I have two ISA slots in my Socket 7 build:

One slot has a SB16 with a Roland-licensed MIDI daughterboard, and the other slot holds a controller card for a Logitech C7 mouse.

Do you have the PCMIDI card for the MK1869 XTREME ? If so, then you've already got MPU-401 MIDI support, so you don't really need a PicoGUS for that purpose.

For the second ISA slot, I would probably go with an AWE64 or SB32 CT3670. This would enable native SB 16 support plus AWE32 support. You could also go with an older SB16 like the CT2290 model. This would give you SB16 support plus genuine OPL3 FM support. Though the latter isn't really needed since the ESSFM on the MK1869 is virtually identical to genuine OPL3.

I don't think I'd bother with an older SB Pro 2.0 unless you were throttling your system to emulate a 386. Otherwise I'd save that for a more period correct build.

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-09-09, 19:01:

Do you have the PCMIDI card for the MK1869 XTREME ? If so, then you've already got MPU-401 MIDI support, so you don't really need a PicoGUS for that purpose.

I do and you're right. Aren't there external boxes that can emulate all of these synthesizers now? Also, the PicoGUS has the advantage of having everything onboard for General Midi and it can also emulate a Sound Blaster 16. It just feels somewhat redundant.

From the three ISA slots, maybe a Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster Pro 2.0, and a PicoGUS for both Ultrasound and GM synthesisers. I don't have a standalone GUS or PicoGUS; does anyone know if I will have any trouble trying to allocate enough IRQ and DMAs between all three cards and motherboard resources?

There are external options, although you could go internal as well like a WP32 McCake. The MK1869 XTREME does support routing MIDI either through the ESS chip or PCMIDI card including for the internal wavetable header.

As for the PicoGUS, it can certainly cover a lot of audio bases via emulation. It really depends on whether you want real hardware audio vs emulated, and/or other potential hardware features. For example, the PicoGUS has more limited I/O and in particular lacks a joystick port.

As for the BX with three ISA slots - I have one of those too:
- GUS for well... GUS
- AWE64 Gold for SB16 and EMU8k AWE
- Aztech 4th gen card for bug-free MPU-401, real OPL3 core and WSS

I actually wanted to stick a Terratec EWS64 in there instead of the Aztech card, but I couldn't get it to play nice with AWE64 and GUS at the same time.

Your challenge with PicoGUS is that it can only allocate low IRQ and DMA, which will make those settings very crowded... you can probably get it all to work, but chances are some of the resources will be more exotic than many games let you choose.

The obvious combo with the MK1869 would be an SB16, possibly one with an EMU8k onboard.

dionb wrote on 2026-09-09, 22:02:

The obvious combo with the MK1869 would be an SB16, possibly one with an EMU8k onboard.

That was my thought too. What happens when you have two cards with an FM chip? Will the first one take priority after claiming the FM port or will they clash?

Also, what is the benefit of WSS support on the Aztech if you're already using an SB 16/AWE 64?

Kahenraz wrote on 2026-09-09, 22:47:

What happens when you have two cards with an FM chip? Will the first one take priority after claiming the FM port or will they clash?

In my experience, in most cases both sound cards will play at the same time.

You could also change the FM port setting of one of the cards so they don't conflict.

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-09-10, 00:57:

Kahenraz wrote on 2026-09-09, 22:47:

What happens when you have two cards with an FM chip? Will the first one take priority after claiming the FM port or will they clash?

In my experience, in most cases both sound cards will play at the same time.

I found the same, and that the timing is determined by the slowest device. For example of you have SB Live slow OPL emulation running at the same time as a hardware OPL chip, both will play at the slow speed perfectly in sync

Kahenraz wrote on 2026-09-09, 08:08:

The MK1869 also does not emulate a SoundBlaster 16, so using one of those is a possibility. The Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 also has a very unique sound with its low pass filter, so a SBPro 2.0 + PicoGUS would be an alternative.

ESS cards have the same low-pass filter as the SBPro. It is indeed very nice for older DOS titles, especially "talkie" adventure games.

Kahenraz wrote on 2026-09-09, 22:47:

Also, what is the benefit of WSS support on the Aztech if you're already using an SB 16/AWE 64?

There are a couple of edge cases where a game's WSS support is better than its SB16 support. Aladdin and Turrican II are two such examples. See here and also here. Additionally, some Sierra games (e.g. King's Quest VI) have buggy SB16 support, which can sometimes cause issues on faster systems. This can be fixed via fan-made patches, but WSS support works fine right out of the box.

That said, WSS support isn't equally good on all cards, and may depend on the chip and/or drivers used. From my experience, OPTi cards have excellent WSS support, while others like Yamaha YMF71x can be hit or miss, depending on the game. Some games also expect WSS to use specific IRQ and DMA settings, or they won't detect it correctly.

On my triple ISA board, I ended up using the ESS MK1869 XTREME for GUS/X16GS, a Sound Blaster 16 with a Yamaha DB50XG, and a Sound Blaster Pro 2.0.

All FM synthesizers are muted, except for the ESFM. All cards are active and daisy chained, rather than being fed into a mixer.

It was a very fun experiment to try and get all of these to play together.

Sound Blaster Pro 2.0:
A220 I7 D1 T4 J200

Sound Blaster 16:
A240 I5 D0 H5 T6 P340 J201 F0

Ultrasound:
260,6,6,3,3

MK1869:
A280 I11 D3 H0 T4 P330 J203

IRQs used: 2/9, 3, 5, 7, 11
DMAs used: 0, 1, 3, 5, 6

It's important to set "PNP OS Installed" to "Yes" in the BIOS to prevent it from assigning resources automatically, as well as reserving IRQ 9 to enable IRQ 2/9 cascading for the PCMIDI, if you are using a 286 or above, to avoid collision with the interrupt handler.

The serial ports can be reassigned to IRQ 4 and 10, but there are no available IRQs left for the parallel/printer port (5/7), if that is something that you need.

If you like the chiptune sound of the original Sound Blaster/Music system CMS chips, there's a modern reproduction called SAAYM. It's an 8-bit card with the dual Phillips SAA1099 (CMS) and Yamaha YM2151 (OPL2) chips. Port and IRQ selectable.

Nothing beats it for Monkey Island and a few other games. Where as OPL/GUS etc is better for rock & roll / grunge sounds.

Following up on this. I ended up removing the SB Pro 2.0. While I was able to get everything working in DOS, it was impossible to get the ES1869, Ultrasound, SB16, and SB Pro to all work together in Windows 98. And because the SB Pro isn't PnP, I had no way to disable it, and there were already barely enough resources to get the ES1869, Ultrasound, and SB16 to all behave properly.

It would have been possible to have all three cards at once if I had a genuine Ultrasound. The problem is that the ES1869 needs to be enabled, and have resources allocated to it, for it to output audio from the Ultrasound through its internal mixer. The ES1869 is pretty much already a Sound Blaster Pro 2.0, so this isn't a real loss. It also saves an ISA slot by having the SB Pro and Ultrasound on the same slot.

I can still opt for a PicoGUS for the last ISA slot for CD emulation and USB joystick support.