Speaking of my personal experience, AWE64 is better suited for Windows. The synthesizer chip is awful and general midi doesn't work out of the box.

Although CQM isn't faithful to the OPL3 FM synth and the EMU8K works better in Windows, I would pick the AWE64 over the GUS due to better Sound Blaster and AdLib compatibility. It still has an MPU-401 compatible interface that is accessible thru the gameport.

The best-case scenario for the GUS is tracker music which are largely found in the demoscene but the MPU-401 emulation thru MegaEm in DOS is decent.

You can use both sound cards at the same time if the motherboards have multiple ISA slots.

I would put both the AWE64 and GUS PnP in the Pentium 233MMX system.

GUS is best suited for DOS games, especially those that use hardware mixing (e.g. certain Epic games). It's also highly useful for tracker music and demoscene stuff. AWE64 will give SB16 and AWE32 support which is ideal for DOS games from about 1993 onward.

For Windows 98 builds I prefer newer cards like those based on the Vortex 2 chipset for 3D sound support. SB Live! with EAX support would be another option to consider for Windows 98.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-11-21, 14:49:

I would put both the AWE64 and GUS PnP in the Pentium 233MMX system.

That would be ideal.