Welcome to the Orpheus II Sound Card homepage.
Orpheus II is a PC ISA 16bit soundcard , aimed for DOS usage.
click on image for
larger version , red rev1.1 shown
click for green REV
1.1 photo
click for green REV 1.0
photo
|
Orpheus II *last batch* pre-order information In the last couple of weeks we sold what we thought to be the "last batch" of OrpheusII cards, production was arranged and made according to the queue we had from people that filled the order form. But since then things exploded again and the "last batch" was only a small fraction of the cards needed to satisfy the demand. For this reason we decided to arrange yet another production run - this time it will be the "really final one". In order to be able to make the needed number
of OrpheusII cards without having a bunch or spare boards in
the end or even worse we make too few cards we have decided for
the first time ever to use a "preorder" system. So
everyone in the queue in the next couple of days will receive
an email with payment instructions for a 50% deposit (and
the rest 50% before shipping for a total of 340eur per board
shipped) - thus pre-ordering the card(s)
someone needs and securing their production. Pre-orders will
be accepted until Wednesdey the 14th of August , at this point
the form will close and we will start arranging production of
the batch of cards. |
The Orpheus II is a greatly upgraded Orpheus I souncard:
InterWave is somewhat picky on the ram stick
used, for best results use a single-sided FPM 72pin 5v simm module
with a speed rating of 70ns or 60ns. Double-sided sticks will
work but most likely only half their capacity will be detected. Please try and avoid using EDO ram sticks - they are more available and cheaper BUT they are also mainly 3.3v parts: if you need to use EDO please check if the chips used are 5v tolerant else you risk damaging the card. |
video review by LGR |
video review by Always Obsolete |
OrpheusII YMF-262 showcase by pc-sound-legacy |
More info and development log can be found on VOGONS forum,
in the Orpheus
II thread.
Please also check the Orpheus
I homepage for more info as both cards use the same CS-4237
audio controller.
Jumper
Settings:
|
PCMIDI Resources Control P - jumper closed = port 330 , open = port 300 3,5,7,2 = select *one* IRQ for use defaults shown: port 330 and IRQ2 selected with R1.1 boards you can also select three additional IRQs: 10, 11 and 12 |
|
MIDI Signal Routing Control (to allow
a dual-mpu setup) With this jumper block you can select which MPU device controls each port. Move jumper to position 1+2 (for PCMIDI) or 2+3 (for CS4237) to select MPU. J2 = Wavetable Connector J3 = Joystick Connector J4 = MIDI Out Connector defaults shown: all ports controlled by PCMIDI MPU |
PCMIDI MPU interface info:
If you want to find out more about the PCMIDI MPU part
then please visit the PCMIDI Homepage
FAQ
1. My NEC XR-385 wavetable daughterboard
is too loud and I cannot create good mixer settings for use with
it.
The NEC XR-385 wavetable daughterboard is created for use with
a Japanese line of computers from NEC and as such it
uses difffent specifications for it's output - it is almost 3x
louder than what a normal pc soundcard expects.
OrpheusII is finetuned to be used with proper PC wavetable boards
and as such adjusting the XR-385 volume to be
balanced with the rest of audio sources is not possible.
Simply put because of it's volume output the XR-385 is not supported
for use with the OrpheusII.
Tiido over at VOGONS
forum offers a service to convert a XR-385 to a proper PC
wavetable board - the converted board
works perfectly with OrpheusII or any other soundcard out there.
Alternatively you can use a CHiLL interface from Serdashop
to convert the XR385 to an external midi device, the interface
has
hardware volume attenuation jumpers for loud wavetable boards.
2. I have troubles allocating resources for
my OrpheusII card, it seems selected IRQ or DMA do not work.
This might happen if your system has a PnP BIOS. What helps is
allocating the needed resources for use with "LEGACY ISA"
option, this is typically found in the "PNP/PCI CONFIGURATION"
page of your system BIOS. Notice in the shot below how
we have set the needed IRQ and DMA options for "LEGACY ISA"
usage - they are basically what the OrpheusII needs:
IRQ2/9 for PCMIDI MPU
IRQ5 and DMA1 for the Crystal chip
to provide SB/SBPRO/WSS
IRQ7 and DMA7 for the InterWave
chip to provide GUS
Changing these settings should help reserve the needed resources
for the OrpheusII. In rare cases you might also need to remove
all
extra cards from your system, boot it once and verify that resources
are good to go and then add any extra cards you had installed
as
this will force BIOS to re-configure itself.
3. I have an ASUS P5A motherboard and win9x
CS4237 drivers do not work, I get a message about CWDAUDIO.DRV
on boot
The solution to this problem is to DISABLE the "PCI DELAY
TRANSACTION" option in BIOS, then Crystal windows drivers
will load fine.
It is unsure what causes this conflict on this motherboard (and
possible other motherboards) , could be the installed hardware
combo, BIOS
revision or some other voodoo - but if you face a similar issue
give the option a try.
4. DOOM II has some weird instruments in music
playback when Gravis UltraSound is used
This is a known bug for UltraSound cards, basically the game driver
bugs out when 1mb or more ram is installed (yes even on GUS Classic
1MB
cards this happens) and loads the wrong samples. Explanation is
located here
, solutions to this issue can be downloaded HERE and HERE .
5. Impulse Tracker does not work with the WSS
mode of CS4237 based cards
640kenough! released a revised Crystal WSS driver for
the popular Impulse tracker - this will allow the Orpheus boards
to use WSS mode with IT ,
you can read more info and download in the VOGONS
release thread. Local mirror HERE.
6. Why there are fewer golden audio capacitors
on the new REV 1.1 board?
Due to component shortages the smaller 4.7uf Nichcon "gold"
audio capacitors have been replaced with their SMD counterparts
from the UUQ
audio capacitor series. Sadly these SMD capacitors do not
have a special look and use the standard metalic silver
color for their body. It was a nescessary change in order to produce
more cards at this time.
7. With REV 1.1 board if I use IRQ 10/11/12
for PCMIDI then MQDIAG reports that no interface is found even
though things work fine
The newst version of MQDIAG is needed for IRQ10/11/12 support
, you can download the updated PCMIDI Software package HERE .
PCMIDI does not require any kind of driver to work under DOS,
the package is provided for completion/troubleshooting reasons.
8. I have an ASUS PVI-486SP3 motherboard and
Oprhinit reports an Unable to reset Sound Blaster DSP.
error , sound is working OK though
Make sure you have reserved the needed IRQ/DMA in the "PNP/PCI
Configuraration" page of the system BIOS as shown above.
When you initialize the OrpheusII use ULTRASND.BAT first to intialize
the GUS PnP portion and then ORPHEUS.BAT to initialize the CS4237
portion of the card.
With this order there will not be any errors/warnings - it is
a specific motherboard PNP BIOS quirk and initialization order
matters.
9. Line-IN does not work with DOS programs
under Win9x but works fine in Win9x environment
This happens because of the default values the win9x Crystal driver
enforces - in SB mode Line-IN is set to 0 (mute).
You can easily fix this by running CWDMIX before launching your
DOS program/game that needs Line-IN input.
Open a Command Prompt, run CWDMIX to set the desired volume values
and from the same Command Prompt window launch the DOS application.
This needs to be done each time a new Command Prompt window is
opened since the windows driver will assume control again and
write it's default values.
Download CWDMIX HERE
.
tip
from user CHA0SHACKER :
I found a way to permanently unmute the Crystal line-in
in Windows DOS-Boxes. You can put the CWDMIX.EXE into the windows9x
AUTOEXEC.BAT w
ith a couple paramenters. Then it's active for all DOS windows
that get started. I use "CWDMIX /M=9,9 /W=9,9 /L=15,15 /X=1
/F=9,9 /C=1,1 /I=L".
10. After installing the Gravis UltraSound
drivers win9x tray mixer launches the UltraSound mixer , how do
I get back the tray Crystal CS4237 volume control?
This change is made automatically by the Gravis software installation.
To revert back to the Crystal CS4237 mixer open "UltraSound
Properties"
(located in START MENU -> Gravis -> UltraSound Properties
) , uncheck the "Use UltraSound Mixer instead of Windows
Volume Control" and press APPLY, the change will be instantaneous.
11. Under win9x I cannot allocate the resources
I want for GUS PnP and/or CS4237 even though I reserved resources
in BIOS
This could happen on an ACPI system and all you could manually
allocate are resources that are less than ideal for ISA soundcards.
The solution to the issue is to disable the "Get IRQ table
using ACPI BIOS" option. Instructions to find the option
follow:
- Open "Device Manager" navigate to "System Components"
and select "PCI-Bus".
- In properties of the PCI-Bus deactivate option "Get IRQ
table using ACPI BIOS" (untick the box).
- Click "OK" and restart your computer - hopefuly on
next reboot you will be able to allocate the desired resources.
Driver
downloads:
|
Orpheus II DOS drivers consists
of 2 parts for now: a. Orphinit that will initialize the CS4237 part b. official Gravis UltraSound PnP or UniSound drivers that will initialize the GUS part |
|
For best results remember to MUTE all InterWave inputs on the InterWave mixer application (MIC, Line-IN, CD-IN etc are not used at all on the InterWave portion of the card and muting these sources can lead to better output quality) . |
|
OrpheusII Windows9x drivers consists
of 3 parts: a. OrpheusII Win9x driver for the CS4237/YMF289 parts b. official Gravis UltraSound PnP for the GUS part c. PCMIDI driver |
|
For best results remember to MUTE all InterWave inputs on the InterWave mixer application (MIC, Line-IN, CD-IN etc are not used at all on the InterWave portion of the card and muting these sources can lead to better output quality) . |
|
OrpheusII Windows 3.1x CS4237
drivers can be found on the original Orpheus page HERE
. Please read the installation and limitations notes - the win3x
driver cannot be customized further and we have to use whatever
defaults Crystal decided upon. Keep in mind that the win3x drivers are poorly optimized and/or bugged and with many systems they cause delays in audio playback. There is no workaround for that and there is no other win3x driver version available. |
Gravis game patches & info links:
Official AMD InterWave game
patch information webpage 04/02/1997 mirror
How
to use Gravis UltraSound with Tomb Raider
The
Gravis UltraSound Archives
http://dk.toastednet.org/GUS/
https://gona.mactar.hu/GRAVIS/
more to come...
Known issues:
Duke Nukem II : CS4237 chip does not support all ADPCM sample
compression modes the game uses. Please use
AdLib sound effects for the game OR the ADPCM FIX from K1n9_Duk3
posted on VOGONS forum HERE.
Tyrian and Tyrian 2000 : On most systems the game only
works with WSS and DMA0 selected. You can easily change
resources on the fly by modifying the BLASTER variable and running
UniSound to re-init the card or use ORPHINIT with an
INI file that specifies DMA0 to be used. This just seems to be
the game's sound driver incompatibility with the CS4237.
Sierra games with 32bit engines like Police Quest IV, Quest
for Glory IV, Gabriel Knight, etc that have WSS as an option
in their setup will have to be played with Sound Blaster option
since the Sierra WSS driver is incompatible with the CS-4237 chip.
There are WSS driver updates for 16bit game engine HERE and 32bit game engine HERE but they are hardcoded to IRQ7/DMA1
and have the potential/ability to mess with mixer settings and
s/pdif output registers.
There are now some fixed
16bit and 32bit Sierra WSS drivers HERE and HERE thanks to 640k!enough , this is still a WIP
but they have the advantage of adding WSS support in Sierra games
that never supported tha standard initially. Please refer to the
discussion in the thread for further info. These drivers will
help all 423x cards not just Orpheus.
How to
order it:
|
Before ordering the Orpheus II please keep
in mind that this is a piece of hardware for advanced users. It requires knowledge about how to effectively use the Gravis UltraSound PnP soundcard, some effort and games patching to make Classic GUS software compatible with it and on top you will have to juggle a 3in1 card: PCMIDI + CS4237 Soundcard + GUS PnP so good IRQ/DMA resource management is expected. This is not a warning to deter people from ordering but a warning of what to expect: you will face the same situations as with having an original GUS PnP card + a main soundcard + a MPU-401 interface installed togethere in a system. |
Back to Index |