For DOS, nothing beats an ISA card with YMF719, IMHO.

Not wanting to be rude but this has been done to death. Search all the existing threads there is more info than you can imagine 😀

Noone makes mention of the S3 sonic vibes much for PCI.
Its got good dos compatibility and a unique FM synth under windows 9x.
I keep one in a K6-2 I have that lacks ISA slots.

wow i have less clue than i thought 😁

it seems to be quite hard to get ymf719 cards in europe and i've never ever heard of s3 sonic vibes.
I'd prefer to stick to popular, widely used standard cards but pick the "best" models - to me that would be any sound blaster 16/32/awe(64?) cards and their pci successors - or am i heading wrong?

If you can't find any YMF719 cards, you can get this one that uses the YMF718 chip which, AFAIK is practically the same thing as the YMF719. I bought one of those a few months ago and the OPL3 sounds great to me, although I have a limited knowledge of OPL3 differences.

I think the definition of "good" really depends on your personal tastes and the software you want to use the card with.

There are tons of threads about this but anyway...

Nothing beats a YMF-71x card in my opinion. It's the best value for money for sure. The YMF-71x cards if i'm not mistaken use the low power OPL3, the YMF289, which has some advantages besides lower power, it can output 44KHz.

In fact unlike a real Sound Blaster Pro 2, the YMF-71x cards can output stereo at 44KHz. If you like tracker music and games based on it this card is a very good poor man's choice. Works great with SoftMPU too.

for pci soundcard, my vote goes to something named lynx2. its not very well known but its the best soundcard that i know of.
for isa, ymf719 is an excellent allrounder for playing dos games. but if you are considering for other aspects than just playing dos games right then there are other choices.

Im going to say ESS Audio Drive as ISA soundcard if we are talking about the single card to rule them all.
It needs a wave table module though. And yes the OPL3 isnt a Yammaha one but the ESFM synth sounds just as good to my ears.

Not every ESS Audio Drive is perfect but they are cheap so one can afford to try a few before finding a great card.

There are too many competing standards in early sound cards and each one has advantages and disadvantages. You can't point to one and say "That one is the best" because some other card may outperform it in some areas, but not all. The best vintage PC setups typically will include 2 or more sound cards for the broadest compatibility and to take advantage of the best parts of each card.

ISA's been done to death for reasons that have already been stated. Just because I'd personally opt for an AWE32 with real OPL3 doesn't mean other people wouldn't want something like a GUS, LAPC-I, SB Pro 1.0 or the YMF-71x cards instead, among other things. There's a lot of nuances with DOS game support, and no one card covers absolutely everything.

PCI largely depends on what OS you're running.

For Win9x, I'd opt for any Aureal Vortex2 AU8830-based card because there's just no beating A3D 2.0/3.0 in the games that supported it, and the SB Pro emulation's said to be good in a pinch if you don't have an ISA card. (I don't use it, though. No reason to when there's an AWE in the same machine.)

For XP and later, any X-Fi card with the CA20K1/EMU20K1 (in other words, not that XtremeAudio crap) should do the trick. It's not just the hardware DirectSound3D and OpenAL acceleration that warrants that, but CMSS-3D Headphone especially. The only drawback is lack of A3D support because Creative felt like burying their competitor's superior tech a few years prior.

If you want something very easy to find, for ISA.
I vote for the 1868f based ESS cards, they sound decent and are highly compatible, and were everywhere.

PCI
I still vote for the S3 chips, if you want DOS support, but the Sound blaster 128 can be found very easily for cheap, and works well with alot of stuff.
You just gota make sure its not the earlier ensoniq model that maps FM to GM.

Best Idea tho is to combine an ISA card with an Audigy or Live! if you have the space.
That way you have 3d Audio Hardware Acceleration, Soundfont support, and Dos\FM support.

great, thanks for your inputs!
i've found a ymf719 isa sound card in a box in the basement which i now installed into my p1-233mmx rig with pt-2007 mainboard running win98se and it works fine atm 😀

in the following days i'll take a look into my other retro rigs and might replace one or two sound cards based on your suggestions 😀