Well looking at the size and all the jumpers we can assume it's quite old...

So my thoughts are that this is a very early design they used before they had their own ESFM solution.

Comparing this card to a modern 1868F solution really shows you the advancements they made with chip integration...

this soundcard has 2 leds on the backplate...???! that's more strange to me 🤣

The earlier ES488 and ES688 chips have no ES-FM onboard.
Drawback is they have no hardware MPU-401 either, but a software emulation.

Sorry to bump such an old thread... but, I've picked up the same card as the one in the OP. However I can't find drivers for it.

I've tried a few different ESS DOS drivers but they complain that the card is not an ES1868.

I can get basic sound working with just a SET BLASTER line but I can't get the wavetable header to work.... there's no jumpers to change any settings for the wavetable header as far as I can see.

Interestingly there is one set of jumpers that sets either SB-MIDI or MPU401... but I have no idea what either setting does since I can't get either to work.

The actual model number is DCS8305 and I believe it was made by a company called Sertek. I visited their site on wayback machine but couldn't get any DOS drivers from it.

Anyone know where I can find software for this?

If the chip is an ES1868F or ES1869F, I could provide a configuration tool I use on my two ESS AudioDrives.

How's the sound on that AudioDrive, by the way? I'm thinking of purchasing an AudioDrive with true OPL3 for use on my Packard Bell Legend 316SX as my Audio Excel AV300, which I wanted to use on the computer, just refuses to output SoundBlaster Pro digital audio out of the left speaker despite having replaced a cracked ceramic capacitor(and I think I found another cracked capacitor which could cause problems). It outputs dual OPL2 just fine, but the SoundBlaster Pro digital audio only works out of the right speaker.

No its a 688. I do have a couple of 1868/1869 cards that I'm fiddling with so if you could upload the drivers I'd appreciate it 😀
Unfortunately, the 1868/1869 cards are too small for me to mount my wavetable daughterboard on them.

As far as sound quality goes, I can't really fault them, they are a lot cleaner sounding than any SB16 I've tried so far, and as far as I can tell the FM synth is just like an OPL3.

I did notice that they make a loud popping sound when the system restarts, which doesn't happen with an SB16, and the 1868/1869 seems to have more 'background noise' even when sound is not being played than the 688 based card. I turned the master volume down and turned up the wave/midi volume and it seemed to minimise this. This could just be something in my system though, at the moment I'm just running on a test bench outside a case.

I was using an Acer Magic S20 which didn't have the hanging note bug, had real OPL synth and had clean output however it seems to have very limited polyphony; sound effects would get 'cut off' to play new sounds. Blake Stone was one example of a game that seemed to only play one sound at a time....
Basically this got annoying so I'm still looking for an 'all in one' sound card for DOS. *sigh*

I'd rather just use a dual sound card setup under DOS. All-in-1 sound cards don't really seem to exist for DOS. I personally would use a SoundBlaster 16 with OPL3 and an MPU-401 intelligent mode-compatible card or at the very least, an Ensoniq Soundscape. Or even an OPTi sound card with a YMF262 or discrete YMF262 clone; I really like those, but those have numerous issues with reversed Stereo on both the YMF262 and the SoundBlaster Pro digital audio and different OPTi sound cards use different quad op-amps to amplify the sound coming from the YMF262. I just modified my OPTi 82C930 with a socket so I can use different quad op-amps on the sound card, and between the TL074 op-amp already on the sound card and the LF347 quad op-amp I've put in its place, which was the op-amp on my broken 82C929A, the TL074 is the better of the two in terms of overall quality, but the LF347 adds some extra roughness to the audio due to the bandwidth in the op-amp being lower than that of the TL074. It adds character to the FM Synthesis of certain games, but there are some times, especially when emulating games with OPL2 or OPL3 using an old DOS version of MAME where the roughness becomes extreme distortion and sounds awful. All in all, the TL074 works better than the LF347, but personally, I prefer the sound the YMF262 puts out when it's amplified by an LF347, especially with the Collector's CD-ROM of X-Wing, which, as you can tell(since I talk a lot about X-Wing), is my crack addiction for DOS.

I'm still playing with the 1868. I managed to find a variety of ESS drivers here: http://www.btc.com.tw/english/3-1-13driver_download.htm

EDIT: I did not manage to find drivers for the 688 or the 1869 card.

The 688 seems to work with just SET BLASTER as its not a PNP card (without MIDI) but I couldn't get a peep out of the 1869.
1868 works good though 😀

You can find ESS 688 drivers here: Terratec FTP Don't know if they are suitable for every card with this chip.

Yeah I've had a look through there. Nothing works with the card pictured in the OP. I assume it must require manufacturer-specific drivers but they seem to be long gone.

I have one of this lying around for a long time and i just noticed the yamaha YMF262 chip on it.
I dig for a while and here's what i find out.
This card belongs to Aspar Technology Co Ltd and was registered in 1994-08-23 with th following unique id 5o9Cgd8TVW+z3+HKACCPVQ==
It has written on the card P057-01-A0D