(Retro) sound card recommendations?

Simply look for the biggest heatsink you can fit? The one that came with mine is so massive, I had to install the PSU slightly crooked, so maybe I'll cut it down a little. Mind the airflow though. Mine just happens to sit directly besides the PSU intake, which is perfect.

I have been using CF cards in an old (75Mhz Pentium) notebook, my Z64 and occasionally in random PCs for a couple of years. The card itself is obviously a major factor, so don't skimp on that if speed is a priority. I've never done a real comparison with HDDs myself, but it never felt too slow - from my experience you'll run into CPU bottlenecks more often than into IO ones anyways, so I didn't even spend much on my cards. Even with a slow/cheap card, you'll eliminate the seek times when accessing lots of small files, which can make a world of difference.

Regarding the life span, that probably depends a lot on the OS. I guess Win9x's swapfile will kill them a lot faster than DOS. That being said, I haven't lost a single card yet - my occasionaly swapping them out for bigger ones probably helped with that though, so ymmv.

 

Just about all sound cards in the Nineties were ISA, so if you want a TRUE machine of the Nineties, get an old motherboard. I remember when they made the PCI version of the AWE64 Gold, there were all sorts of compatibility issues with legacy games looking for ISA cards. I believe you needed a special motherboard link to get DOS games working, basically. I have no idea if there's a modern work-around for the resource issue. There was a time where you basically chose your card depending on what you wanted it to be compatible with, and most solutions were a compromise one way or another.

SoundBlasters were pretty horrible cards, but they were cheap and cheerful and designed to be compatible with pretty much anything, so popular for the average PC and with the average gamer, too. The custom drivers for later SoundBlasters actually made them not too bad for an audio rig, but nowhere near as good as a proper studio card still. The AWE64 Gold is a lovely card, but eh, OKa bit on the expensive side nowadays (last time I checked, anyway). The Live! was eh, OK. I have one in my old rig (Platinum).

There were some AWE clones - they were terrible! Avoid them.

As for age, AWE32 came out in 1994, AWE64 in 1996. Live! came out in 1998. Oh, and around that time, Turtle Beach cards were quite popular.

Voodoo3 was a nice card that got outdated very quickly. I remember trying to play a Tony Hawk's game on it, and it looked like Army Men - grey plastic people!!

 

So, speaking of retro builds - I've managed to find AGP and PCI flex risers, but I can't find any ISA flex risers. By Flex riser, I mean a ribbon cable with a male and female connection at the ends. I have a horizontal PC case that I've got a retro build in. I have a spare AWE64 Gold, but I can't use it due to not having a riser available. I've found many traditional PCB ISA risers, but they don't fit the case, and the riser that came with the case won't fit the mobo (it's a Baby AT with some PCI slots right where the ISA riser should go).

I could build my own flex riser, but I hear they have interference problems when home built. A pre-fab flex riser is shielded to alleviate this problem. Anybody know of a retailer of ISA flex risers?

 

Why cant you just get an ISA riser card?

 

...or a case that fits?

 

Well, the ISA riser cards I've tried don't fit the case, and the ISA riser card that came with the case also won't fit.

Astonishingly enough finding an AT case these days is rather tough. I remember back in the day throwing away tons of them, never thought I'd actually need one now. I can buy a whole system to get a case, but that's a bit illogical because a retro gaming PC build is, ideally, supposed to be on the cheap. I actually purchased the case I'm using right now for $30. It's great for everything except the 1 ISA card I need. Worst comes to worst, I'll just throw a SB Live! PCI card into it with a flex riser, but man I'd love to get this ISA AWE64 pumping.

 

AWE64 Gold (ISA)