Creative Music System/Game Blaster PC Music Collection - NintendoComplete

A selection of songs from PC games that supported the 8-bit Creative Music System (CMS)/Game Blaster sound cards from Creative Labs, Inc.

The CMS is the (somewhat still under-recognized) precursor to Creative's line of Sound Blaster cards, and debuted in late 1987. It's difficult to overstate the success the Sound Blasters met with, becoming the defacto-standard for compatibility with all PC software for years. Those cards differed from the CMS in a few important ways, though. The SB cards used the same Yamaha chip for FM synthesis as the Adlib, as well as 8 or 16-bit DACs for digital playback (and only the original 8-bit SB cards retained any ability to make use of CMS playback).

The CMS had no DAC like the Adlib cards, but it also lacked FM capabilities. It played music through a pair of Philips SAA1099 PSG chips (6-voices each), one for each channel - hence the "12-voice stereo music synthesizer" message that the demo at the beginning of the video so eagerly blazons across the screen, in retina-searing CGA, no less.

If you can't be bothered with the technical yada-yada behind what everything does, here's an easy comparison. FM is what you hear in things like Sega Genesis games, late 80s and early 90s arcade games, not to mention what seems about every 80s pop song ever. You hear PSG in stuff that usually gets called chiptune; you hear it from the Commodore 64, the NES, Master System, GameBoy, and early 80s arcade games.

So, the Adlib/SB was FM and the CMS was PSG. Kinda like listening to a souped-up Genesis versus a souped-up NES, if you'll forgive the crude comparison. As much as I loved the way my Sound Blaster 16 sounded, I always thought that the tinnier, more electronic sounding PSG music had a lot of character, and when it was done well could easily rival the best FM stuff. The card was good fit in a 286 or a 386, given the window that the market supported the card.

The CMS was fairly actively supported. As I'm sure you can tell by the release dates in the video, it was relevant from 1988ish to 1991/2ish. Very ish there. I'm not an authority on the topic :) It got largely passed over for the Adlib for things like sound quality and versatility (and then soon afterward the SB just appeared and seemingly overnight took over the world), but I reckon it still had enough support to warrant an appreciative look back at.

Hope you enjoy the video. Whether you're stroking nostalgia with this video, or you're just hearing of the CMS for the first time, there's some really neat stuff here.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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