The sound of the 90's

Back in the 90's, computer evolved at an alarming pace. And it was said, that when you bought a computer, the value was reduced by half, the moment you walk out the door. Actually.... The fact was, that faster and better component's were introduced all the time. (allmost on weekly basis in certain field's)

The soundcard. Once a luxury component on the PC-Market, was heavily refined and made better during the 90's. Once a mono card, capeable of nothing more than synthetic music, were finally evolved into a state of the art component in 1998/99. And finally could be found as a sort of standard equipment. (onboard, aprox' 1998/99)

The most widespread standard for music, were OPL-2/3 (Known as Adlib), and the most widespread standard for sound effects were "Soundblaster". There were other standards used, standards such as Gravis Ultrasound.
They were too expensive for the general public, who just wanted cheap sollutions.

For a standard setup in the years of 1994 to 1996, we had something like a Soundblaster 16 if decent quality was needed. Some people stuck to slightly older cards, such as Sound Galaxy cards that had a bit lower quality.

Now.
I am not going into much details about the different soundcards, or all the technical aspects. I am just going to give some examples on how PC-Sound evolved back then.
And what better way, than using youtube and some of the most played games back then.




OPL-2/3:
Adlib Standard, was what started this whole music and sound effects on the pc. Before that, nothing was possible, other than a simple beeper-sound. (wich was horrible and bad)
It was a cheap sollution embraced by a whole army of soundcard makers. And thereby became the standard for sound on the Pc for many years to come.

GUS:

Gravis Ultrasound from Canada, Changed everything. The only real problem for this standard to take on the world. Was it's pricetag here in my country. As everybody wanted the cheapest possible sollution of them all. I reckon that this was the case around the world too. This standard however, was embraced by musician's and people at the demo scene.

I have choosen one game this time, and two demo's wich really makes the GUS shine.

 

AWE-32/64:

Creative Labs realized that they wanted to make something like the GUS, and created the "AWE" line of soundcards. Compared to GUS, they sound a lot alike. And most people just bought an AWE-Something. It could be the AWE32 model whatever or the AWE32 model whatever that was choosen. In retrospective, we now know what cards are the best of them all. (it's the small differences that makes the big difference in the end)

Speaking of differences. Just check eBay for "Sound Blaster CT3900" vs. "Sound Blaster CT3600" and you will begin to see what I am talking about here.

In the end, just before Creative started to shift towards PCI slot (sadly), they launched the last line of ISA cards (AWE64), wich are good cards compared to what they have done before. Especially the AWE64-Gold.

They are not in any way perfect. Just really good cards.

 

Final notes and thoughts:
There are tons and tons of other sound solutions in the 90's. Some were really low grade cheap ones and some were really expensive. And still are pretty hefty in price.
Those solutions are Roland or Yamaha MIDI modules. Yes they sound really great, wich a plus. Yet they were not that great for gaming in a broad sense. You really needed to have the exact module for the exact game. Otherwise the sound would not play correct.

Don't get me wrong on this. If you have the money (we are talking big money), and the space to store them. They are THE ABSOLUTELY BEST solution for music in games from the 90's.

Hope you had fun reading this littel roundup on what it could have sounded like, in a gamer's room, back in the 90's. It was fun to write.