Ensoniq's sound cards were popular and shipped with many IBM PC compatibles. Almost every newer MS-DOS-era game supported the Ensoniq Soundscape either directly or through General MIDI. In addition, Ensoniq devised an ISA software audio emulation solution for their new PCI sound cards that was compatible with most IBM PC games. It is speculated that this was an important factor in Creative Lab's acquisition of Ensoniq, because Creative/E-MU was struggling with legacy compatibility at the time with their higher-performance PCI audio solutions. According to one source, because of the wide range of patents Ensoniq had involving PCI-bus support for the sound cards, and the fact that Ensoniq wanted E-MU's technologies, the buyout of Ensoniq became the best of both worlds.