Using The $12 AliExpress Sound Card for MS-DOS!

I found this SoundBlaster Pro compatible card while scrolling AliExpress. It is a PCI card that uses a C-Media "CMI8738" chip. These are super cheap and abundant. They have some issues but they aren't a bad deal things considered.

You can buy the card here:

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:52 - Unboxing and card Info
1:55 - Test System
2:27 - DOS Game Test: Vinyl Goddess From Mars
2:57 - DOS Game Test: Duke Nukem 2
3:27 - DOS Game Test: Bio Menace
3:57 - DOS Game Test: Overkill
4:28 - Compatibility issues
5:25 - More stuff the card can do
5:55 - WaveTable Mode in DOOM and Descent
6:19 - Creative EAX features in Thief 1
6:55 - Quad Channel speaker mode
7:15 - Conclusion

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#retrocomputing #msdosgames #aliexpress

[ianpolpo]

The CMI8738 was (and apparently, still is) a great budget PCI sound chip! I used one for a long time because it had bit-perfect SPDIF output unlike the Sound Blaster Live I used before it.

[jbinary]

Nice one! I got ESS Solo1 for such purpose and it really rocks. If I could say something to criticize it would be the IRQ/Address selection which has the classic Plug and Pray which forces you to tweak bios settings.

[Lawnie]

I demand a video of the Doom soundtrack but played through the $12 Ali Express card. Glorious stuff. Speaking of sound, your sound is improving! Keep up the good work!

[JimLeonard]

It appears the card is only good for FM, since you were unable to get digitized sound effects (especially those with continuous auto-dma buffers, like Doom or Descent) working. Still, I guess $12 to get Adlib sound is good, although for $50+ you can get an old card on ebay that works better. Thanks for taking the time to make the video, you've saved me a lot of time. Keep up the good work!

[peterjantzer]

"There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person's lawful prey."

George P. Landow, Professor of English and the History of Art, Brown University.

[theALFEST]

OPL3 compatible FM-synth is not software emulated, it is integrated.

[rebootretro]

I remember these "cut corner" cards being somewhat popular. I definitely remember some were C-Media, but I'm pretty sure other companies were using similar, if not the same, designs as well. Pretty cool!

[SiDWiNDR]

Overkill was one of the first games I (my parents) purchased (it was a shareware floppy in a store). I've never heard many other people talk about it so I'm happy to see it featured here! 🙂

[ReedHansen]

Awesome to bring attention to an affordable modern alternative card. Not perfect, but for some, this may be a good starting point, or may just be enough.

[aaroncheah]

Another option is the ESS Solo-1 also on AliExpress. Better DOS support.

[Jack]

I had this soundchip onboard on my chaintech 7aja2/100 back in 2001

[enzito_sdf]

that DLS thing is kinda interesting though! some games like Final Fantasy 8 for PC support loading custom samples (DLS banks) for the MIDI soundtrack via something called DirectMusic. if you patch the game with samuel slight's ff8 dls soundfont it actually sounds pretty similar to the PS1 version. i'd say these cmedia thingies are pretty nifty for win9x and xp era games.

[kenabi]

fair warning, they make this exact card with two different chips, the C-media one and what appears to be some sort of esoniq? they may have the same pinouts, but they do not have the same feature levels. the esoniq will do fine in windows, but the dos support is a .. well, better to stick with the cmedia one if you can, or as mentioned elsewhere, the ess solo-1, which trumps everything but an actual old sound card, a card with the PC/PCI or SB_LINK, or a compatible one with sbemu.

and listings currently have the cmedia variant running around $9, shipped. though you have to hunt a bit for them.

[neppy-chan]

Pretty decent option it looks like, especially for the price. Might have to try one of these out.

[pentiummmx]

the Yamaha DS-XG, ESS Solo-1, and Avance Logic ALS4000 were some other DOS compatible PCI cards
the SB Live and some Audigy models and the ESS Maestro or Allegro and the Aureal Vortex had some sort of DOS compatibility too but the FM synth was more inferior

[RacerX-]

Who'da thunk you could get something that didn't sound like screahing bats with a cheap sound card? Thanks for the review.

[Injectr]

Ah nice! I’ve just received a PCIe CMI8738. Just to experiment in getting it to work under Windows 98 and DOS. Windows 98 has been a succes thus far. DOS however, that’s a whole other story.

Thanks for this awesome content!

[the_kombinator]

I get all my small electronics for my kids powerwheels on Aliexpress. They're occasionally crappy quality and you gotta wait forever, but the price is always right.

Soundcard though?

[michaelsworkshop]

we need the armpit audio for comparison

[galacticusX]

Do you know if the gameport connects with external MIDI like MT32?