What games do you intend to play with this system?
A Core Quad CPU seems like a mistake for a DOS/Windows 98 System. These OS-es will use only 1 core and ignore the others. Plenty of DOS games will give issues at the speeds of such a Core CPU. Generally for DOS/Win9X: in the quest for performance, the compatibility tends to get worse.
There are some people here with powerful Windows 98 Systems using exotic boards with functional ISA slots, so they will know more. But I would recommend to only go that route after building and using a more mainstream retro system for a while. Personally, for retro purposes, I tend to max out at a Pentium III.

Windows 98 comes with MS-DOS 7. They are tied together. Practically there is no reason make a multiboot with FreeDOS.

Definitely #1 or #2 due to onboard wavetables so listen to youtube videos for ESS Audiodrive ESFM and Crystal CrystalFM recordings to decide which clone you like more. Spoilers. ESFM sounds nearly identical to a well filtered OPL3, CrystalFM is a much brighter and warmer FM synthesis that I am very fond of.

That aside, your build idea for a Win9x PC is pretty unfit.

If I were to pick one single card, I would get either AWE32 or AWE64. Then add RAM, because there are some nice soundfonts for both of them — even the 8 megabyte EMU soundfont (comes on the installation CD) will make MIDI music sound great — really on par with expensive Roland/Yamaha stuff. Stock AWE soundfont is awful, though, so you'd really need to invest into memory.

AWE32 gets extra points because you can get an earlier non-PnP model with true OPL3 (like CT2760, for instance) if you care for AdLib music. Non-PnP probably only matters to people who make pure DOS machines with several soundcards, so you might not care about that. However, AWE32 is more expensive and memory for it isn't cheap either. But it's a good investment IMHO.

AWE64 is a lot more cheaper and can do pretty much anything AWE32 can — but it only has OPL3 emulation (CQM) that many people don't like. You can get AWE64 Value — there is no reason to buy the Gold edition. Memory expansion is fairly tricky with AWE64, but you can get something like a SIMMCON and a SIMM72 stick of 32 megabytes and you're all set.

SoundBlaster 32 is also an okay option — it's basically AWE64 with SIMM30 slots. Something like CT3910 would be an awesome card, but stay away from any of the AWE32 Value models — you can't expand RAM on them, so you'll be stuck with the crappy default soundfont.

And yeah, like others have said, your build plan doesn't make a lot of sense. You really should spend more time on research or you might run into a lot of issues. You can start here.

Thank you all for giving your input. = )

I didn't do a very good job of explaining my aim with the card, and my build in the first post though, so I'll add the full build-plan and a list of the DOS-games which I intend to play -I should have been clear that I'm aiming for a multi-boot machine, which I can use for a very wide variety of game-eras - all the way up to the lowest-end games of today.

The ISA-card is mainly for sound in dos though, hence the thread - Win9x WXP+ is fairly easy to figure out, the wild and wooly DoS-era... not so much.

Build-plan:
--------------
OS: Dos 7.1, W98, XP, W10
MB: Portwell RUBY-9719VG2AR
CPU: Intel X5470
RAM: 8GB DDR2
GPU1 (DOS): Intel GMA X4500 (integrated)
GPU2 (W98): Radeon 9250 (pci)
GPU3 (XP32+W10x64): Geforce GTX 960 (PCI-e)
SC1 (DOS): ?
SC2: SB Audigy 2 ZS
FDD: SuperDisk LS-240
NIC: Intel 1000MT

DoS-games:
---------------
Commander Keen 3-5
Crusader: No Remorse/Regret
Doom 1-2
Duke Nukem II
Duke Nukem 3D
Dune 2
Shadow Warrior
Quake
UFO: Enemy Unknown
Loom
Indiana Jones & The Fate of Atlantis
Rise of the Triad
The Dig
Oregon Trail
System Shock

Also updating the first post with this info.

You are going to struggle getting things to work properly with 8-gig of RAM in your computer.

Windows 98 gets wonky when it sees more than 512meg RAM.

ISA sound cards may not work properly, as the chipset doesn't properly support ISA DMA signalling. (I am sure there are people with actual experience here that can clarify if I am wrong or not)

Still doesn't make sense but it's your PC and your money.

That particular board will work with a variety of ISA sound cards when the LPC bus is configured right, i.e using my RUBYISA util. Main drawback is limited amount of IO ranges that are supported via the LPC bus so stuff like AWE32/64 cannot be used and some OPTi based cards since they have conf regs in unreachable IO ports.

canthearu wrote:

You are going to struggle getting things to work properly with 8-gig of RAM in your computer.

Windows 98 gets wonky when it sees more than 512meg RAM.

ISA sound cards may not work properly, as the chipset doesn't properly support ISA DMA signalling. (I am sure there are people with actual experience here that can clarify if I am wrong or not)

True, it won't be easy with all that ram - But...! A fellow named Rudolph Loew over at the MSFN.org forums has invented several amazing patches, which adds higher memory-amounts for Windows 98 (up to 4 gb) as well as SATA-support and other little goodies. Of course, it's an added cost, but this is a once in a life-time build.

PC "Master Race" et c and all that.

Tiido wrote:

That particular board will work with a variety of ISA sound cards when the LPC bus is configured right, i.e using my RUBYISA util. Main drawback is limited amount of IO ranges that are supported via the LPC bus so stuff like AWE32/64 cannot be used and some OPTi based cards since they have conf regs in unreachable IO ports.

Hmm, would you happen to have a list of cards which you have tested successfully? Which IO ranges have you found to be supported? We could potentially make a list of viable cards with this info - that would be lovely.

From readme of RUBYISA :

1Exact ranges forwarded :
2200...2FF - Used by SB cards and tons of other stuff
3300...303 - Useful for MPU-401
4310...313 - Useful for MPU-401
5320...323 - Useful for MPU-401
6330...333 - Useful for MPU-401
7340...343 - Here because it was possible
8350...353 - Here because it was possible
9360...363 - Here because it was possible
10370...373 - YMF71x Control registers (but those can be placed anywhere)
11380...39F - AdLib and a bit extra because I could
12A00...AFF - ISA PnP Data Port and internal peripherals

Everything that fits in these ranges should work. Adlib, SB/pro/16 cards are working fine, YMF71x cards are working fine (when using my SETYMF util). WSS cards aren't going to work unless their IO can be put into Axx or some other supported range, IDE headers will not work, IO cards will not work. You'll need to verify any particular card's IO resource requirements and if they can be moved to some supported range.

All-in-one builds seem nice on paper and something a lot of folks on here try at one point, myself included. After all the effort though, in the end it's much easier and smooth-running to have discrete systems for different eras. At the very least, one DOS gaming build, and one semi-modern build that can handle the Win9x games on forward. Here's what I ended up with after trying your route:
-a P200MMX pure DOS build. I use this build a lot! The MMX cpu can be slowed down to play 386 and 486 era games well, and can still handle the latest DOS games.
-a P3 933 Windows ME build for some Win9x and Glide games. I have a GF3 and Voodoo2 SLI in here. I hardly use this build at all because of build 3.
-a modern Win10 PC. Most of the games I would play on build 2 play just as well and are easier to get going on this build, so long as you get GOG or Steam versions of those games. DOS is different enough from a GUI-based OS that it feels right and proper to play DOS games on there rather than through DOSBox. However, most good Win9x games run very well with GOG/Steam versions and the "magic" of feeling like you're in a different era is less pronounced between Win9x and Win10, IMO.

Makes no sense to me to be w98 and w10 compatible. Whats good for one is not good for the other.

What the heck ? ehhh

Tiido wrote:

From readme of RUBYISA : […]
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From readme of RUBYISA :

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1Exact ranges forwarded :
2200...2FF - Used by SB cards and tons of other stuff
3300...303 - Useful for MPU-401
4310...313 - Useful for MPU-401
5320...323 - Useful for MPU-401
6330...333 - Useful for MPU-401
7340...343 - Here because it was possible
8350...353 - Here because it was possible
9360...363 - Here because it was possible
10370...373 - YMF71x Control registers (but those can be placed anywhere)
11380...39F - AdLib and a bit extra because I could
12A00...AFF - ISA PnP Data Port and internal peripherals

Everything that fits in these ranges should work. Adlib, SB/pro/16 cards are working fine, YMF71x cards are working fine (when using my SETYMF util). WSS cards aren't going to work unless their IO can be put into Axx or some other supported range, IDE headers will not work, IO cards will not work. You'll need to verify any particular card's IO resource requirements and if they can be moved to some supported range.

Cheers for the info, mate! = )

Will have a look at the ranges of the 4 cards in question and see if they can fit into the available space.

If I have understood it correctly, it appears as if these soundcards work with Ruby:
[add later]

BloodyCactus wrote:

Makes no sense to me to be w98 and w10 compatible. Whats good for one is not good for the other.

matze79 wrote:

What the heck ? ehhh

🤣! Well, if you disregard the actual build-plan, which soundcards which feature the highest amount of compatibility, features, and quality, would you recommend? Just in general.

Well, if you disregard the actual build-plan, which soundcards which feature the highest amount of compatibility, features, and quality, would you recommend? Just in general.

dos, awe32
win98, aureal vortex (A3D or some creative thing with EAX)
winxp/10, i'm just going to use usb to my external dac (uber bifrost) to get jitter free 192khz. (optical cables often have lots of jitter at those speeds). sound cards are pointless these days. get a av receiver, do hdmi passthrough, get a kickass amp in the process. something like this denon