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80-624: The OPL series of chips enabled the creation of affordable sound cards in IBM PC compatibles like the AdLib and Sound Blaster , becoming a de-facto standard until they were supplanted by " wavetable synthesis " cards in the early-to-mid 1990s. The internal operation of the chips is completely digital. Each FM-tone is generated by a digital oscillator using a form of direct digital synthesis . A low-frequency oscillator and an envelope generator drive an FM operator to produce floating-point output for

160-406: A & ( ∼ a + 1 ) {\displaystyle a\And (\sim a+1)} , where & {\displaystyle \And } means bitwise operation AND and ∼ {\displaystyle \sim } means bitwise operation NOT on a {\displaystyle a} . For MSb 1 numbering, the value of an unsigned binary integer

240-617: A Yamaha OPL4 sound chip. Prior to the Moonsound, there were also sound cards called MSX Music and MSX Audio for the system, which uses OPL2 and OPL3 chipsets. The Apple II computers, which did not have sound capabilities beyond rapidly clicking a speaker until the IIGS , could use plug-in sound cards from a variety of manufacturers . The first, in 1978, was ALF's Apple Music Synthesizer , with 3 voices; two or three cards could be used to create 6 or 9 voices in stereo. Later ALF created

320-542: A card could support had to resort to mixing multiple channels in software. Even today, the tendency is still to mix multiple sound streams in software, except in products specifically intended for gamers or professional musicians. As of 2024, sound cards are not commonly programmed with the audio loopback systems commonly called stereo mix , wave out mix , mono mix or what u hear , which previously allowed users to digitally record output otherwise only accessible to speakers. Lenovo and other manufacturers fail to implement

400-587: A clone of the PCjr, duplicated this functionality, with the Tandy 1000 TL/SL/RL models adding digital sound recording and playback capabilities. Many games during the 1980s that supported the PCjr's video standard (described as Tandy-compatible , Tandy graphics , or TGA ) also supported PCjr/Tandy 1000 audio. In the late 1990s, many computer manufacturers began to replace plug-in sound cards with an audio codec chip (a combined audio AD / DA -converter) integrated into

480-456: A microphone. In either case, the sound card uses an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to digitize this signal. Some cards include a sound chip to support the production of synthesized sounds, usually for real-time generation of music and sound effects using minimal data and CPU time. The card may use direct memory access to transfer the samples to and from main memory , from where a recording and playback software may read and write it to

560-505: A power stage, though in many cases they can adequately drive headphones. Professional sound cards are sound cards optimized for high-fidelity, low-latency multichannel sound recording and playback. Their drivers usually follow the Audio Stream Input/Output protocol for use with professional sound engineering and music software. Professional sound cards are usually described as audio interfaces , and sometimes have

640-464: A significant increase in the complexity of tones generated. The drivers for Windows 9x incorporate their own custom instrument patches which make use of this extended mode. Conversely, Legacy mode provides full backward-compatibility with Yamaha's YMF262. ESFM's output in this mode is moderately faithful to the YMF262 overall, but some tones are rendered quite differently, resulting in unique distortions in

720-572: A software downmix at a fixed sampling rate. Modern low-cost integrated sound cards (i.e., those built into motherboards) such as audio codecs like those meeting the AC'97 standard and even some lower-cost expansion sound cards still work this way. These devices may provide more than two sound output channels (typically 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound ), but they usually have no actual hardware polyphony for either sound effects or MIDI reproduction – these tasks are performed entirely in software. This

800-704: A sound card called the Creative Music System (C/MS) at about the same time. Although the C/MS had twelve voices to AdLib's nine and was a stereo card while the AdLib was mono, the basic technology behind it was based on the Philips SAA1099 chip which was essentially a square-wave generator. It sounded much like twelve simultaneous PC speakers would have except for each channel having amplitude control, and failed to sell well, even after Creative renamed it

880-658: A standard PC. Several Japanese computer platforms, including the MSX, X1, X68000, FM Towns and FM-7, have built-in FM synthesis sound from Yamaha by the mid-1980s. By 1989, the FM Towns computer platform featured built-in PCM sample-based sound and supported the CD-ROM format. The custom sound chip on Amiga , named Paula, has four digital sound channels (2 for the left speaker and 2 for

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960-605: Is Sound Blaster compatibility ... It would have been unfair to have recommended anything else." The magazine that year stated that Wing Commander II was "Probably the game responsible" for making it the standard card. The Sound Blaster line of cards, together with the first inexpensive CD-ROM drives and evolving video technology, ushered in a new era of multimedia computer applications that could play back CD audio, add recorded dialogue to video games , or even reproduce full motion video (albeit at much lower resolutions and quality in early days). The widespread decision to support

1040-581: Is a PC speaker driven by a timer. Sound cards were made for the C-Bus expansion slots that these computers had, most of which used Yamaha's FM and PSG chips and made by NEC themselves, although aftermarket clones can also be purchased, and Creative did release a C-Bus version of the SoundBlaster line of sound cards for the platform. Devices such as the Covox Speech Thing could be attached to

1120-425: Is connected to an amplifier, headphones, or external device using standard interconnects, such as a TRS phone connector . A common external connector is the microphone connector. Input through a microphone connector can be used, for example, by speech recognition or voice over IP applications. Most sound cards have a line in connector for an analog input from a sound source that has higher voltage levels than

1200-538: Is intended for generic home, office, and entertainment purposes with an emphasis on playback and casual use, rather than catering to the needs of audio professionals. In general, consumer-grade sound cards impose several restrictions and inconveniences that would be unacceptable to an audio professional. Consumer sound cards are also limited in the effective sampling rates and bit depths they can actually manage and have lower numbers of less flexible input channels. Professional studio recording use typically requires more than

1280-507: Is limited to nine voices in melodic mode and six voices in percussive mode. Having little competition on the market at the time of introduction of Adlib and Sound Blaster , the chip became the de-facto standard for "Sound Blaster compatible" sound cards. The YM3812 is used with the YM3014B external DAC chip to output its audio in analog form, like with the YM3526. An upgraded version of

1360-409: Is often utilized in programming via bit shifting : A value of 1 << n corresponds to the n bit of a binary integer (with a value of 2 ). In digital steganography , sensitive messages may be concealed by manipulating and storing information in the least significant bits of an image or a sound file. The user may later recover this information by extracting the least significant bits of

1440-454: Is similar to the way inexpensive softmodems perform modem tasks in software rather than in hardware. In the early days of wavetable synthesis , some sound card manufacturers advertised polyphony solely on the MIDI capabilities alone. In this case, typically, the card is only capable of two channels of digital sound and the polyphony specification solely applies to the number of MIDI instruments

1520-415: Is the bit position in a binary integer representing the binary 1s place of the integer. Similarly, the most significant bit ( MSb ) represents the highest-order place of the binary integer. The LSb is sometimes referred to as the low-order bit or right-most bit , due to the convention in positional notation of writing less significant digits further to the right. The MSb is similarly referred to as

1600-605: The Apple Music II , a 9-voice model. The most widely supported card, however, was the Mockingboard . Sweet Micro Systems sold the Mockingboard in various models. Early Mockingboard models ranged from 3 voices in mono, while some later designs had 6 voices in stereo. Some software supported use of two Mockingboard cards, which allowed 12-voice music and sound. A 12-voice, single-card clone of the Mockingboard called

1680-707: The Game Blaster a year later, and marketed it through RadioShack in the US. The Game Blaster retailed for under $ 100 and was compatible with many popular games, such as Silpheed . A large change in the IBM PC-compatible sound card market happened when Creative Labs introduced the Sound Blaster card. Recommended by Microsoft to developers creating software based on the Multimedia PC standard,

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1760-734: The Phasor was made by Applied Engineering. The ZX Spectrum that initially only had a beeper had some sound cards made for it. Examples include TurboSound Other examples are the Fuller Box, and Zon X-81. The Commodore 64, while having an integrated SID (Sound Interface Device) chip, also had sound cards made for it. For example, the Sound Expander, which added on an OPL FM synthesizer. The PC-98 series of computers, like their IBM PC cousins, also do not have integrated sound contrary to popular belief, and their default configuration

1840-581: The YMF278 ( OPL4 ), the single-chip Yamaha YMF718/719S, and the PCI YMF724/74x family, included the YMF262's FM synthesis block for backward compatibility with legacy software. See YMF7xx for more information. The YM3526 was notably used in a Commodore 64 expansion, the Sound Expander , as well as several arcade games , such as Terra Cresta and Bubble Bobble . A modified version of

1920-606: The ZX Spectrum , MSX , Mac , and Apple IIGS . Workstations from Sun , Silicon Graphics and NeXT do as well. In some cases, most notably in those of the Macintosh, IIGS, Amiga, C64, SGI Indigo, X68000, MSX, Falcon, Archimedes, FM-7 and FM Towns, they provide very advanced capabilities (as of the time of manufacture), in others they are only minimal capabilities. Some of these platforms have also had sound cards designed for their bus architectures that cannot be used in

2000-437: The hard disk for storage, editing, or further processing. An important sound card characteristic is polyphony , which refers to its ability to process and output multiple independent voices or sounds simultaneously. These distinct channels are seen as the number of audio outputs, which may correspond to a speaker configuration such as 2.0 (stereo), 2.1 (stereo and sub woofer), 5.1 (surround), or other configurations. Sometimes,

2080-488: The high-order bit or left-most bit . In both cases, the LSb and MSb correlate directly to the least significant digit and most significant digit of a decimal integer. Bit indexing correlates to the positional notation of the value in base 2. For this reason, bit index is not affected by how the value is stored on the device, such as the value's byte order . Rather, it is a property of the numeric value in binary itself. This

2160-440: The motherboard , using components similar to those found on plug-in cards. The integrated sound system is often still referred to as a sound card . Sound processing hardware is also present on modern video cards with HDMI to output sound along with the video using that connector; previously they used a S/PDIF connection to the motherboard or sound card. Typical uses of sound cards or sound card functionality include providing

2240-440: The motherboard . Many of these used Intel 's AC'97 specification. Others used inexpensive ACR slot accessory cards. From around 2001, many motherboards incorporated full-featured sound cards, usually in the form of a custom chipset, providing something akin to full Sound Blaster compatibility and relatively high-quality sound. However, these features were dropped when AC'97 was superseded by Intel's HD Audio standard, which

2320-400: The two's complement method. The MSb most significant bit has a negative weight in signed integers, in this case -2 = -128. The other bits have positive weights. The lsb ( least significant bit ) has weight 2 =1. The signed value is in this case -128+2 = -126. The expressions most significant bit first and least significant bit at last are indications on the ordering of the sequence of

2400-517: The CPU. Later, the integrated audio ( AC'97 and later HD Audio ) prefer the use of a software MIDI synthesizer, for example, Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth in Microsoft Windows . With some exceptions, for years, sound cards, most notably the Sound Blaster series and their compatibles, had only one or two channels of digital sound. Early games and MOD -players needing more channels than

2480-767: The DAC. Decapsulation of the chips shows two look-up tables, one for calculating exponents and one for log-sine. This allows the FM operator to calculate its output without any multipliers, using the formula exp ⁡ [ log ⁡ sin ⁡ [ φ 2 + exp ⁡ [ log ⁡ sin ⁡ [ φ 1 ] + A 1 ] ] + A 2 ] {\displaystyle \exp[\log \sin[\varphi _{2}+\exp[\log \sin[\varphi _{1}]+A_{1}]]+A_{2}]} and two 256-entry look-up tables. Both tables are stored as pairs of values rounded to

Yamaha OPL - Misplaced Pages Continue

2560-640: The IBM PC platform were not designed for gaming or multimedia applications, but rather on specific audio applications, such as music composition with the AdLib Personal Music System , IBM Music Feature Card , and Creative Music System , or on speech synthesis like Digispeech DS201 , Covox Speech Thing , and Street Electronics Echo . In 1988, a panel of computer-game CEOs stated at the Consumer Electronics Show that

2640-772: The MSX-MUSIC standard, which was released both as separate enhancement cards (such as the Panasonic FM-PAC) and built-in into several MSX2+ and the MSX TurboR computers. The YMF262 was used in many IBM PC-based sound cards , firstly with the popular Sound Blaster Pro 2 in 1991 and then later with the Sound Blaster 16 ASP in 1992, as well as the Pro AudioSpectrum (16bit). Later models of the Sound Blaster 16 and Sound Blaster AWE series integrated

2720-574: The MT-32 were made to be less expensive. By 1992, one sound card vendor advertised that its product was "Sound Blaster, AdLib, Disney Sound Source and Covox Speech Thing Compatible!" Responding to readers complaining about an article on sound cards that unfavorably mentioned the Gravis Ultrasound , Computer Gaming World stated in January 1994 that, "The de facto standard in the gaming world

2800-531: The Midway T-Unit hardware. The T-Unit hardware already has an onboard YM2151 OPL chip coupled with an OKI 6295 DAC, but said game uses an added-on DCS card instead. The card is also used in the arcade version of Midway and Aerosmith 's Revolution X for complex looping music and speech playback. MSX computers, while equipped with built-in sound capabilities, also relied on sound cards to produce better-quality audio. The card, known as Moonsound , uses

2880-581: The OPL2, the YMF262 (a.k.a. OPL3 ), was released in 1990. It improved upon the feature-set of the YM3812, using four-operator FM synthesis, which produces harmonically richer sound similar to contemporary consumer synthesizer keyboards such as Yamaha DX100 . The following features were added: The YMF262 also removed support for the little-used CSM (Composite sine mode), featured on the YM3812 and YM3526. The mode

2960-648: The OPL3 was written in SystemVerilog and adapted to an FPGA in 2015. Sound cards Line in or out via one of: Microphone via one of: A sound card (also known as an audio card ) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs . The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces used for professional audio applications. Sound functionality can also be integrated into

3040-748: The OPL3 with other chips, with Creative Labs using an OPL3 clone chip, the CQM, integral with other chips in later models from late 1995. It is also used in several arcade games by Tecmo and others. The YMF278 was used in the Moonsound card for the MSX, as well as the SoundEdge card by Yamaha for IBM PC compatibles. Synthesizers that use the YM3812: Synthesizers that use the YM2413 (cost reduced YM3812): An open-source RTL implementation of

3120-547: The PC speaker like RealSound . The resulting audio, while functional, suffered from the heavily distorted output and low volume, and usually required all other processing to be stopped while sounds were played. Other home computers of the 1980s like the Commodore 64 included hardware support for digital sound playback or music synthesis, leaving the IBM PC at a disadvantage when it came to multimedia applications. Early sound cards for

3200-625: The PC's limited sound capability prevented it from becoming the leading home computer, that it needed a $ 49–79 sound card with better capability than current products, and that once such hardware was widely installed, their companies would support it. Sierra On-Line , which had pioneered supporting EGA and VGA video, and 3-1/2" disks, promised that year to support the AdLib, IBM Music Feature, and Roland MT-32 sound cards in its games. A 1989 Computer Gaming World survey found that 18 of 25 game companies planned to support AdLib, six Roland and Covox, and seven Creative Music System/Game Blaster. One of

3280-639: The Sound Blaster brought digital audio playback to the PC. Many game companies also supported the MT-32, but supported the Adlib card as an alternative because of the latter's higher market base. The adoption of the MT-32 led the way for the creation of the MPU-401 , Roland Sound Canvas and General MIDI standards as the most common means of playing in-game music until the mid-1990s. Early ISA bus sound cards were half-duplex , meaning they couldn't record and play digitized sound simultaneously. Later, ISA cards like

Yamaha OPL - Misplaced Pages Continue

3360-415: The Sound Blaster cloned the AdLib and added a sound coprocessor for recording and playback of digital audio. The card also included a game port for adding a joystick , and the capability to interface to MIDI equipment using the game port and a special cable. With AdLib compatibility and more features at nearly the same price, most buyers chose the Sound Blaster. It eventually outsold the AdLib and dominated

3440-563: The Sound Blaster design in multimedia and entertainment titles meant that future sound cards such as Media Vision 's Pro Audio Spectrum and the Gravis Ultrasound had to be Sound Blaster compatible if they were to sell well. Until the early 2000s, when the AC'97 audio standard became more widespread and eventually usurped the SoundBlaster as a standard due to its low cost and integration into many motherboards, Sound Blaster compatibility

3520-474: The SoundBlaster AWE series and Plug-and-play Soundblaster clones supported simultaneous recording and playback, but at the expense of using up two IRQ and DMA channels instead of one. Conventional PCI bus cards generally do not have these limitations and are mostly full-duplex. Sound cards have evolved in terms of digital audio sampling rate (starting from 8-bit 11025 Hz , to 32-bit, 192 kHz that

3600-726: The YM3526 with ADPCM audio known as the Y8950 (MSX-AUDIO) was used in the MSX computer as an optional expansion. The YM3812 saw wide use in IBM PC -based sound cards such as the AdLib , Sound Blaster and Pro AudioSpectrum (8bit) , as well as several arcade games by Nichibutsu , Toaplan and others. The YM2413 was used in the FM Sound Unit expansion for the Sega Mark III and the Japanese model Sega Master System , as well as

3680-438: The audio component for multimedia applications such as music composition, editing video or audio, presentation, education and entertainment (games) and video projection. Sound cards are also used for computer-based communication such as voice over IP and teleconferencing . Sound cards use a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), which converts recorded or generated digital signal data into an analog format. The output signal

3760-516: The bit number and a base of 2. The value of an unsigned binary integer is therefore where b i denotes the value of the bit with number i , and N denotes the number of bits in total. When the bit numbering starts at zero for the most significant bit (MSb) the numbering scheme is called MSb 0 . The value of an unsigned binary integer is therefore LSb of a number can be calculated with time complexity of O ( n ) {\displaystyle O(n)} with formula

3840-433: The bits in the bytes sent over a wire in a serial transmission protocol or in a stream (e.g. an audio stream). Most significant bit first means that the most significant bit will arrive first: hence e.g. the hexadecimal number 0x12 , 00010010 in binary representation, will arrive as the sequence 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 . Least significant bit first means that the least significant bit will arrive first: hence e.g.

3920-530: The companies Sierra partnered with were Roland and AdLib, opting to produce in-game music for King's Quest 4 that supported the MT-32 and AdLib Music Synthesizer. The MT-32 had superior output quality, due in part to its method of sound synthesis as well as built-in reverb. Since it was the most sophisticated synthesizer they supported, Sierra chose to use most of the MT-32's custom features and unconventional instrument patches, producing background sound effects (e.g., chirping birds, clopping horse hooves, etc.) before

4000-499: The exponent, 1024 is added to the value at the index given by the least significant byte of input; this becomes the significand and the remaining bits of input become the exponent of the floating point output. The YM3526 , introduced in 1984, was the first in the OPL family, providing a nine channel, two operator synthesizer. A very closely related chip is the Y8950 , or MSX-AUDIO , which

4080-473: The feature in hardware, while other manufacturers disable the driver from supporting it. In some cases, loopback can be reinstated with driver updates. Alternatively, software such as virtual audio cable applications can be purchased to enable the functionality. According to Microsoft, the functionality was hidden by default in Windows Vista to reduce user confusion, but is still available, as long as

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4160-436: The feature-set of the YMF262, with a number of differences: ESS Technology 's in-house developed derivative, termed ESFM , is an enhanced 72-operator OPL3-compatible clone incorporating two operating modes, a Native mode and a Legacy mode, which controls its feature-set and behavior. In Native mode, ESFM allows 18 4-operator FM voices to be mapped, each with per-operator frequency control and LFO depth, potentially allowing for

4240-464: The first manufacturers of sound cards for the IBM PC was AdLib, which produced a card based on the Yamaha YM3812 sound chip, also known as the OPL2. The AdLib had two modes: A 9-voice mode where each voice could be fully programmed, and a less frequently used percussion mode with 3 regular voices producing 5 independent percussion-only voices for a total of 11. Creative Labs also marketed

4320-660: The form of external rack-mountable units using USB , FireWire , or an optical interface, to offer sufficient data rates. The emphasis in these products is, in general, on multiple input and output connectors, direct hardware support for multiple input and output sound channels, as well as higher sampling rates and fidelity as compared to the usual consumer sound card. On the other hand, certain features of consumer sound cards such as support for 3D audio , hardware acceleration in video games , or real-time ambiance effects are secondary, nonexistent or even undesirable in professional audio interfaces. The typical consumer-grade sound card

4400-450: The last two bits illustrates the least significant bits changed in the binary representation. This table illustrates an example of decimal value of 149 and the location of LSb. In this particular example, the position of unit value (decimal 1 or 0) is located in bit position 0 (n = 0). MSb stands for most significant bit , while LSb stands for least significant bit . This table illustrates an example of an 8 bit signed decimal value using

4480-466: The latest solutions support). Along the way, some cards started offering wavetable synthesis , which provides superior MIDI synthesis quality relative to the earlier Yamaha OPL based solutions, which uses FM-synthesis . Some higher-end cards (such as Sound Blaster AWE32 , Sound Blaster AWE64 and Sound Blaster Live! ) introduced their own RAM and processor for user-definable sound samples and MIDI instruments as well as to offload audio processing from

4560-551: The logarithmic scale signal back to linear scale when required, as the final stage where the oscillator-outputs are summed together (just prior to the DAC-output bus), with the modulator waveform always delayed by one sample before the carrier waveform. This table is computed by ( 2 x 256 − 1 ) × 1024 {\displaystyle \left({\frac {2^{x}}{256}}-1\right)\times 1024} for values of 0 to 255. To compute

4640-403: The majority IBM PC users, the internal PC speaker was the only way for early PC software to produce sound and music. The speaker hardware was typically limited to square waves . The resulting sound was generally described as "beeps and boops" which resulted in the common nickname beeper . Several companies, most notably Access Software , developed techniques for digital sound reproduction over

4720-413: The manipulated pixels to recover the original message. This allows the storage or transfer of digital information to remain concealed. [REDACTED] A diagram showing how manipulating the least significant bits of a color can have a very subtle and generally unnoticeable affect on the color. In this diagram, green is represented by its RGB value, both in decimal and in binary. The red box surrounding

4800-468: The market. Roland also made sound cards in the late 1980s such as the MT-32 and LAPC-I . Roland cards sold for hundreds of dollars. Many games, such as Silpheed and Police Quest II, had music written for their cards. The cards were often poor at sound effects such as laughs, but for music were by far the best sound cards available until the mid-nineties. Some Roland cards, such as the SCC, and later versions of

4880-605: The nearest whole number, with the second value represented as the difference between it and the first value. A quarter of the log-transformed sine waveform is stored as a sampled approximation in a 256- word read-only memory (ROM) table, computed by 256 × − log 2 ⁡ ( sin ⁡ ( ( x + 0.5 ) × π 512 ) ) {\displaystyle 256\times -\log _{2}\left(\sin \left({\frac {(x+0.5)\times \pi }{512}}\right)\right)} for values of 0 to 255. The rest of

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4960-418: The negative part of the sine is muted), absolute-sine waves (where the negative part is inverted), and pseudo-sawtooth waves (quarter sine waves upward only with silent sections in between). This odd way of producing waveforms give the YM3812 a characteristic sound. Limited to two-operator FM synthesis, the chip is unable to accurately reproduce timbres of real instruments and percussive sounds. Melody polyphony

5040-462: The original OPL3. Yamaha also produced a fully compatible, low-power variant of the YMF262 in 1995 called the YMF289 (OPL3-L), which targeted PCMCIA sound cards and laptop computers. It was used in some Sound Blaster 16 sound cards made by Creative Technology . The YMF289B is paired with a YAC513 or YAC516 companion floating-point DAC chip. The YMF289 is fully register-compatible with and retains

5120-424: The parallel port of an IBM PC and fed 6- or 8-bit PCM sample data to produce audio. Also, many types of professional sound cards take the form of an external FireWire or USB unit, usually for convenience and improved fidelity. Least significant bit In computing , bit numbering is the convention used to identify the bit positions in a binary number . In computing , the least significant bit ( LSb )

5200-422: The phase of one channel's oscillators by the output of another. The YM3526's output, a sequence of floating point numbers clocked at a sampling frequency of approximately 49716 Hz, is sent to a separate digital-to-analog converter (DAC) chip, the YM3014B. Overview of a channel's registers: For the whole channel: For each one of the two oscillators: There are also a few parameters that can be set for

5280-405: The right) with 8-bit resolution for each channel and a 6-bit volume control per channel. Sound playback on Amiga was done by reading directly from the chip RAM without using the main CPU. Most arcade video games have integrated sound chips. In the 1980s it was common to have a separate microprocessor for handling communication with the sound chip. The earliest known sound card used by computers

5360-414: The same hexadecimal number 0x12 , again 00010010 in binary representation, will arrive as the (reversed) sequence 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 . When the bit numbering starts at zero for the least significant bit (LSb) the numbering scheme is called LSb 0 . This bit numbering method has the advantage that for any unsigned number the value of the number can be calculated by using exponentiation with

5440-403: The sine-waveform is extrapolated via its property of symmetry. Scaling the output of an oscillator to a wanted volume would normally be done by multiplication, but the YM3526 avoids multiplications by operating on log-transformed signals, which reduces multiplications into computationally cheaper additions. Another 256-word ROM stores the exponential function as a lookup table, used to convert

5520-636: The sound and music of some games. ESFM is available in ESS sound chips starting with the ISA-based ES1688 AudioDrive, up to the PCI-based ES1946 Solo-1E, whereas earlier chips required an external FM synthesizer chip (typically a Yamaha YMF262). ESS's Maestro series of PCI-based sound chips rely on a software implementation of FM synthesis that lacks ESFM's special features. Yamaha's later PC audio controllers, including

5600-640: The sound card is capable of producing at once. Modern sound cards may provide more flexible audio accelerator capabilities which can be used in support of higher levels of polyphony or other purposes such as hardware acceleration of 3D sound, positional audio and real-time DSP effects. Connectors on the sound cards are color-coded as per the PC System Design Guide . They may also have symbols of arrows, holes and soundwaves that are associated with each jack position. Sound cards for IBM PC–compatible computers were very uncommon until 1988. For

5680-775: The terms voice and channel are used interchangeably to indicate the degree of polyphony, not the output speaker configuration. For example, much older sound chips could accommodate three voices, but only one output audio channel (i.e., a single mono output), requiring all voices to be mixed together. Later cards, such as the AdLib sound card, had a 9-voice polyphony combined in 1 mono output channel. Early PC sound cards had multiple FM synthesis voices (typically 9 or 16) which were used for MIDI music. The full capabilities of advanced cards are often not fully used; only one (mono) or two ( stereo ) voice(s) and channel(s) are usually dedicated to playback of digital sound samples, and playing back more than one digital sound sample usually requires

5760-549: The two channels that consumer sound cards provide, and more accessible connectors, unlike the variable mixture of internal—and sometimes virtual—and external connectors found in consumer-grade sound cards . In 1984, the first IBM PCjr had a rudimentary 3-voice sound synthesis chip (the SN76489 ) which was capable of generating three square-wave tones with variable amplitude , and a pseudo- white noise channel that could generate primitive percussion sounds. The Tandy 1000, initially

5840-581: The underlying sound card drivers and hardware support it. Ultimately, the user can use the analog loophole and connect the line out directly to the line in on the sound card. However, in laptops, manufacturers have gradually moved from providing 3 separate jacks with TRS connectors – usually for line in, line out/headphone out and microphone – into just a single combo jack with TRRS connector that combines inputs and outputs. The number of physical sound channels has also increased. The first sound card solutions were mono. Stereo sound

5920-589: The whole chip: In 1985, Yamaha created the YM3812 , also known as the OPL2 . It is backward compatible with the YM3526. Another related chip is the YM2413 (OPLL), which is a cut down version. Among its newly-added features is the ability to pick between four waveforms for each individual oscillator by setting a register. In addition to the original sine wave, three modified waveforms can be produced: half-sine waves (where

6000-508: Was a standard that many other sound cards supported to maintain compatibility with many games and applications released. When game company Sierra On-Line opted to support add-on music hardware in addition to built-in hardware such as the PC speaker and built-in sound capabilities of the IBM PCjr and Tandy 1000 , what could be done with sound and music on the IBM PC changed dramatically. Two of

6080-646: Was equivalent to triggering multiple channels simultaneously. The YMF262's FM synthesis mode can be configured in different ways: Like its predecessors, the OPL3 outputs audio in digital-I/O form, requiring an external DAC chip such as the YAC512. The YMF262 was used in the revised Sound Blaster Pro , Sound Blaster 16 , AdLib Gold , Media Vision ’s Pro AudioSpectrum cards , and Microsoft ’s Windows Sound System cards . Competing sound chip vendors (such as ESS, OPTi, Crystal and others) designed their own OPL3-compatible audio chips, with varying degrees of faithfulness to

6160-414: Was introduced in the early 1980s, and quadraphonic sound came in 1989. This was shortly followed by 5.1 channel audio. The latest sound cards support up to 8 audio channels for the 7.1 speaker setup. A few early sound cards had sufficient power to drive unpowered speakers directly – for example, two watts per channel. With the popularity of amplified speakers, sound cards no longer have

6240-548: Was released in 2004, again specified the use of a codec chip, and slowly gained acceptance. As of 2011, most motherboards have returned to using a codec chip, albeit an HD Audio compatible one, and the requirement for Sound Blaster compatibility relegated to history. Many home computers have their own motherboard-integrated sound devices: Commodore 64 , Amiga , PC-88 , FM-7 , FM Towns , Sharp X1 , X68000 , BBC Micro , Electron , Archimedes , Atari 8-bit computers , Atari ST , Atari Falcon , Amstrad CPC , later revisions of

6320-648: Was the Gooch Synthetic Woodwind , a music device for PLATO terminals , and is widely hailed as the precursor to sound cards and MIDI. It was invented in 1972. Certain early arcade machines made use of sound cards to achieve playback of complex audio waveforms and digital music, despite being already equipped with onboard audio. An example of a sound card used in arcade machines is the Digital Compression System card, used in games from Midway . For example, Mortal Kombat II on

6400-471: Was used as an MSX expansion. It is essentially a YM3526 with ADPCM recording and playback capability. The circuit has 244 different write-only registers . It can produce 9 channels of sound, each made of two oscillators or 6 channels with 5 percussion instruments available. Each oscillator can produce sine waves and has its own ADSR envelope generator . Its main method of synthesis is frequency modulation synthesis , accomplished via phase modulation of

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