(Thanks to /u/O_MORES for posting this elsewhere)
There’s a brand new HD audio driver for Windows 98/Me called WDMHDA.
Since it’s a WDM driver, it will play nice with the Sound Blaster Emulation Layer built into Windows 98/ME (sbemul.sys).
And it actually works. Here’s Windows 98 and this codec tested on a Ryzen 9 PC: https://youtu.be/uhWyH0TsrCc
If we’re talking DOS software in 98SE, there’s a few patches to limit the RAM seen by the OS to 512MB or 2GB for compatibility.
https://archive.org/details/Windows_98SE_Memory_Patch
yep rloew’s patches are great https://rloewelectronics.com/
though that much ram isn’t really necessary, setting MaxPhysPage=20000 (512MB) just works fine