Re: [Alsa-devel] Re: RFC: OSS driver removal, a slightly different approach

[Stuffed Crust <pizza@shaftnet.org>]

On Fri, Jan 20, 2006 at 01:04:30AM -0600, Brent Cook wrote:
> The Adlib card that I had was just an OPL-2 synthesizer, no PCM  
> support at all. Normally, it was mono, 9 voices, 2 FM operators per  
> voice + 3 noise channels, but there was a mode that supported 4  
> operators and reduced the number of voices to 4 or 5.

> An OPL-3 is just 2 OPL-2's, one for each stereo channel. I think that  
> any card with an OPL-3 (SB-16) can act like an OPL-2.

The OPL2 is a 2-operator mono synth, While the OPL3 can operate in a
mode that makes it appear as two OPL2s (stereo, yay!) it has a native
4-operator mode that halves the number of resultant voices, but allows
much more complex instruments, as well as crude native stereo 
capabilities.  (In the end, to do proper stereo panning you had to use 
two voices and vary the volumes directly)

Meanwhile.  The original Adlib did indeed use an OPL2, and since the
original Sound Blaster was little more than an adlib with PCM bolted on,
so did the first few Sound Blaster cards (newer ones also dropped the
CMS AM synth chip, first by making them socketed and optional, later by
eliminating the capability altogether) The Sound Blaster Pro upped the
ante to include a mixer, stereo PCM and two OPL2s, one for each channel. 
Creative Labs quickly revised the SBPro to include a single OPL3
instead, and that's also what went into the SB16 and its ilk (Vibra16,
AWE32, SB32, AWE64, with and without the CSP chip).  They dropped the FM
synthesis capability entirely when they went to PCI cards.

But I digress.

 - Solomon [I think I've used every card Creative put out in the ISA days]
-- 
Solomon Peachy        				 ICQ: 1318344
Melbourne, FL 					 
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

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