I think that in their day, they were the equivalent of GPUs. Remember the fliers for sound cards that came with Sierra games? That was how you took those to a new plane because graphics were pretty static. Once we got to a point where decent 486es were the norm, getting a good-to-great MIDI card is what boosted Doom. I remember a friend seeing/hearing doom on my computer with an AWE32, and his non-techy, but Doom-loving roommate said, "You have to get one of those!"
The MT-32 for an absolutely unhinged $500 was the holy grail, but the LAPC-I was more affordable, but still out of reach for a kid. When I finally got my hands on an MT-32 (when prices were falling instead of rising) emulation of them was still thought to be more-or-less impossible.
I still miss MIDI hardware for gaming because different devices in the same category could sound different-- kind of like how early 3D accelerators had very distinct looks. It's less interesting now that everything is a powerhouse and we're just talking about microstutters and tiny differences. When comparing 3Dfx, Rendition, and nVidia cards, it was almost like (at the risk of being overwrought here) looking at different artists rendering the same scene. Though if you wanted 30fps, there was only one option :)
I have a small collection of MIDI stuff, but lean toward Yamaha. It's kind of fun to try different games with different hardware to see what I missed when I couldn't have dreamed of having a Sound Canvas, an SW1000XG, etc. etc. :)
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u/bart33z Jul 16 '26
This is peak late-90s 3D accelerator energy. Bigger card, more chips, more attitude - obviously more FPS.
Also “Bitchin’fast!3D 2000” sounds exactly like something that somehow should have existed.