A "Full Duplex" sound card has the ability to record and play digital audio simultaneously. Some sound cards compromise on sample rates when they go into full duplex mode. In such a case, full duplex mode is marketed as a telephony feature. The AWE32, however, was not marketed as a device with telephony features but it does drop down into 8-bit mode when it is "forced" to record and play at the same time.

To verify this, I used Digital Orchestrator Plus (DOP) to play digital audio (along with MIDI data) and Cool Edit to record input from a microphone. In order for the AWE32 to record sound at all, I had to prevent DOP from taking control of the input. This means that Device Driver is set to "(None)" under Options > Digital Audio Port Setup > Digital Audio Input > Port(1).

DOP had control of digital audio playback because Device Driver is set to "SB16 Wave Out 220" under Options > Digital Audio Port Setup > Digital Audio Output > Port(1). Setting these two options are not enough. Additionally, we have the following:

Options > Stereo Playback (checked)
Options > Device Can Play and Record Simultaneously (checked)
Options > Enable Wave Sync (checked)
Options > Play Buffer Seconds (15)
Options > Record Buffer Seconds (4)
Options > Default Sample Rate (44100)