Avance Logic / Realtek
Avance Logic was a budget sound and graphics card manufacturer who got acquired by Realtek, of Taiwan.
They also sold their board designs to third parties who rebranded them.
Sound Cards
ALS007 / ALS007SPIntroduced: 1996 ALS007 is a Plug & Play card, so has no jumpers for I/O port, IRQ, or DMA settings. Instead, the installation disk provides a utility, ALCONFIG.EXE to configure the card's settings. The wavetable header is Creative Wave Blaster-compatible. This ALS007 card was also sold as the Asonic Asound-007/XX, released in 1996, as well as the SoundTrek. I have seen ALS007 cards with the same FCC ID as the ALS100 and ALS100Plus+ (MA5ASOUND), which is odd. The ALS007SP is very similar to the ALS007 but is not a Plug & Play card. In all other respects they are the same. A file called ALSINIT.EXE is used to initialise the ALS007SP's sound chip. According to the installation disk readme file, if you have issues installing under Windows, you should try installing the drivers for each device manually. For reference they are: Logic Device 0 = Wav Audio Device; Drivers DOS / Windows 3.1 / 95 (722 KB Windows self-extracting zip file) More Images |
ALS100 / ALS110Introduced: 1997 The ALS100 from Avance Logic was a budget 16-bit sound card, and was the last ALS card to contain a dedicated Yamaha OPL3 clone - the LS262. After this, Avance Logic moved to a more tightly integrated chip (the ALS100+) that used what they called "ALSFM" - an embedded FM synth that was OPL3-compatible (though not a direct clone) and DAC. ALS100 is *not* a Plug & Play card but there are no jumpers for I/O port, IRQ, or DMA settings. Instead, the card's configuration is stored on the ALS100 chip and is configured via the AWCONFIG.EXE utility (very similar to the earlier ALCONFIG.EXE). Run this after you have run DOSINST.EXE to install the software to your hard disk. The game/MIDI port can be used as an MPU-401 interface (UART only) which is hanging note bug-free, and the card also gets an IDE interface for a CD-ROM which is initialised using a file called CDSETUP.SYS. Like the ALS007, what makes this card stand out against its competitors is its support for Sound Blaster 16 in addition to Sound Blaster and Sound Blaster Pro. The ALS100 was also sold as the Asonic Asound Plus 4, released in 1997. It had an FCC ID of MA5ASOUND. It was also sold as the Wave Melody, with the main chip rebadged as the "3D Melody MF1000". It is sadly known to be quite a noisy card (audio quality-wise), and does require a TSR driver. As for main ASIC itself, the ALS100L chip is a low-power version of the ALS100, but is otherwise identical. ALS100M chips have additional support for multiple CD-ROM interfaces from Mitsumi, Sony and Panasonic. ManualsALS100/ALS100L/ALS100M User Manual DriversDOS / Windows 3.1 / 95 More Images |
ALS100Plus / ALS100Plus PnP Introduced: 1997 The ALS100Plus is a Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 (stereo) and Sound Blaster 16-compatible card. These cards have very poor OPL3 emulation - the FM synthesizer was embedded into the AL100Plus+ chip, rather than being a dedicated external chip as on the earlier AL007 and AL100 sound cards. This was not a clone of an OPL3, but rather Avance Logic's own FM synthesizer that was compatible with OPL3, which they called "ALSFM". It's possible the ALS100 Plus also lacks the 16-bit DMA ability the ALS100 had. You can only set the low and high DMA channels to 1 or 3, preventing 16-bit sound in BUILD engine games. These things make the ALS100Plus a worse card than the earlier ALS100 so don't be fooled by the "Plus" moniker. This card was also sold as the Asonic Asound Gold, released in 1997. It had an FCC ID of MA5ASOUND. Another card that used the ALS100+ chip was Pine Technology's PT2316. ManualsDriversDOS / Windows 3.1 / 95 More Images |
ALS100Plus Pro16/32 PnP+Introduced: 1997 ManualsDriversDOS / Windows 3.1 / 95 More Images |
ALS120Introduced: 1997 The ALS120 is a Plug & Play card that provides compatibility with Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16, and Windows Sound System. It differs from its predecessors by also having a
built-in 3D sound effects processor. The game port can behave as an MPU-401 MIDI controller with FIFO (UART only). This card was also sold as the Asonic Limbo 50+ and Asonic Asound Gold, both released in 1999. There have been several recommendations to **avoid** these ALS120 cards completely, as they don't use a real or even unlicenced OPL3 chip, but a rather bad clone. ManualsALS120 User Guide DriversDOS / Windows 3.1 / Windows 95 version ALS12.A1.30 More Images |
ALS200Introduced: 1997 The ALS200 Plug & Play card provides compatibility with Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16, and Windows Sound System. The game port can behave as an MPU-401 MIDI controller with FIFO (UART only). ManualsALS200 Design Manual DRIVERSDOS / Windows 3.1 / 95 |
ALS300 (RL5305)Introduced: 1999 The ALS300 marks a move away from DOS compatibility, being a PCI card. Its ASIC chip, ALS300, emulates Sound Blaster Pro and Sound Blaster 16 and has a built-in FM synthesizer for OPL3 emulation. The ALS300's primary target was Windows as it was Avance Logic's first card to comply with the AC'97 standard (Audio CODEC '97). ManualsDRIVERSDOS / Windows 3.1 / 95 |
ALS300PlusIntroduced: 1999 DOS / Windows 3.1 / 95, Windows 95 patch, NT 3.51 / 4.0, Windows 2000 / XP |
ALS4000Introduced: 1998 The ALS4000 is an integrated chip that includes an "ALSFM" synthesizer as well as an OPL4 wavetable synthesizer, and MIDI controller. This card is built around that single chip solution. DOS Days contributor, Balázs Szabó, wrote this about his ALS4000 card: "ALSFM OPL3 vs. Yamaha OPL3: Both the ALSFM OPL3 and Yamaha OPL3 offer enjoyable sound quality in terms of OPL3 synthesis. Surprisingly, I find the ALS4000 to potentially outshine the Yamaha counterpart in certain aspects. Its unique tonal characteristics may appeal to enthusiasts seeking a distinct sonic experience. Noise Level: Unfortunately, the card exhibits significant noise levels regardless of whether utilizing the 'Line Out' or 'Speaker Out' options. This noise detracts from the overall listening experience and may require additional measures for noise mitigation." ManualsDriversDOS / Windows 3.1 / 95 More images |
Graphics Cards
ALG2101Launched: 1990 |
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ALG2301Launched: 1994 The Avance Logic ALG2301 came in two variants: ALG2301.A and ALG2301.B. It is not known what the differences between these two are. Both variants use Fast Page Mode (FPM) RAM in SOJ packages, with the 1 MB card having two sockets for upgrading to 2 MB. The ALG2301 support screen resolutions up to 1280 x 1024 interlaced in 256 colours at a poor 44 Hz refresh rate if 2 MB of video memory were installed. At 1024 x 768 the maximum refresh rate was a much healthier flicker-free 70 Hz non-interlaced. The full list of supported graphics modes are listed here: The BIOS versions must match whether your main chip is a ".A" or a ".B". This chip was used on the following cards:
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ALG2302Launched: 1995 This chip was used on the following cards:
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