DOS Days

Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro / NX Pro Extra

In 1993, Aztech released the Sound Galaxy NX Pro - their first OPL3-based card.

	Released	1993
	Bus	ISA 16-bit
	FM Synth	Yamaha YMF262 (OPL3)
	Chipset	AZTSSPT0592-U01 (1st generation card)
	Standards	Ad Lib, Sound Blaster 2.5, Covox Speech Thing, Disney Sound Source
	Ports	Speaker-Out, Mic-In, Line-In (stereo), thumbwheel volume control Game port
	CD-ROM	Panasonic and Mitusmi
	Wavetable	None
	Plug & Play	No (but does use Auto-Init for DMA)
	FCC ID(s)	I38-SGNXPRO, I38-MMSD802
	Price	Sep 1993: $115 (NX Pro Extra)
	See Also	Sound Galaxy BX II, Sound Galaxy NX

Alongside the NX II, the NX Pro was the first sound card that supported 5 sound standards: Ad Lib, Sound Blaster 2.0, Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 (NX Pro Extra only), Covox Speech Thing, Disney Sound Source. While the NX Pro used the same chipset as the Sound Galaxy NX II, the mono YM3812 FM synthesizer from the NX II was replaced with a stereo Yamaha YMF262. Most NX Pro cards have a proper OPL3 chip but some are known to have the LS-212 "copy". Like the NX II, it also has an onboard mixer, which mixes line-in, mic-in, CD audio-in and MIDI, and also supported "auto-init" (automatic initialising) DMA which allowed the card to produce a continuous loop of double-buffered sound output.

The Aztech AZTSSPT0592-U01 has an internal DSP version of 2.01, and supports up to 44 KHz mono playback and 22 KHz stereo recording of digital audio.

The standard NX Pro (like the one shown above) have a Mitsumi and Panasonic CD-ROM header, compatible with the Mitsumi LU005S or Panasonic CR-521 and CR-522 CD-ROM drives. The Sound Galaxy NX Pro Extra has SCSI and AT (IDE) CD-ROM headers. Aztech provided an optional 'Future Domain SCSI Upgrade Kit' which included a Future Domain SCSI controller chip and device driver software. The large socket in the top-left corner of these cards is for this SCSI controller chip.

The NX Pro originally came bundled with a good amount of software: First Byte's Monologue text-to-speech synthesizer; Voyetra's WinDAT waveform editor for Windows; SoundScript, a multimedia authoring program; and Galaxy Master, a digital recording and playback program. Another utility program called Jukebox permits you to create playlists and play sound files, and CD Player serves as a CD-audio control panel. Another disk, called Sound Tracks, is a collection of song files, and still another disk contains Windows 3.1 drivers.

It is recommended to install this card on the "far side" of the bus - its sound is disturbed easily by neighbouring cards. Apparently this card also suffers from the reverse stereo issue - you can overcome this by using a twisted audio cable.

Since the card is just a Sound Blaster clone you can use the Sound Blaster DOS driver to set the resources as well as the built-in Windows 95 Creative Sound Blaster Pro driver for Windows sound. The card's wavetable connector only works in Windows 3.1, not DOS.

The Sound Galaxy NX Pro was also sold by Reveal as the SC 300, and by CPS in Germany.

Board Revisions

Several board revisions are known to exist:

Version 1.2 (FCC ID: I38-SGNXPRO) - NX Pro Extra with SCSI controller chip socket in top-left. No expansion connector.
Version 1.3A (FCC ID: I386-MMSD802) - NX Pro with Panasonic and Mitsumi CD-ROM headers.

Competition

The NX Pro allowed Aztech to play catch-up on Creative Labs who had their Sound Blaster Pro II, also making use of the new Yamaha YMF262 single stereo chip. It is apparent that Aztech's business model was simply to compete at a lower price point than Creative, probably targeting PC-compatible OEMs with discounts on bulk orders. Its strategy with the NX II and NX Pro was to entice customers with more coverage of PC sound standards, thus the inclusion of Covox Speech Thing and Disney Sound Source compatibility. That coupled with lots of options on the CD-ROM interface side and a lower price point made these attractive for OEMs and retail customers.

In the Media

Setting it Up

The NX Pro Driver Disks v2.11 below must be installed from two floppy disks (rather than copying all files to a hard disk directory and running from there), as the installer checks for files in the root directory as well as the DISK.ID file on each disk during installation).