YMF7x4 cards shipped with a 2 MB bank of 8-bit samples by default, which must be loaded into system RAM during booting. The XG synthesizer on the DS-XG series features not only basic XG System Level 1, but also some of the MU-50 additions, and can reproduce most musical data previously programmed for the popular DB50XG daughterboard. The cards were usually equipped with good quality 18-bit Digital-to-Analogue Converters, providing similar low noise and harmonic distortion levels to those found in semi-professional hardware.
Relative performance was good despite the typical low cost. The DS-XG family processors were used in many inexpensive (sub-$50) soundcards. The DS-XG series features hardware-assisted XG MIDI synthesis with either 32- or 64-note polyphony, full-duplex playback and recording at any samplerate (internally upsampled to 48 kHz), external game controller and MIDI interface, and a legacy block for DOS application support. Chips for PCI bus standalone adapters are marked YMF7x4, while on-board or embedded systems are marked YMF7x0. The last model number for controller chips used on ISA bus cards is 719 chips used on PCI cards start at 720 and higher. Another Yamaha XG sound card with YMF724E-V chipset.
