As a sidenote, ESS models are some of the easiest soundcards to work with. The first S/C in my first PC was a Miss Melody ESS688, which I replaced later with a Pine Schubert ESS 1868F. In games with ESFM option (there are a few of them) they sound better than OPL3 FM music.
All cards up to PCI Solo kept the ESFM block, which was sadly removed in newer PCI chips like Maestro and Canyon.
But Solo is the perfect PCI card when it comes to DOS compatibility.