Do you have a daughterboard installed on the card or a sound module connected through the DB-15 header? If the answer is no, then you won't be able to use the Vortex's internal Wavetable under pure DOS, although it does work fine through Win9x DOS Box. Your only other option in this case is the pretty bad FM synthesis emulation.

No daughterboard. So do I need to set the midi to mpu-401 instead of wavetable?

Have you run the setup programs for the games that aren't working? Most games will have a "setup.exe" for configuring sound and music devices.

Yeah, in Doom2 95 : under audio or sounds lets you adjust volume and number of voices? No matter, didn't affect anything.
Shadow Warrior: Don't recall seeing anything for music but maybe sounds/fx only.

I keep thinking back to my autoexec.bat setup "SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1". Can you not put a fourth setting in there for MPU-401?
May not make a bit of difference.

I may have worded this somewhat poorly. For plain DOS, you only have 2 options for music, one is a poorly emulated FM Synthesis for OPL2 and OPL3 and two is to use either a daughterboard attached to the Vortex 2 or a sound module hooked up to the card externally via the DB-15 (joystick) port on the back. There is no option for the Vortex 2's internal wavetable for DOS, the only way you can use it for DOS games is through Win9x's DOS Box, otherwise you are left with the two options I mentioned before.

You've already made it clear that you don't have a daugherboard installed, do you have an external MIDI module such as a Roland Sound Canvas of any sort? If so, then you should be selecting MPU-401 to have it work.

Don't have any external devices unfortunately. I am interested in getting a Dreamblaster S2 or X2 though they're not cheap.
I also keep hearing how the Yamaha YMF744 cards have good dos compatiblity so may get one and try it out. Anyways got Shadow Warrior music activated by going over the setup again, Doom95 I gave up on and installed the ZdoomLE sourceport which works ok.

im sorry to bump an old thread but i feel the need to correct errors and try to help others the best i can. the aureal vortex 2 wavetable works in ms-dos mode,
in windows open the a3d panel and choose the wavetable not the mpu-401, think of the wavetable as the internal general midi / daughter board, and the mpu-401 as the external midi that plugs into the joystick port,

("i should note that i have never used a daughter board on any sound card but im pretty sure when you have one installed it will/should override the software synth that the vortex 2 uses and then you will hear midi from the daughter board" )

go to device manager and make sure your SB emulation has the correct IRQ and DMA options, mine are 220, 7, 1,3 and for the wavetable/mpu-401 is 330,
now load up a known dos game with the sound setup that allows you to test the audio options, like duke 3d or blood, load the settings for your sound FX card as the sound blaster pro, and make sure the IRQ and DMA addresses are correct, now for music card choose general midi and the address should be 330,
if the volume is low open the sound mixer in windows and adjust the volume slider for wavetable all the way up, when you're happy with the sound you can save the games setup and close the DOS BOX,
now if you're using Phils easy dos mode batch file just double click that and when the machine boots up you should see the a3d driver has been loaded,
go and run the game you setup in windows and it should now have general midi sound, you can also setup sound in all your games in ms-dos mode,
there is no need to reboot into windows mode to setup your games sound settings,
i should also mention there is also a fan made vortex 2 mixer/volume tool made for ms-dos that you can use to adjust the volume of the vortex 2 outputs, it can be found on phils vortex 2 page,
i hope this helps anyone that runs across this page looking for help getting their wavetable general midi sound working in ms-dos mode

Thanks so much for the info. I've switched around my win98/dos setup which now has a sb 32pnp in it which works fine.