2 for music - the original Ultima Underworld.  I'd like to know if you get polyphony bonuses or something...  check it out! 

[Patrick Chang]

I only know ONE game that specifically lets you choose either OPL3 or 2xOPL2 for music - the original Ultima Underworld.  I'd like to know if you get polyphony bonuses or something...  check it out! 

I only find Sound Blaster Pro support in Ultima Underworld and I assume that is for 2xOPL2 support... where is the OPL3 support?

PC

[Great Hierophant]

My mistake, the problem is not with the SB Pro but DOSBox's implementation of it.  Guess I should have checked the real hardware first!