Falcosoft wrote on 2022-12-25, 10:24:
Arguably for ESS 1868/1869 cards the Vxd drivers provide much less buggy ESFM General Midi implementation The above linked Doom recording e.g. demonstrates the WDM driver specific Pitch Bend bug. There is no benefit of using WDM drivers as far as GM compatible ESFM is concerned. (What is more OP explicitly mentioned Win95 where a WDM driver is not an option).
It's been a while since I last tested this, so I could be wrong, but I think I was unable to get native ESFM for General MIDI in DOS games when using VxD drivers. It worked for Windows applications of course e.g. Windows Media Player could use it just fine for playing back .mid files.
But as you say, if the original poster is using Windows 95 then WDM drivers are not available. I also don't recommend them for general use since they feel "laggy" and also disable proper FM synth support in DOS games. For the specific use case that was mentioned, they should work, albeit only under Win98 and WinME.