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  • Greetings and welcome to an LGR thing!

  • And today's thing is the TexElec

  • Resound OPL3 8-bit ISA sound card released in February of 2018 and

  • currently costing $77.99.

  • So yep this is yet another

  • newly-made retro sound card with AdLib compatibility.

  • That itself is

  • nothing new, there are several good AdLib clones floating around these days.

  • But the Resound has one heck of a neat gimmick that sets it apart.

  • This not only

  • uses the OPL3 sound chip instead of an OPL2 -- you know this was the sound chip

  • that was really popular with tons of early 90s sound cards like the

  • Sound Blaster 16 and compatibles -- but it also introduces, get this: four channels

  • of OPL3 sound!

  • That's right, surround sound AdLib is

  • technically possible!

  • Before we go any further this is not a sponsored

  • video and they didn't give this to me for free or anything.

  • I just bought it

  • and I happen to like it.

  • So let's talk about it!

  • For one thing I just enjoy the

  • visual design of this card, it's a very striking look and it's clean looking and

  • there's a few items on it that stand out from your normal

  • AdLib clone kind of thing.

  • First off is this dip switch bank here for changing the base I/O address

  • from the AdLib's default of 388h.

  • At this point there's really not much

  • reason to ever want to change this but the option is there in case you do.

  • It also has a set of line level input pins up here acting as an auxiliary input in

  • case you want to daisy-chain other sound devices.

  • And you see all these red blocky

  • things here?

  • These are WIMA film capacitors, which it uses instead of your

  • normal electrolytics, which are paired with some input and output decoupling

  • capacitors to try and block DC noise in the audio path to get a much cleaner

  • sounding output.

  • It also has its own 14.31818MHz

  • oscillator instead of just relying on the ISA bus of whatever PC

  • you install it in.

  • This is done to prevent any pitch-changing on select

  • older machines with differing bus speeds than maybe the AdLib or the game expects.

  • And of course you have two 3.5mm audio outputs

  • one for the front left and right speakers

  • and the other for the rear left and right.

  • And being that this is an

  • AdLib-compatible kind of thing the installation is quite simple.

  • As long as

  • you have a free 8-bit ISA slot you're good.

  • But for the games I want to play I

  • like using it on 486 machines like this Unisys CWD-4002 I'm installing this

  • one in right here.

  • And that's it for basic usage, you don't have to set up any

  • drivers or software.

  • If an old game is gonna look for AdLib it's gonna look

  • for 388h, which is what this uses.

  • So let's hit up a few of the pros of the

  • device straight away.

  • And for one thing there is no emulation, as I mentioned

  • earlier this is a proper FM synth on-board: a Yamaha YMF262

  • OPL3 sound chip, ah!

  • Not only is it a great chip but it

  • has really clean output on this card, probably the best I've heard from any

  • sound card with an OPL3 chip.

  • Seriously it's dead silent if there's nothing

  • playing, and all the games I tried sound just as they should.

  • Listen to some of this stuff and enjoy!

  • *good AdLib stuff plays for a while*

  • *mmm, Tyrian. Sounds like OPL3 but it's using OPL2!*

  • *doooooooooooom*

  • *the lesser-played latter half of the Space Quest III theme*

  • Then there's the surround sound mode which just amuses me to no end that it exists!

  • Apparently while designing the card and researching the OPL3 datasheet

  • they noticed a feature which does not seem to have ever been implemented on

  • a commercial sound card back in the day.

  • Which is that on the OPL3 chip there

  • were two more channels beyond the usual two for stereo that are supported

  • straight from the factory.

  • It's worth noting this is different than what the Surround Sound Module did

  • with the Adlib Gold card in 1992.

  • That simply layered some reverb and echo effects on top of existing games and added simulated

  • stereo depth to a few games that supported that, but did not have any output for separate

  • additional sound channels and rear speakers like the Resound does.

  • Now at this point there are no games or really

  • anything that supports it except this one demo program that comes with the

  • sound card itself from TexElec.

  • But hey, it's there!

  • So you can get your

  • normal speakers, plug those into the front, and then two more speakers.

  • Like, I just have some random ones here we're gonna put behind the camera.

  • This is not a surround sound video, so it's only in stereo, it's

  • not gonna be the best example.

  • But yeah, just listen to this!

  • *front left channel plays*

  • *front right channel plays*

  • *rear left channel plays*

  • *rear right channel plays*

  • Yeah there are four distinct channels

  • all around you with AdLib sound coming out of it!

  • That's just so cool to me,

  • I hope that somebody does something with this in the future.

  • And that's really the whole idea of this feature of the card: put the hardware out

  • there and then hope that somebody in the homebrew scene does something with it.

  • And I really hope someone does because I want to hear more things coming through

  • and OPL3 chip all around me.

  • It does have some cons at the moment and

  • this is the 1.1 version of the card and hopefully some of these things will

  • change in the future.

  • But one of the biggest ones is that you cannot adjust

  • the volume, either on the card or through software.

  • And this is kind of an issue

  • because games with FM synth and AdLib support are loud, and then soft, and

  • everywhere in between.

  • I mean, just look at this line out recording of these

  • different games: they're just all over the place as far as their levels and

  • some of them do peak a little bit.

  • Or some are just really, really quiet.

  • So unless the game allows you to adjust it through software you're kind of outta

  • luck and you've just got to rely on external audio adjustment at this point

  • in time, like some good speakers or your amplifier or something like that.

  • But the bigger issue for me is that actually making full use of

  • its OPL3 capability is unpredictable at best.

  • The way you normally get OPL3

  • support in games is by setting it up to directly address a supported device,

  • usually something like the Sound Blaster Pro 2 or Sound Blaster 16.

  • The problem is that doing this with the Resound card typically won't provide

  • anything but an error message.

  • I'm not saying I expected this to work, I'm just pointing out one

  • of the inherent issues in making a card with this approach.

  • Considering there was

  • never a standalone OPL3-only card like this manufactured back in the day, it

  • makes sense that games don't always look for the YMF262 directly, and might rely

  • on detecting some component or a TSR something else this card doesn't have.

  • As a result, with games like Dune and Theme Hospital you're stuck with OPL2 support

  • for the time being, even though games like this technically

  • are able to support the more advanced OPL3 features that this card has.

  • That's just with DOS though: Windows 95 and 98 are a bit of a different story, since you

  • can just tell it to use the default AdLib Gold drivers from Windows and it

  • shows up straight away.

  • You still don't get any Windows volume adjustments since

  • that would require the card to have Windows Sound System support,

  • which it does not.

  • But you can at least use the OPL3 as a MIDI playback device in Windows.

  • So yeah, canyon.mid sounds pretty great!

  • *pretty great-sounding canyon.mid file plays through OPL3 sound chip*

  • And all this raises the question: who exactly is this card for?

  • At $80 it still costs a whole lot less than an original AdLib card,

  • that's for sure. But it's also

  • on-par with or costlier than a good Sound Blaster 16 or any number of common

  • clones from back in the day that'll be more useful to more DOS games.

  • And as cool as the surround sound possibilities are in theory, it's not much of a selling

  • point right now since nothing supports it yet.

  • So I guess the Resound OPL3 is

  • made for full-time PC geeks like me who just like to cram fresh new homebrew

  • cards in slots and see what happens.

  • And I'll admit, it's been a blast to screw

  • around with for me, even with its technical setbacks and quirks.

  • Stuff like this is just straight-up cool in my mind and it's very close

  • to being a fantastic OPL3-based card.

  • And as far as support for the original AdLib goes with OPL2, this is the nicest I've ever

  • heard just because of how clean it is.

  • So if you want a dedicated OPL2 card that just happens to have some other stuff added

  • then this is a great choice.

  • But at the moment it'll be sitting around while I wait for

  • greater software and game support, especially in DOS.

  • And if you enjoyed this look at a custom made retro device then let me know.

  • I've got actually

  • quite a few more of these things to cover that I haven't yet.

  • In the meantime though there

  • are plenty of other videos on my channel and new ones coming

  • every Monday and Friday here on LGR.

  • And as always thank you very much for watching!

Greetings and welcome to an LGR thing!

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