re: Vortex2 on DOS-only
Yes, of course.. now that i look carefully at the driver files i've downloaded, the workaround is that easy. Either set winbootdir to a directory (e.g. SET winbootdir=C:\WINDOWS ) and put these Aureal DOS driver files there, or edit that path variable name in the au30dos.com file to your own as gerwin did. Now if only i had a bit more time to play with my MX300 on my 'temporary' DOS box this week...
to Silent Loon, though slightly offtopic:
... but I plan to play Ultima 9 and older glide games with it (if possible all with 4xfsaa) ...
I was interested in a V5 for the said reason, but after seeing benchmarks like the one you gave above, i wouldn't expect to run games with 4XFSAA on it, even on a 3GHz Athlon--the V5 is already the bottleneck for FSAA anyway.
Only if you had another newer machine with a GF FX or 6 series: have you tried running your old Glide games with glidewrapper? With newer-gen cards, you might be able to run with 4XFSAA (and or with higher res than previously possible with older titles) at higher framerates. Of course not every title works flawlessly with glidewrapper, but if your titles work with it, then maybe you don't have to restrict yourself to PCI-only for something you want to also play DOS games on.
For example, i'd be very happy with a 1GHz Coppermine and 3 ISA slots, which will house an SB AWE64G for SB16 (or an SB16 with OPL if you want), an Ensoniq Soundscape for later DOS games supporting 16-bit SS, and an EWS 64 (you've got one, right?) for its MIDI features and interface. Then i can even still put the MX300 in for Windows A3D games.
I know 4 soundcards in a system may sound too much, but since I don't need them all to work together at once, i can setup boot menus to initiate the combinations i need. Maybe you only need one ISA card beside your Vortex2, which would make things a lot easier.
I don't know if this scenario will be feasible for you or not--ditch it if it's not. It's just an idea to share. 😀