I'll check about a better sound card, but the Yamaha I have now seems to work great for an ISA card. Perhaps I can find a nice PCI card that without the rust.
Edit: I was able to get my Promise Ultra ATA 100 card installed and it's working now. That should improve hard drive performance for my 8GB drive. Interestingly; some of the newer DirectX revisions offer less performance than the older ones for some reason. I just bought a Voodoo 5 5500 PCI so I can try to bring my overpowered 486 to the ridiculously overpowered label. I needed the VSA100 chips for some future specialized scientific work, and they are getting rarer, so I picked it up despite not knowing if it will work in this old 486 (I suspect it does, I mean, 3dfx was known for listening to smart science people like me about stuff like that). I am so excited!! 24.4FPS in QuakeGL currently.
Edit 2: Do you think an ESS Audiodrive would perform better with DirectSound than a Yamaha OPL3 based card? I kinda don't want to test it, but I can't let you guys down on this. I gotta run the science on it later just so I can check.
Edit 2.1: My system wouldn't boot with the ESS Audiodrive installed, so I will not be testing that one.
Edit 3: QuakeGL with the lights off is similar to X-Files with the lights off. It seems like a great idea at first, then you start getting sucked in and *BAM*, that's when the terror hits you in the face. It's the test of a true scientist. Can you survive hard mode?
P.S. It doesn't count for a full Quake experience unless you have an original disc so the soundtrack can play. Trent Reznor outdid himself on the sounds in that game.
I am running Tomb Raider 2 in 1600x1200, QuakeGL in 640x480, Forsaken in 1024x768, and Turok in 640x480 with only some slowdown when the screen is full of objects or scenery. Hexen II is playable at 1600x1200.