When I was small and setting up sound card in DOS games using Sound Blaster 16, there was always one of these magical options that said General MIDI or MPU-401 compatible, Gravis Ultrasound or SC-55, it was a wet dream of mine to ever being able to utilise one of these options. There were, of course, lots of other options to choose from and from time to time, not very often though, you could find this, Windows Sound System. There was nothing magical about that one and nobody really cared what it is. And that’s exactly what I’ve got here today to find out if I missed on anything.
I always reckoned it’s got something to do with Microsoft, judging by the name and I was right, Windows Sound System was a specification for Windows 3 audio, which was developed in 1992 and the card itself was actually made by Microsoft the same year. And not only that, it actually became sort of standard among others like General MIDI, Sound Blaster or Adlib. When the card was released, it cost $289 which is over $600 nowadays. These days, you can find them on ebay for more than £200. The retail box included the card, a microphone and some headphones. Since my card is without a box I wanted to find some picture or video on the web for the review, all I could find was this video from LGR, so I had to steal it, obviously.
Hardware
Even though it was initially made by Microsoft, you could later find lots of OEM cards. They were everywhere, desktops and laptops, lots of them lacked MIDI support and honestly, I haven’t read anything good about these OEM cards. But let’s have a gander at the first, original version which I’ve got. At first glance, the card seems to be manufactured with high quality components and rather nice circuit board. What’s also quite extraordinary is a usage of RCA connectors. Basically, every sound card from that era, with only couple of exceptions, used 3.5″ jack connector. These RCA connectors are for line output, which is an output without amplification, right next to them is 3.5″ jack connector for speaker output, which is a little bit amplified by the card, for instance, for headphones. Next to it are typical MIC in and line in jacks.
The card utilises Analog Devices AD1848 chipset which supports typical 16-bit resolution and not so typical 48kHz sampling rate. Other cards of that era such as Sound Blaster or Gravis support “only” 44.1kHz, which is also a maximum frequency the Windows Sound System lets you record wave files. MIDI support was a must at the time, so Yamaha OPL-3 chip is used for FM synth (FM synthesis is not technically MIDI, but you know what I mean), however, there is no waveblaster or MPU-401 connector, so if you fancy some sort of wavetable in a form of daughter boards or external modules, you’re out of luck and you’re stuck with FM synthesis. What’s also missing is some way to connect a CD-ROM audio internally, that means if you want to listen to CD audio, you have to connect a CD-ROM drive through line input. Same goes for a PC speaker connector or typical IDE connectors you could find on practically every other card.
Software
The software I’ve found online was only for Windows 3, maybe it’s got something to do with the name of the card. Even if you don’t want to use the card under Windows, you still need to install the Windows software to get it running under DOS, meaning Sound Blaster emulation. I was simply unable to install the bloody driver. I’ve found about 5 different versions and every time it was complaining about some missing files, maybe it’s got something to do with the card or the OS or both being dog shite. Since I couldn’t get it installed in about three hours of trying, I got pissed off and got back to proper environment.
DOS games don’t need any special driver loaded in memory, as long as the game specifically supports Windows Sound System, there are not many games that do, though. If the game doesn’t support Windows Sound System, you need special TSR utility called wssxlat to enable Sound Blaster emulation, which is, let’s say, not very helpful. It doesn’t work most of the time, and when it does, it sometimes locks up the computer. Moreover, it needs EMM386 loaded, so the games that don’t work under that environment and don’t support Windows Sound System usually end up without sound. Moreover, the Windows Sound System should be 100% compatible with Adlib, but we’ll see about that.
Setting up the card is not a terrible procedure, when the game supports the Windows Sound System, it should work without any problems, just select the driver and you should be ready to go. Everything is not always as you might want and that’s exactly this case, this card works only in half of the games that support it, at least in the games I tried. Windows Sound System uses some weird IRQs and DMAs. As I said before you need to install the drivers for Windows to get the TSR utility, but if you’re lazy or you just don’t want to use Windows, you can simply copy the file from the installation disk and extract it using the expand program. The problem with running the Windows Sound System under DOS is that there is no way to adjust volume or anything else for that matter, you’re just stuck with whatever the default settings are, but to be perfectly honest, I’m not surprised.
Tests
Now let’s get to the tests.
Noise – Firstly, I had to try how noisy the card is. Compared to the Roland RAP, it’s a little bit worse, but it’s on par with Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold, so it’s quite good actually. As always, I boosted the signal by 24dB to be able to hear better how terrible the noise is.
Since there are two outputs, line out and speaker out, I’ve tested both, here’s the difference.
Sometimes, after the card is initialised by a game, it gets bloody noisy for some reason and you have to restart the rig to “fix” it.
This card is the worst hanging notes offender I’ve ever seen or heard in this case. It happens pretty much in every game and sometimes even when the computer is turned off. Just taking the piss, but really sometimes it even changes a tune completely.
Games
AITD – worked only using SB emulation, but worked pretty much fine.
BioForge – I couldn’t get sounds in BioForge working no matter what, and SB emulation didn’t help.
Doom – No sounds for Doom either.
Doom 2 – Sounds in Doom 2 didn’t work either, just music.
Duke 3D – Sounds didn’t work in Duke 3D, as well as Sound Blaster music, but Adlib music worked fine
Duke 2 – Even though Duke 2 works without the emulator, Sound Blaster sounds are rubbish for some reason, so if you want to enjoy the game, you need to use Adlib sounds.
Dune II – Dune II works perfectly fine without the emulation
Dungeon Master 2 – Uses HMI drivers and it’s not, let’s say, optimal. Sounds work using Windows Sound System driver without problems, however, music doesn’t, I had to use Sound Blaster Pro to get it working, at least in the setup, because for some reason, I couldn’t get in the game with the card in the slot, no matter what I set up in the setup.
Flashback – As usual, Flashback’s without a sound, but music works.
Gabriel Knight (diskette) – First game that works without problems using Windows Sound System driver.
HOMAM2 – Same as Gabriel Knight, Heroes of Might and Magic 2 works perfectly using WSS.
Kyrandia – Legend of Kyrandia works fine.
Lemmings – Lemmings works fine.
Magic Carpet – No sounds in Magic Carpet and music works only with Adlib driver.
Monkey Island – Sound Blaster doesn’t work, only Adlib.
Monkey Island 2 – Same as Monkey Island.
Quest for Glory 4 – Sierra games seem to work fine so far.
ROTT – Yet again, Sound Blaster doesn’t work for neither sound nor music, so you’re stuck with Adlib.
Simon – Doesn’t work at all. The only sound I was able to get out of Simon was a beep, right before the rig got locked up. It behaved the same way Dungeon Master 2 did, I couldn’t get in the game with the card in the slot.
Space Quest 1 – Sound Blaster doesn’t work, again only Adlib driver gets the game play music.
Space Quest 5 – This was an interesting one. First, I set the driver to Windows Sound System and it didn’t work. Then I tried using Sound Blaster drivers, which worked but only the sounds not the music. Then I set the sounds to the Sound Blaster and music to Adlib, and this time the music worked and the sounds just stopped working. Lastly, I tried Windows Sound System drivers again and it started working for some reason.
TFX – is completely silent using Sound Blaster drivers, so if you want at least music, you have to go with Adlib.
Time Commando – ok
Ultima 8 – Doesn’t work at all.
Warcraft 2 – The sounds work with WSS, and music works only with the Generic OPL3 driver.
I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream – ok
Descent – ok
Gene Machine – ok
Flight of The Amazon Queen – The music works fine, the sounds don’t.
Conclusion
This is clearly the worst card I’ve ever had a misfortune to use. Terrible support for DOS, no utilities for volume control, atrocious sound blaster emulation, doesn’t work properly even as a Windows Sound System, errors during playback, no wavetable support, it’s just utter rubbish. If you ever think about getting a sound card for your retro system, avoid this one and get literally anything else, unless you collect vintage cards and this one’s missing from your collection. Sure, the noise levels are quite low and it uses Yamaha OPL3, but those are literally the only pros the card’s got. Can’t say I’m surprised, but I was expecting a bit more. This is the worst card of the series so far.