I've PC's with upto 3 soundcards
Windows is pretty easy. a few games let you select the sound device, most others will use whatever you have as the primary device in Control Panel.
DOS in a way is even easier as each game has it's own sound setup letting you select the card of choice.

The challenge is resources. This post will give some clues
386 DX-40 multi-sound card build (5 sound cards!)

So let’s carve it up to make it more manageable. The SB Live PCI doesn’t need to operate in DOS mode since you have two cards capable of SB16 already.

That means you really only need to think about the ISA cards.

Research the allowable IRQ and DMA values that each card allows and you can pre-determine if a working configuration is possible.

You may need to disable onboard features such as serial and parallel ports to clear out enough resources.

Then there is the fixed resource overlap which can be bad sometimes and can work sometimes. All cards which offer FM will take port 388 when activated, however it’s a simplex port so all cards on that port will play sound and you can use software triggered mixer settings to mute the card you don’t want to hear

The joystick port typically only has 200 and 208 as assignable ports and they are duplex ports so they will knock each other out. My strategy would be to disable whatever joystick ports you can so only 2 are left which you can assign to 200 and 208. If 3 ports have to be active due to limitations have 1 working port at 200 and let the cards fight over 208.

Remember to assign the IRQS and DMAs you use for the sound cards in the BIOS to legacy so windows doesn’t try to assign other devices on top. Usually you can get away with doing it on one sound card but with 3 ISA card you will need to be quite strict.

NeoG_ wrote on 2025-11-26, 05:22:

Remember to assign the IRQS and DMAs you use for the sound cards in the BIOS to legacy so windows doesn’t try to assign other devices on top. Usually you can get away with doing it on one sound card but with 3 ISA card you will need to be quite strict.

This is generally very good advice for DOS systems, but as the OP intends to use Windows 98, Plug and Play might actually work as intended, by having the OS manage the resources. In the BIOS Setup, you can choose between "manual management" and "OS management". OS management is designed to let Windows 95/98 configure the system and have the BIOS follow it. Furthermore, the SB 32 PnP (the third card in the list) is a PnP sound card, so there likely is no strict need to reserve its resources in the BIOS setup. Reserving resources of PnP cards can be helpful if those cards are managed using 3rd party tools that don't intend to cooperate with the BIOS (UNISOUND? AD1815_6.SYS?), but CTCM/CTCU should work fine in conjunction with the BIOS. In case the OP wants to install DOS 6.22, it's advisable to set CTCM in DOS to use the same resources for the SB32 as Windows 98 does.

The OP likely should not configure the parallel port for "ECP mode", because this setting uses a low DMA channel. With one channel having a de-facto fixed assignment to the floppy controller, only 3 more channels remain for the 3 ISA sound cards.

mkarcher wrote on 2025-11-26, 07:02:

This is generally very good advice for DOS systems, but as the OP intends to use Windows 98, Plug and Play might actually work as intended, by having the OS manage the resources. In the BIOS Setup, you can choose between "manual management" and "OS management". OS management is designed to let Windows 95/98 configure the system and have the BIOS follow it. Furthermore, the SB 32 PnP (the third card in the list) is a PnP sound card, so there likely is no strict need to reserve its resources in the BIOS setup. Reserving resources of PnP cards can be helpful if those cards are managed using 3rd party tools that don't intend to cooperate with the BIOS (UNISOUND? AD1815_6.SYS?), but CTCM/CTCU should work fine in conjunction with the BIOS. In case the OP wants to install DOS 6.22, it's advisable to set CTCM in DOS to use the same resources for the SB32 as Windows 98 does.

You're right there isn't a requirement to do it - If I was to choose what method had the highest % chance of being stable I would put my money on fixing the resources ahead of time and overriding 98 to use the settings you want in device manager

Multiple sound card setups are definitely possible. I've put up to 6 sound cards in a system and had everything work concurrently.

I haven't tried multiple Creative Labs ISA sound cards, such as the AWE32 and SB32 PnP. If you're using Creative Labs drivers, I'm not sure how those drivers will work with more than one CL card. Alternatively, you could use Unisound instead as I find it much simpler for activating specific sound cards.

I'm also wondering about the inclusion of the AWE32? The PAS16 also has a Yamaha OPL3 chip, so if you're using the AWE32 for that purpose, it may be redundant. Meanwhile the SB32 PnP likely covers the same ground as the AWE32, except for the lack of a wavetable header.

For hardware resources, you may need to configure your BIOS to reserve certain dma channels or interrupts, as well as potentially free up resources used by the motherboard for things like serial ports.

Thanks for the awesome feedback, guys. This clears things up a bit. I think I should probably downsize on the sound cards. The AWE32 and SB32 are redundant and I can probably chose to let the SB21 go as it has the less desirable CQM FM Synth. (it offers some nostalgia to me as I grew up with this card but in reality just used the AWE Wave Effects in games).

I also just realized the mainboard I have for this build does not have an AGP Port: Socket 7 ATX ASUS SP97-XV
I suppose my next task is to find a mainboard that has these slots and can be used with either a K6-2 300mhz or a the K6-3 500mhz CPUs I have available:

x1 AGP
x1 PCI
x 2 or x3 ISA slots for sound cards.

I think this will be a fun winter project. The next task would be somehow figuring out a way to have mass storage accessible via the FAT32 Win98 O/S. I am a big fan of EXODOS but would like to run these games on a pure DOS environment. EXODOS has 500+ Gigs of games. If I remember correctly FAT32 supports up to 2 TB hard drives.

CQM is absolutely not redundant. You need it for Tempest 2000, as many of it's tunes including title and first stage need that to sound correct.

Yes i know CQM is usually wrong (and it's cofirmed wrong for supaplex), but it's correct for that one game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZVHOFijsgE this is how the tune is meant to sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVlRTFeIzws jag origiunal tune

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2ozNG9_7lU how it sounds on genuine yamaha chip.

My main DOS rig is a multi sound card build:

1- Ensoniq Soundscape -> P:350h I:15 D:0;

2- Orpheus II includes:
SB Pro P:220h I:5 D:1 MPU:320h (Turtle Beach Rio);
GUS (Interwave) : P:260h I:7 D:7 (can emulate MPU at port 300)
Intelligent Mode MPU: 330h

3- Adlib Gold / Goldlib clone -> P:398h I:3 D:3;

4- Pro Audio Spectrum (Dual OPL2) -> P:388h I:6 D:2

5- Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold (for EMU8000 synth only) -> P:240h I:Disabled D:Disabled EMU8000 at port 640;
(MPU and AWEUTIL emulation via port 300h)

6- IBM Music Feature card -> P:2A40h

7- PicoMEM for -> CMS/Game Blaster P:210h, Tandy 3 Voice P:1E0h , Mindscape MB P:2F0h

8- Roland RAP-10 -> P:340h I:11 D:5

9- Covox Speech Thing on Parallel Port

I'm using a special PC case for this and added a 2 slot backplane to expand the ISA bus. Only the Sound Blaster part on the AWE 64 Gold needs to be disabled, but i can just as easily disable the Crystal chip on the Orhpeus II and use the SB16 part on the AWE64.

Question is could i add anymore soundcards? Amazingly the answer is yes, probably an Aria based chipset card would be a good option, or a Turtle Beach Multisound Classic i still have IRQ 10 which i can use for the Aria or a Multisound, with DMA 6 being suitable for the native portion of the Aria also. The Multisound would require a 32kb window for SMA (instead of DMA) in the upper memory area which i also could spare.

The Aria is the most practical option having support for most important sound libraries (AIL2, AIL/32, DIGPAK, HMI SOS) (no MSS3 sadly). The Multisound Classic is only supported through DIGPAK/MIDPAK, with the music driver apparently not working so well, which is a shame considering the EMU/Proteus synth it includes is actually very nice. The Multisound Classic was released around the same time as the LAPC-I but unfortunately native support for its synth is extremely limited.

This is of course an exercise in excess, but fun nevertheless. I aimed to prove that if you plan well your resources you can have several sound cards with no conflicts. Some times i go: "With which Sound Card will i play this game today?"