My DOS PC System is configured this way:
My DOS Games PC

I had huge problem if I switched the Bios to PnP OS - No.
Its was not a problem of assigning PCI Cards, but there aren't enough resources that the Bios can configure each card. So it skips some completely.
For this configuration I put the GUS on 240,7,7,7,7. So this is reserved for non PnP in Bios.
This leaves IRQ 3,5,9,11 and DMA 0,1,3,5.
So now the problem starts:
SB 32 would be fine on IRQ 5, DMA 1 and another DMA for 16 Bit (3), Port 220.
The Crystal 4232 on the Maxi Sound needs also be initialized to get access to the Dream DSP that is attached as external CD Device to the CS4232. It's some kind of internal General Midi with Port/IRQ.
The CS4232 has SB Pro, WSS and FM Synthesis Resources.
So the SB Pro part needs to be put to IRQ 3, DMA 0, Port 260. WSS is no problem, but FM Synthesis gives a conflict you cannot prevent, cause you cannot change the Port. So one card will be visible from software side and you need to make sure the PnP config utility wont abort on this.
Whats left: The General Midi Part
For the Crystal CS4232 its not needed - disable (hardware port)
For the Dream9407 DSP it needs to be enabled with the Crystal to 330/9.
SB 32 PnP has no GM hardware compatibility for the internal wavetable, external port can be disabled.
GUS external GM Port can be disabled too or put to 300.
The same applies to Joystick ports. enable on one card, disable on the others.

If you let all of this do automatically it wont work because the application trys to initialize first all stuff for one card before it goes to the next one.

A nice side effect on this configuration is: The Dream9407 is at 330 in hardware, but if you decide to use the GUS as GM device you can load MegaEM to emulate at 330. It will say that there is already a hardware device, but it works. It catches all Port accesses before they reach the Dream. So you can switch without changing any game configuration.

elianda wrote:

WSS is no problem, but FM Synthesis gives a conflict you cannot prevent, cause you cannot change the Port. So one card will be visible from software side and you need to make sure the PnP config utility wont abort on this.

Ah, this is the problem. I once had three AWE64 cards installed (each with the FM synth on port 388H), but the Creative config utility could be tricked into initializing them by editing the config file. When some software used AdLib, all three cards played at once 😁

elianda wrote:

A nice side effect on this configuration is: The Dream9407 is at 330 in hardware, but if you decide to use the GUS as GM device you can load MegaEM to emulate at 330. It will say that there is already a hardware device, but it works. It catches all Port accesses before they reach the Dream. So you can switch without changing any game configuration.

Cool. 😎 Never thought about trying this out. Partly because the GUS MIDI doesn't sound too great with the standard patches, and partly because I do not like using MegaEM (needs EMS).

Well MegaEM doesn't work with newest versions of EMM386, but it just works fine with QEMM386. So you can switch the Manager to AUTO that will give XMS or EMS on demand.
It was stated that this is slower than Himem, which is true. But thats as soon as you have any mid class Pentium system, this doesn't matter at all.

As advantage you can load as many programs high as you like. Thats where Qemm does a great virtualization of the UMBs.

It's not because of slowness (the impact usually isn't that bad), but because of protected mode. I have a lot of programs that need real mode to work properly. 😉
For UMBs I use tools that access the chipset directly, which is a more elegant way to get base memory free (and they don't switch to protected mode). If I really need EMS, I use EMM286, but unfortunately this one also doesn't work with MegaEM.