I certainly have something to add for the TDMA IRQ5 supported users, specifically my own zip file that i made to very easily setup the ESS Solo-1 on my retro computers.
Its based on the ESSINIT method already known on the forum, but with the settings suitable for my machine. I get a lot better game compatibility out of this than i get on the ESSOLO driver but the games that fail then do work on the solo. So combining the two is the best of both worlds.

I also set this up in such a way that the installation is incredible easy, simply extract this to a folder and run ESSINIT it will now initialize the ESS-Solo 1 and you should have working sound if your motherboard supports this method (Indeed enable PNP support, this should help with the IRQ stuff). My modified ESS-Init correctly uses 16-Bit instead of 10-Bit meaning that games like Doom 1 now work with music and sound. I have yet to try a game that fails on both the ESSINIT and the ESSOLO driver, most of them work on both. Out of the two the ESSINIT method is the better option because it leaves nothing behind in RAM and supports more games. But if your audio begins to cut out after a short while, or if it fails to detect the card you will need the ESSOLO driver for that game. When you run my version of ESSINIT it will automatically copy the configuration files for the ESSOLO driver to the correct place, and it will also setup a Audigy 1 in a driverless audio passtrough mode if you have one. Given the Audigy 1 + ESS Solo-1 combination does not conflict with each other and you then get the best of both worlds. If you do not want this you can remove the EK2M part of the script and zip file.

I hope this helps people with similar motherboards to mine to more easily get the most out of this card, it really is a phenomenal DOS card if you have the tools to utilize it fully. Oh and if your DOS game has a option for the ESS Enhanced FM make sure to pick it instead of the Yamaha OPL3 / ADLib / Soundblaster options. It will make the card sound even better!

And yes, you can use the ESSINIT before you load the ESSOLO driver since the ESSOLO driver resets the card. It won't reliably work the other way around though so if you do want to add this to your autoexec add the ESSINIT and that is all you have to do.

Thanks for the essolo.ini explanation.

On my i815 / ICH2 Kamerat's method to set WBDMA is the only way to have SFX from ESS Solo, without EMS and additional drivers.

I also used Kamarat's method as well (ESSINIT) but Kamerat's file in WBDMA gave me worse results than setting it to TDMA with 16-bit addressing.
On TDMA and 16-bit Addressing its giving me great results in games like Doom.

What is ek2m from your package and does it need EMM386? I like the idea of using both Yamaha 724 and Audigy, to get the best of both worlds.

Its from here : Re: Multichannel DOS mixer for DOS sound builds v0.49 for Live, v1.01 for Audigy
Doesn't need anything, you can use this without any memory messagers and it won't run in the background.
To my knowledge a Audigy 2 version was never made, so you will need either a soundblaster live using the version they provide, or an Audigy 1.

henk717 wrote on 2021-03-19, 18:36:

I certainly have something to add for the TDMA IRQ5 supported users, specifically my own zip file that i made to very easily setup the ESS Solo-1 on my retro computers.
Its based on the ESSINIT method already known on the forum, but with the settings suitable for my machine. I get a lot better game compatibility out of this than i get on the ESSOLO driver but the games that fail then do work on the solo. So combining the two is the best of both worlds.

Hi, I am hoping to get some help with my ESS Solo1 1938 card in DOS 6.22. My PC is a Dell Optiplex 170L (Pentium 4). I have not installed many games yet but now stuck with Doom 1.9. I can get Music but no Sound Effects. When ESSOLO.SYS in running it crashes Doom. With just the .COM it is ok but issue with sound effects no matter what IRQ I select. ESSOLO.COM reports IRQ9. With ESSOLO.SYS it reports IRQ5. I have tried to change everything with ESSINIT.BAT from Kamerat but not even sure if this is changing anything.. it still wants be IRQ 9. Could the IRQ be the problem? How can I resolve this?

EDIT: I thought I would try moving the sound card around in the PC. The Dell has only 3 PCI slots. With other cards removed I can get PCI Slot IRQ3, IRQ9 or IRQ10. None of these made any difference to the sound effects in Doom - still nothing... hope someone can help!

EDIT2: I had another go at this after reading that disabling as many things in the BIOS such as com ports and parallel ports could free up IRQs. When I disable parallel the system freezes as it tries to load into dos at the Loading MSDOS... message.. so I have re-enabled that. After disabling serial ports the ESS Solo is now reporting IRQ3 however Doom is now crashing with:

1DOS/4GW Professional error (2002): transfer stack overflow in interrupt 0Bh at 80:000006CA

etc..
What can I try now?? I also noted that regardless of the SB Emulation type setting in ESSINIT.BAT to other values DDMA, TDMA, etc.. when booting ESSOLO.COM always reports it is in TDMA mode... Is this not being set correctly? How do I know if changes are persisting?

Thanks!