LGR Oddware - Creative Game Blaster / CMS Sound Card 

I got the recording problem fixed! It turns out it was the program I was using. I have no idea why, as all the settings seem to check out, but once I switched over to Audacity instead of Audition, it recorded both channels correctly and now I have the proper bass and everything. Thanks for all the help, guys!

How on earth is the music for those old games as good as it is? I am absolutely floored! Puts a lot of modern games to shame.

You probably know by now(it HAS been a decade), but Creative had good reason to be secretive about their parts. The Adlib was made entirely of unobscured off-the-shelf parts, which made it very easy to clone(as Creative did when they built the Sound Blaster). They took great pains to make sure that no one could easily do to them what they did to Adlib(and also to make things sound fancier than they were: the "DSP" chip isn't a Digital Signal Processor).

"I'm not gonna talk about that. Screw you." Love it.

The first Oddware Episode! Randomly showed up in my feed, super glad it did!

Having a ton of squarewave voices makes it sound like a souped-up NES, at least to me.

I had a soundblaster... on a MICROCHANNEL IBM PS/2. Those things were rare as hen's teeth and cost an arm and a leg. But it was really the only way to get decent sound on a MC system back then. It cost like 5-10x the price of a standard ISA system card.

Probably the same reason many console manufacturers include support for old hardware in new systems: backwards compatibility with existing games to help ease the transition to new standards. Hence, why they slowly phased it out of later variations, since the software had caught up by then.

When i was like 6 or so i learned what a "sound card was" i remember starting up games, and having to just guess again and again to get the game to work. My dad had to explain why there was different options. Then other games also had the IRQ number options which made it even more confusing!

Starting at episode 1 of the Oddware series. They're just to juicy not to watch them all.

When I bought my first PC, a 386 SX 33, I examined all the pros and cons of existing sound systems. Then I came to the conclusion that Soundblaster was supported by most games developers so I got a Soundblaster 2.0 (I think) but mine also featured synthesized sound effects. The music was great and who could afford a Roland card anyway. That one cost as much as a high-end PC in fact. Never regretted buying the Soundblaster but when it was time to get a new PC, the overall quality of brandless PC-soundcards that came with the system, was high enough that I didn't decide to buy a 16 bit AWE(!) Soundblaster card. But compared to the Amiga that we first used before switching to PC, the sound from the Soundblaster was inferior to the Amiga sound. Just compare both "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (adventure) versions for Amiga and PC. The PC, with Soundblaster, sounded like a reliable electric organ player. The Amiga blew it away like a rockstar.

Your videos are fantastic! Your narration is great. It's like a video computer museum. There was lots of cutting edge tech back then. Most stuff now is just improvements on what has already been done. Subscribed.

5:55 i thought it was going to say "Apparently Creative didn't want to be creative"

The TD3 music brought back all sorts of warm, fuzzy memories. I used to play this back in high school on Tandy (1000?) PCs. After a morning full of awful news, hearing those chip tunes put a smile on my face. Thanks!

@linuxlove4004 Unfortunately, Paku Paku doesn't work with this card for some reason. It "sees" the card as a Game Blaster/CMS on startup, but the game itself is silent. I don't know what's up.

That really took me back. As a kid who got stuck with a Game Blaster, the biggest thing going for the Adlib was that it could play drums. Sort of. Not having heard that music played on that card since the '80s, the lack of drums is what really sticks out. The drums in that piece are actually pretty good.

I stumbled across your videos via a strange set of circumstances on Reddit, decided to take a look at these Oddware vids... And right at the beginning there's an RDJ reference. I know I'm going to like you.

The Richard D. James face = freakin' amazing

@GeoNeilUK Indeed. And the CMS is actually playing through my computer speakers through the line-in, so it's not the fault of the line-in port or cable or anything, but recording the line-in feed doesn't capture the full effect. Recorded at the highest bitrate possible too, no difference. I really am stumped.

And thus, a new word was added to the Tech Enthusiasts' Dictionary. Of course, no such dictionary exists, but my point is that other techy RU-vidrs (uxwbill and vwestlife, for example) have begun using the term "Oddware" in some of their videos as well.

A lot of those chips seem to have exposed wiping windows (the small, glassy circles), similar to later EPROM chips. Any window like that exposed to ultraviolet light could cause at a minimum serious memory fracturing or full wipes, especially when exposed to daylight. Don't know if they worked the same way, buy if they do it could explain a lot of the problems you're experiencing.

I had read mags since 1989 until I got my first PC in 1994 and was ready. I knew I wanted Sound Blaster and what I got was the Sound Blaster 16. Loved that card. All my future sound cards were Sound Blasters. Even this latest is..the Sound Blaster Z. Think I may still have all my old cards. I kinda miss ISA slots :) I always had a joystick plugged into the game ports on my sound cards for so long.

I'm so glad I watch your videos. I dug around on the Internet and found CMS Intelligent Organ AND how to configure DOSBox to play it correctly. It sounds fantastic! Don't stop doing what you do!

Richard D. James? You telling me you listen to Aphex Twin? Can you hug me?

@vwestlife That is unfortunately true. Same happened to several games that supposedly had CMS support. Since the Tandy was far more popular and in several ways the two sound formats were quite similar, I'm guessing they just used sounds from the Tandy version as a base and only changed what they needed. It's uncommon to find a game that takes advantage of the stereo and extra voices the CMS could do.

You screw your cards in?? The "not-so-lazy game reviewer." Love these videos

@ioctlvoid Oh yes, I love the Zeliard soundtrack on an MT-32/LAPC-I! I wish I owned one, especially back when I reviewed Zeliard, so I could show the thing off on the channel. It's simply an amazing device for 1987, but sadly it was just too costly for many users. I knew one guy who owned one back then, but he was a professional musician so it kind of made sense. It was frigging amazing when I first heard the MT-32, I'm pretty sure I became a man that day.

@Zagroseckt You certainly can! I did that on one of my machines back in the day so I could control the volume of the PC speaker to play games at night without bothering anyone with incessant beeping :D

@VTS1337 My monitor has both SVGA and DVI connectors in the rear, so I hook both up at once. It also has a switch that you see me press to go between the signals. And it's my NCR Comten 386SX, I did an overview video of it a while back if you're interested.

Actually each one of those "CMS-301"/SAA1099 have an R/L channel each, so you're absolutely right, they have independent channel control. And if you're feeling nostalgic and so inclined, there are even emulators online for the chip containing demo tunes.

@SaMPLeMaSTeR Yes, that was the issue. For whatever reason, the line-in was set to R instead of both channels, even though the project settings were set to stereo.

I have to say the music on "Silpheed" is just beautiful

@taragwendolyn Okay, well I was just going on documentation for the SAA1099 chips, which specifically state each chip generates 6 independent square waves. I was also referring to the specs of things like the Texas Instruments SN76489, which I thought generated 4-channel sound using 3 square waves and one white noise channel. It's possible it's something technically different, I was only going on what I read.

That dsp chip on the CMS has always been a big mystery. Some games actually send some commands to it as a way of detecting the presence of the CMS. Since the philips chips are writeonly and you can't detect the CMS otherwise.

@indignantatheist There should be annotations in the video that describe what was wrong. But basically, Audition was set to only record one channel from line-in. Changed out to stereo and it was fine.

@beigemore Yeah, it's taken me ages to locate my card here. I finally got mine from a collector on the Vintage Computer Forums.

Some people back in the day owned both Adlib and Soundblaster and configure the Adlib for music and SB for sound effects. Of course this would means double dos configurations and using a merging jack cable to merge the sounds to one output.

@ThomasGGebert That it does! CMS emulation is really pretty lackluster in DOSBox though, which is a huge reason I wanted to get one of these cards. It just sounds tinny and sometimes even out of tune.

I've got still Creative Awe 64, was working perfectly last time it was in a machine.

Man, making me wish I had my old Tandy TX 1000, it may have been a lobotomized 286 but it was still damn cool with really good games. :D

That keyboard one looks really fun. I'd like to see a cheap (around $50) mp3 creating software using an interface like that.

Champions of Krynn! Ah yes. Good old (A)D&D on the computer. Oddly enough I only heard of Champions when I bought a box full of Amiga stuff a couple years back (the game was included in said box). It's pretty awesome for it's time. When I was a kid I totally would have loved a game like this (instead, I was stuck with the somewhat mediocre Hillsfar, but I still played the shit out of it, despite having little to none knowledge of the english language back then). EDIT: I also love how we had to hook up Joysticks to the freaking SOUND CARD. Who ever thought that up?

I miss these old days of gaming SO much sometimes. But if I went back I doubt Id have anywhere near the fun I had at those times. It was so new and high tech then and tech was progressing so much. Fun days. Fun time in my life when I was in my late teens and 20s. The late 80's and all the 90's were so great for PC. Funny when anyone speaks of game music I think of LOOM. Yet I never played it...though I think I do own it now.

didn't know you were so musical. man that thing sounds awesome

Greetings from a self-advertisement nearly a decade into the future! Presentation back then was soooo crappy but I love that you're still exactly as nerdy and as enthused as the old days.

@kinmanyuen It turns out it was caused by only recording one channel instead of both. It was recording in stereo in the project settings, but somehow the input was set to record only the right audio channel.

I actually own such a rare SGI workstation, and can confirm that the SAA1399 is on the IO board.

PROTIP: Use a AUX wire and plug it into the audio output of the old PC and the other end into a microphone input in another computer and use Audacity or any other sound recording program that lets you use mics and record, you have directly recorded the sound in stereo.

How about the old Ageia Physics cards?

Thank you for these videos. My fiance is 8 years younger than me and loves to hear about the stuff that was around when I was young and your videos are a perfect way to show and explain these older technologies to her with.

The SoundBlaster 2.0 needed a GAL in addition to the two SAA1099s. The GAL is a programmable logic array, which basically replaces a bunch of more simple ICs. The GAL has since been reverse engineered, since it is rather simple. So if you have a SB2.0 without CMS chips, you can download the equations for the GAL and make your own CMS upgrade.

It just hit me. I'm watching your Acer monitor through my Acer monitor!!!

@clongoram The ships during gameplay is made up of 3D polygons as far as I know. Not sure about the intro, it might just be some kind of vector thing going on. I have a full review of Silpheed explaining a bit more.

@marquis0r If you're asking about the CMS in particular and not the SB1.5, it's just CMS sound through its line out. PC speaker is totally separate and CMS is used for music, as shown in the video with Silpheed. The SB1.5 on the other hand has AdLib for music in addition to the CMS chips. All I showed in this video was CMS music though.

i still use sound blaster cards. not as old as those but the much newer ones love how they enhance the audio vs the stock sound cards that come with newer motherboards. this video really took me back to when i was a kid in the 90s awesome stuff

I owned one of these as a kid. One cool thing you could do with it, was hex edit the PATCH.101 file in Silpheed, and just change random shit which would alter it's output and sometimes in REALLY cool ways. Try it, seriously. It was truly a fascinating sound card for it's time!

If that thing had at least some noise channels it could sound similiar to the NES or other 8 bit systems.

@Dragondraikk I couldn't seem to find that exact information, but each of the 12 voices allowed for either a square wave or one of three types of noise. No triangle waves to my knowledge, though with some clever programming I'm sure one could make something that sounds like it. I've read one place that 6 voices could be played at once, but I read another that all 12 could be played at once, one for the left and right audio channel.

Hey man, really looking forward to more of these Oddware videos. I've only been subscribed to your channel for a few months now but I just want to say I've become a huge fan of these videos - both your hardware and software reviews. They're so in depth and yet completely accessible for those who know little about the topic in the first place. So yeah, thanks - here's to many more LGR videos !!

@HarryMatic I've got about a dozen Oddware videos planned, and the Covox Speech Thing is one I'd love to cover! I'll have to find one first, hehe. I also have a video planned on an optical PC mouse... from 1986. Very bizarre little device.

Two things strike me about this video 9 years later. 1. Clint has come a long way. 2. Clint has stayed true to himself. Kudos. A tricky balance.

This thing sounds a lot like the wonderful SID chip does. Although the examples given are a bit like the more simple bits of music you hear from the SID. I'd like to hear something that really uses the features of this card to the fullest. :)

Loving these videos. I have always loved learning about tech and recently got into being more into computers. I know this might be the oddest compliment you will get, but watching videos like this on computers is extremely calming for me. I love stuff like this, so these videos are perfect for me. Most of my PC gaming as a child was from those old Jumpstart games and other such edutainment games. I actually adored clicking and pointing in them. *next post is a continuation*

In the SB 1.0 and SB 1.5, the CMS chips are mapped to two I/O ports, but with the SB 2.0 and later, those two I/O ports were assigned to the AdLib by default. That extra chip requiered for CMS support on the SB 2.0 is therefore a "PAL" (Programable Array Logic) module which takes care of directing those I/O port-accesses to the correct hardware device. By the way, technically speaking; the LAPC-I is actually a Roland CM-32L-on-a-card rather than a Roland MT-32-on-a-card...

@CaptainPoovabladoo No Amstrad yet, but I do have a IIGS. That system I will be covering after the BBC.

i could imagine the first time getting this card back in the day,, turning a game on and hearing that would of blown my little mind!!

Thank you for making these videos, i love oddware and your videos really relax me.

The reason for that is the Sound Blaster's music sounds the same as the AdLib. I've compared the two cards side-by-side (SB1.5 and AdLib) and if there's a difference it's extremely difficult to tell. They both use the same FM chip, after all. It's so negligible that it doesn't deserve a mention in my eyes (and ears). Also, the Game Blaster is not a Sound Blaster and it's in another category entirely.

I'm not sure what sound blaster card I had, but it came with two of the best "games" ever. Some parrot microphone game and Dr sbatsio or how ever you spell it.

Love your channel and videos, great voice for it, so keep em coming Clint, and greetings from the Isle of Wight, England.

@oxxor77 If I ever come to own one, I'll certainly be featuring it on LGR!

Ha! Even before you mentioned Richard D. James, I kind of figured you were doing an Aphex Twin impression. XD

Your sound card for recording is most likely capacitor coupled, this will end up changing the square wave a bit and will make for a more sinusoidal wave form. I have the same issue when trying to use my sound card to record ILDA laser signals for testing or using my sound card to capture wave forms off sensors and such. This is done in sound cards to protect them from input spikes and voltage differentials between the 2 devices thus only allowing changing electrical signals through but not a steady DC state. Not much you can do to get pas this.

With technology rise at a rapid pace, it's good to see people Like you preserve a piece of history！

It's also because as time went on, they were trying to find more things to put into a single chip to reduce costs. For example, Intel's 4004 is considered the first "CPU" only because it was the first chip to combine an ALU and CU into one package.

27:12 What's missing in the playback -- the percussion is gone for sure! What else? It sounds like the instrument you normally hear is constructed by overlapping two square waves, with one detuned slightly. This is done sometimes on the C64 and NES to give an instrument more depth or complexity. The playback only includes part of the sound played on one voice. I don't know why. Maybe it's only recording the left or right, but not both.

@Vaskamos That is the plan. I have a dozen or so subjects of weird software and hardware I want to cover and I'm always finding more!

I had a CMS game Blaster installed back in the day at Radio Shack on my Tandy 1000. And, of course, my life was never the same

i always found the sound of the adlib sickening , every sound that came out of that CMS was tasty. Wish i had known about this thing sooner ,most likely an awesome tool to this day for any chip tune producer or experimentalist. nice one for exposing this

I did not understand anything you were talking about, but I love listening to the sound of your voice. So, I'll listen! And nod my head and pretend to understand!

That's early technology for you: things start big, and get smaller as the processes improve.

Sounds quite similar to the MSX to me. Nice sound.

Unless both Philips and Creative Labs listed their own chip specifications incorrectly, there are most certainly square wave generators being used.

I'd love to see an oddware video on some 90s graphics hardware and dead graphics APIs.

I've been wanting a CMS or SB1.0 for the longest time, but I can never seem to find any for sale. It sounds like a souped up NES. Ultima 6 sounds pretty cool on CMS, too.

When I was 12 years old my friend got an old 486 from his dads work and he had this old sound card, a Aztech 8bit ISA laying around since before. After some try and errors we finally found IRQ and DMA settings that worked. We were so excited about it cause now we had sound and could hook it up with nullmodem cable against his parents Pentium 90 and play Rise of the Triad death match, although you had to press F11 or something to get rid of the floor and sky textures for it to run smooth on the 486. Warcraft 2 was also a big hit. Unfortunately Quake didn't run on the 486 :-(

A few years after these were the cat's pajamas the Turtle Beach cards were the ones to have - I never had one because they were between $400-600 - my buddy had one and it was awesome

When you take off the CMS-301 stickers, you find that it's really not a chip at all. It's Enrico Palazzo!

@eMGeeGFX From what I gather, the chips were in the SGI IO2 and IO3 boards.

@CaptainPoovabladoo Working on it! Expect in the next month or two.

Sound Blaster AWE32 was my first dedicated sound card.

The old 8-bit consoles (NES, Master System, etc) had 4-bit triangle wave sound, not a square wave... :) They could produce a square wave depending on how the music/sound was coded, but it does produce a distinctly different sound.... from what I'm hearing in this, it sounds like it's also a 4-bit triangle wave. Still very cool, though... brings back memories of gaming as a kid.... :)

AdLib was my second sound card. 3rd was SB, 4 SB Pro, 5 SB AWE32, 6 SB Extigy, 7 SB AWE64, 8 SB Extigy 2, 9 SB Audigy Rx (10 years later.)

@phreakindee aaah thx, i was a bit confused about that... so you can say CMS native support sounds similar (at least a bit) like a tandy 3-voice speaker system. very nice! i was looking for something like a tandy soundcard for my 286, so this might be a good alternative, although it's not so much supported like tandy i guess.

Also, I wanted to say that the keyboard program at the end inspired me to make a song using a those square waves. Seemed to turn out well so thanks.

@LanIost Yes, 25 here. It is a bit unusual, glad to meet another!

Beethoven was great at chiptunes too, I see.

Whenever someone throws out a 386, I die a little bit.

very informative, thanks! I remember the name game blaster from back then but always assumed it was just some sort of SB1 remarketing.

I remember seeing a Game Blaster at Radio Shack, but my mom ended up ordering me an AdLib direct from Sierra instead. Silpheed was supposed to come bundled with it, but I never got it. :( I do remember reading about the early Sound Blasters including both AdLib and Game Blaster chips, and now after hearing both, I can see how the FM and square wave capabilities would have complemented each other nicely, each had its advantages and disadvantages, but I also see why the FM won out in the end. Firehawk and Test Drive 3 definitely sound better on FM.