As far as I can tell, all Yamaha DS-1 sound cards use proprietary soundbanks (simplified versions of the S-YXG50 soft synth) that only work in Windows. No access from pure DOS is possible.

The Creative PCI128 can only use wavesets (ECW files); 2mb, 4mb and 8mb versions exist. Editing SBPCI.INI to select which waveset to load is the only way to change between them.

No idea about ESS, but it's quite possible they use the Microsoft GS wavetable synth.

Yeah, I figured out how to load the soundfonts for the PCI128 in windows from the device manager - does editing the ini file load soundfonts in dos?

kanecvr wrote:

does editing the ini file load soundfonts in dos?

Yup, that's how I used to do it with my AudioPCI; a reboot is needed to change wavesets though. I also couldn't quite tell the difference between the 3 versions - maybe I didn't listen carefully at the time.