Sound Blaster: Encyclopedia II - Sound Blaster - Sound Blasters with onboard wavetable synthesis

Sound Blaster - Sound Blasters with onboard wavetable synthesis

Sound Blaster - Sound Blaster AWE32

The Sound Blaster AWE32, introduced in March 1994, was a full-length ISA card, measuring 14 inches (356 mm) in length. It needed to be this large because of the number of features included (the most available at the time). The length of the board was necessary because, at the time, manufacturing technology was incapable of integrating all of the functions into a smaller number of chips.

The AWE32 included two distinct audio sections; one being the Creative digital audio section with their audio codec and optional CSP/ASP chip socket, and the second being the E-mu MIDI synthesizer section. The synthesizer section consisted of several sound processors, the most notable being the EMU8000 synthesizer chip and the EMU8011 effects processor. The two chips provided an advanced wavetable (Advanced WaveEffects a.k.a. AWE) solution that was very flexible and powerful, supporting 30-channel wavetable synthesis. The effects processor generated various effects (i.e. reverb and chorus) and environments on MIDI output, not unlike the later EAX standard on Live! and newer cards. It can even add effects to the output from the Yamaha OPL-3's FM synthesis. One of the most stand-out features of AWE32 was its support for the then-burgeoning E-Mu SoundFont standard which allowed users to build custom wavetable sound sets using custom waveform samples. The card included software for building these custom Sound Fonts. All of Creative's subsequent cards, other than the Sound Blaster PCI64/128 series, supported SoundFonts.

The Creative digital audio section was basically an entire Sound Blaster 16, and as such, was mostly compatible with Creative's earlier sound cards, including Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 2.0, and the original Sound Blaster. Its specifications included 16-bit 45kHz AD/DA conversion with real-time on-board compression / decompression and the Yamaha OPL-3 FM synthesizer chip. AWE32 in general has superior recording and playback characteristics compared to the older SB16. However, compatibility was not always perfect and there were situations where various bugs could arise in games. Many of the AWE32 cards had codecs which supported bass, treble, and gain adjustments through Creative's included mixer software. There were many variants and revisions of the AWE32, however, and not all of them use the same digital audio chipset and features do vary. For example, the AWE32 boards that utilize the Vibra chip do not have bass and treble adjustments.

The AWE32 didn't use its General MIDI (GM) port to access the wavetable module—Creative decided to use a non-standard port. As with the Gravis Ultrasound, software designers had to write special AWE32 support into their programs. To support older software, the AWE32 still featured OPL-3 FM synthesis, and came with the AWEUTIL program which attempted to provide GM/MT-32/GS redirection to the native AWE hardware, however the compatibility wasn't great and it used a lot of precious DOS conventional memory. Disappointingly, if a game used DOS 32-bit protected mode through a DOS extender, then the MPU-401 emulation could not function and the card could not produce wavetable MIDI unless directly supported by the software. This also affected the Wave Blaster wavetable daughterboard header. AWE32's usage in Windows was simplified by the fact that Windows 3.1x had drivers which made the FM synthesizer appear like just another MIDI peripheral, on its own MIDI interface.

Also on AWE32 was a Panasonic/Sony/Mitsumi CD-ROM interface (for accessing old, non-ATAPI CD-ROM drives which were still in use at the time), 1MB ROM for the default MIDI sound set, 512 KB built-in RAM for custom MIDI sound sets, and two 30-pin SIMM slots (with their own memory controller) for adding sample memory. Later AWE32 revisions received the newer ATAPI interface. The AWE32 supported up to 28 MB of additional SIMM memory. 32MB could be added to the board, but the synthesizer couldn't address all of it.

AWE32 was criticized for its rather noisy analog output. Static, hiss, and pops were not uncommon from the circuitry onboard these cards. AWE32's name also confused many consumers initially because many believed the number 32 in the name to refer to it's sampling bit depth, as in offering 32-bit audio support.

Sound Blaster - Sound Blaster 32

The Sound Blaster 32 (SB32) was a value-oriented offering from Creative, announced on June 6, 1995, designed to fit below the AWE32 Value in the lineup. The SB32 lacked onboard RAM, had no proprietary CD-ROM connections, no Wave Blaster header, and no CSP port. The boards also used the Vibra digital audio chip which lacked adjustments for bass, treble, and gain. The SB32 was fully equipped with the same MIDI capabilities (the same EMU8000/EMU8010 combination) as the AWE32, and in fact had the same 30-pin SIMM RAM expansion capability. The board was also fully compatible with the AWE32 option in software and even used the same Windows drivers. Once the SB32 was outfitted with 30-pin SIMMs, it was generally a transparent experience to the more expensive AWE32.

Ironically, although the Vibra chip was designed to be lower cost and less functional, it actually has higher quality output than the chips on many of the older and more expensive AWE cards.

Sound Blaster - Sound Blaster AWE64

The AWE32's successor, the Sound Blaster AWE64 (November 1996), was significantly smaller, being a half-length ISA card (meaning it was only half the length of the AWE32). It offered similar features to the AWE32 (replacing the old CD-ROM interfaces with an IDE compatible one), but has a few notable improvements, including support for greater polyphony. However, these additional voices were achieved via software emulation using host CPU resources, rather than being processed on the card, and were thus of questionable value in some situations.

The main improvement was better compatibility with older SB models, and an improved SNR. The AWE64 came in 3 versions: A Value version (with 512KB of RAM), a Standard version (with 1MB of RAM), and a Gold version (with 4 MB of RAM and SPDIF ports). The 30-pin SIMM slots were replaced with a proprietary memory format which could be (expensively) purchased from Creative.

A fourth version - a PCI version of the AWE64 - was introduced shortly after. It offered the features of the original ISA AWE64, but it had the PCI interface and was built around an ASIC so it had drastically fewer components on the board and ended up being much cheaper than its predecessors. Unfortunately, at this time the issue of compatibility with older legacy DOS applications had not been ideally addressed. Creative created a motherboard port called the SB-Link which assisted the PCI bus in working with software that looked for ISA sound cards. Without this motherboard port the card was incompatible with DOS software.

AWE64 PCI was followed by the AWE64D, which was a variant of the PCI AWE64 that was developed for OEMs. It offered the same features as the retail PCI AWE64, but had an architecture that was distinct enough to prevent the standard PCI AWE64 drivers from working with it.

AWE64, in the end, was basically a revision of the AWE32. Quality of components and output was improved and cost of manufacturing was lessened. Functionality of the hardware was nearly identical. The boards were based around the AWE32's E-mu 8000 wavetable chipset, E-mu effects processor, and a Creative audio DSP and codec for digital sound playback. It was regrettable for the consumer that Creative decided to move from standard SIMM RAM expansion to their proprietary modules. Those modules were far more expensive than SIMMs and became very hard to find once the boards were out of production.

An AWE64 Mark II was also designed, prototype boards and drivers made. This added 4 speaker surround sound for games, and a hardware dolby digital decoder. The six extra phono plugs (sub/center/left rear/right rear/digital in/digital pass through) and the extra dolby decoder chips were placed on a second board which connected to the main board via a ribbon cable, and though it took up an extra card slot, it didn't actually plug into an ISA socket. The project was dropped in favour of the Live! cards due to the high expense of such a solution, and the aging ISA interface.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Sound Blasters with onboard wavetable synthesis", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki