Hello and welcome!

insanitor wrote on 2023-01-31, 03:04:

It seems that the music under DOS games sound bad if you use any AWE ISA card…

The "bad" music in DOS games with AWE sound cards is because most games that supports it "natively" doesn't fully take advantage of the EMU8K chip. However, some of them do: Re: AWEstruck...

Or maybe I should download a soundfont and use it for music? (I’ve never tried that before and I don’t know how.)

In Windows 98SE this is possible and SF2 SoundFonts can be used. To ensure that the MIDI music is played with the SoundFont in DOS games within Windows, select "General MIDI" driver in the game setup if available.

Perhaps I should use my Roland MT-32 and hook it up to my AWE64 Gold?

Yes, this is also a good option. In DOS, SoftMPU can be used for games that requires intelligent mode.

Tip: If you want to use any external MIDI device with DOS games when playing them in Windows 98SE, do the following:

1. Open the AWE Control Panel.
2. Click "Device..." button.
3. Uncheck "Allow MPU-401 Emulation on this device".
4. Apply the changes.