Both are pretty average for DOS games.

The SB Live probably has a slight edge with DOS games, as long as they work with EMM386, as it emulates wavetable and has a reasonable CQM (FM) emulation

The Vortex works without EMM386, but there is no wavetable in pure DOS unless you attach a physcial one to the wavetable header and the FM emulation is worse.

Also, the above is entirely dependent on the DOS compatibility being compatible with the chipsets and motherboards you are running the cards on.

The ESS Solo cards seem to be the best PCI cards for DOS but they are very hard to find, also it seems that the red ESS Solo PCI cards from China often don't even have the game port connected.

I have a few of the Sound Blaster Live cards, but finding a working driver can be hard because some of the Sound Blaster Live cards were made for computer manufactures like Dell and need a driver from the company that sold them, the "OEM" Sound Blaster Live cards will not work with the Creative Labs drivers, the Sound Blaster Live can work under DOS and sounds pretty good, but are a bit tricky to get working, and for DOS games under Windows 98 from what I remember you have to use the older VXD driver and not the WDM driver.

Also most "modern" motherboards will not allow PCI cards to work in DOS, I think the cut-off for DOS compatibility was around the years 2000-2005.

huh? ESS-Solo cards rare?
it's one of the most ubiquitous and cheap cards out there imho ^^

imi wrote on 2020-05-31, 18:35:

huh? ESS-Solo cards rare?
it's one of the most ubiquitous and cheap cards out there imho ^^

It would be nice to know were they are, eBay and Amazon seem to have basically none of them, right now eBay has three of them, one auction, and 2 for $85 plus $14 shipping, and I don't count that "red" Chinese version of the ESS Solo has usable because of it's lack of parts and lack of working game port.

there's about 10-20 in my sorting bin that I fished out of scrap lots after I bought two of them for 5€ a piece from a computer store.

might be that they're more prevalent in europe? quick search shows two for $25 on ebay.com (which is way too much imo) and the auction is probably going to be cheap :p

will1384 wrote on 2020-05-31, 18:43:

It would be nice to know were they are, eBay and Amazon seem to have basically none of them, right now eBay has three of them, one auction, and 2 for $85 plus $14 shipping, and I don't count that "red" Chinese version of the ESS Solo has usable because of it's lack of parts and lack of working game port.

Agreed, the chinese ess cards are terribly built, and kinda useless due to excessive noise.

The only problem with the ESS cards is that while they are good for DOS, they are really really basic cards and windows gaming would be better served by something a little more advanced.