thp wrote on 2023-10-17, 05:41:
New in-box ESS Solo-1 (TerraTec 128i PCI) obtained for really cheap a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, despite all the good things said about its DOS compatibility (and ESFM working fine), I couldn't get its PCM output working reliably on the machine I bought it for, and ended up implementing SBEMU support for its on-board (SIS7012) sound chip instead, which - despite the software overhead - seems to work much more reliably than the Solo-1, so that machine isn't in need of that PCI sound card anymore. On Linux, both PCM and FM are fine, so the card works perfectly fine.
These cards are generally very compatible, but I have also had the odd occasion where they didn't work. It's rare, but it does happen. It has to do with chipset incompatibility with how they are routing DMA over the PCI bus, I believe.
Here are instructions on how to use ESS drivers, along with the latest versions:
Guide for configuring ESS PCI Audio cards for DOS (Solo, Maestro, Allegro, etc.)
Note that these cards need to be configured from within Windows. You cannot just copy an INI file over from another machine, since it sets itself up based on what feature for DMA is most compatible with the hardware of your machine.