The Yamaha card IS a good card, true OPL3 and XG Midi all onboard. Downside is dos drivers are a bit of a mess, WSS can get in the way and its SBPro not SB16.
Alternatives? Creative card with a real OPL3 chip if you really need OPL3 in such a late dos machine. You don't say you have any midi device so your free to use any you wish.
Windows I'd definitely use something better than an old isa card. I don't know much about Vortex/A3D as not many of my games support it. I went down the EAX Audigy 2 ZS path for my games and it definitely sounds better playing mp3s in win98 then the onboard Yamaha or Awe32 cards.

The yamaha cards don't do SB16, just Pro, and they're a pain to setup in my experience. I'd suggest using the AWE64 over the Yamaha. The AWE64 doesn't have a real OPL3 of course but perhaps just try its version of FM, you might like it! If not then just get a real SB16, a CT2230 or CT2290. They're cheap and are great cards.

Kokornov what games will you play?

The AWE64 is certainly a great card for BX440 machines. Most of the late DOS games support it directly giving you clear sound effects and better than FM MIDI music.

For what games do you want / need FM sound? Because most support MIDI anyway, which is usually superior.

I plan to use this machine mainly for Doom/Build-based DOS games (Heretic, Duke Nukem 3D etc) and pre-XP era Windows games (looks like the last ones will be Hitman: Codename 47 and Need for Speed 5).

Ok, i would go with AWE64. SB16 support is more important to me than true OPL3. Are there any 3rd party cards (not Creative) that support SB16 as well?

Also I have a choice to replace my CT4520 with CT4380. It's AWE64 too, based on CT8903+CT1703+CT1745 instead of CT8920 VLSI. CT8920-based card is said to have higher SNR, so why are both AWE64 gold (CT4390, CT4540) based on CT8903? Does CT8920 have some compatibility problems or what?

Does AWE64 RAM size means something to DOS games?

kokornov wrote:

Does AWE64 RAM size means something to DOS games?

Nearly nothing. The only DOS game I know of that is able to take advantage of more than 512K AWE32/64 RAM is Eradicator. Even games that use standard 512K are scarce as hell. The rest just stick with ROM bank.

Doom sounds quite decent with the AWE. Definitely try it out before buying anything else. You really need to spend a bit to get something that's noticeable better, like a Sound Canvas or Yamaha.

Note that the Live!, Audio PCI and other PCI Creative card from that era have full SB16 and General MIDI compatibility built-in. They work 100% with all these new games. So if you just want a single card why not give it a try?

Yeh the dos games you mentioned wont use the OPL anyway.
I doubt you'll notice the difference between the SBpro you get from the Yamaha card from a SB16 or compatible in the Doom games, Duke maybe but not Doom but the Midi will sound so much better with the Yamaha card in all those games.
I finally got a AWE32 last year after wanting one for all those years when I was younger. AWE is nice to play with, but Yamaha or Roland is definitely the way to go for midi, so you end up using the AWE as a SB16 anyway.

I went for a AWE32 Value as they are easy to get, you can get real OPL3 and knew I was never going to bother with sound fonts. I don't really notice the noise that much but 'm not using headphones.

As for Windows none of the NFS games supported A3D, at least not natively but was 1 of the few games I noticed EAX making a real difference (more reverb through tunnels things like that) If it was me I'd get a Audigy 2 ZS or 4 which suits a BX board well and will support any EAX version that you'll ever need on that machine and can even boot to true dos mode with it emulating a SB16 as Mau1wurf said using hacked Audigy 1 drivers. (although I'd just stay in windows as its more trouble then its worth)

The Roland RAP-10 is a good and relatively cheap choice for excellent GM MIDI playback. 😊

For PCI I decided to use Aureal SQ2500 (Vortex 2): they support DS3D hw acceleration and A3d, and they are relatively easy to find. Creative Ensoniq series doesn't have any hardware acceleration capabilities and newer models like Live! are too common.

For ISA I'll stay with AWE64 CT4520 and replace it with CT4540 Gold if I find one.

The Vortex 2 has great DOS compatibility and a wavetable header. You really don't need another card if you stick to late- DOS games 😀

kokornov wrote:

For ISA I'll stay with AWE64 CT4520 and replace it with CT4540 Gold if I find one.

CT4390 Gold is much easier to find than CT4540, while functionally they are equal.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

The Vortex 2 has great DOS compatibility and a wavetable header. You really don't need another card if you stick to late- DOS games 😀

I tested a SQ2500 AU8830 recently and didn't find its DOS compatibility that great. Its OPL emulation is unstable (gives wrong notes in some games), and GM works only in Windows. At least, I found no way to do GM in DOS mode. Also, I didn't test the daughterboard header.

kokornov wrote:

Ok, i would go with AWE64. SB16 support is more important to me than true OPL3. Are there any 3rd party cards (not Creative) that support SB16 as well?

I know of only two non-Creative cards that claim to have SB16 compatibility: ALS100 based cards and those CMedia CM8329/8330 cards. I wouldn't use either of them, they're crap (bad sound output quality, only average compatibility).

DOS compatibility of the Vortex2 is average, not the worst I've seen so far but not the best either. FM emulation sounds somewhat funny. PCI cards with "good" (as good as it can be with a PCI soundcard) DOS support are the ESS Solo1-based cards: good SBPro and FM emulation and a working wavetable header. It doesn't offer any DS3D features though.
A Crystal SoundFusion (CS46xx) based card, e.g. Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, might be an alternative to the Vortex2 card.

bristlehog wrote:

I tested a SQ2500 AU8830 recently and didn't find its DOS compatibility that great. Its OPL emulation is unstable (gives wrong notes in some games), and GM works only in Windows. At least, I found no way to do GM in DOS mode. Also, I didn't test the daughterboard header.

Vortex GM synth is working in Windows only. Very few PCI sound cards support GM music in pure DOS:
S3 Sonic Vibes, Thunderbird Avenger (Philips Edge cards), Trident 4DWave, AudioPCI and SBLive/Audigy cards. Apart from the Creative and AudioPCI cards, none of those sound particularly great.

kokornov wrote:

I plan to use this machine mainly for Doom/Build-based DOS games (Heretic, Duke Nukem 3D etc) and pre-XP era Windows games (looks like the last ones will be Hitman: Codename 47 and Need for Speed 5).

For these games the Vortex has no compatibility issues.

They all support MIDI, so I wouldn't worry about the quality of FM 😀

That's why I always ask what does the poster actually want to do before making recommendations. In general an ISA card is always better for DOS, but for this scenario the Vortex will run all his Doom games without any dramas and without having to have two sound cards in the system.

The vortex 2 supports MIDI from the daughterheader and MPU in pure DOS