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Welcome to the Orpheus 2 LT Sound Card homepage.
Orpheus 2LT is a PC ISA 16bit soundcard , aimed for DOS usage.





Click on images for larger versions
Previous Rev2 board using YMF289

The Orpheus 2 LT is an upgraded OrpheusI souncard and as such the main features are the same:

• based on the Crystal CS4237B controller which offers SB/SB-PRO/WSS compatibility
• discrete OPL3 chip (new version uses the YMF262 chip, OPL output filtering stage is now based on improved AdLib Gold design)
• 44.100hz 16bit S/PDIF output of all internal and external audio sources
• 4-layer PCB design with attention to analog output part and usage of audio-grade capacitors
• 2 MPU-401 options: internal CS-4237 UART interface or PCMIDI intelligent mode MPU
• Gameport, Line IN, Line OUT, MIC and Coax S/PDIF ports
• Wavetable daughterboard and AC'97 headers
• dedicated midi-OUT port (you can also use at the same time MIDI IN/OUT ports on gameport with a gameport->midi or DB15MIDI adapter)
  
  So what is new over the OrpheusI design?
• revamped PCB design and analog output section which result in better sound quality than the original OrpheusI
• new way for OPL3 interfacing which allows the YAMAHA OPL3 to be accessible under Windows 9x, no more CystalFM-only limitation
  
  Basically due to the experience gained from OrpheusI and better understanding of the CS-4237 audio controller a better soundcard was possible to make!
  
  
  

The Orpheus II LT - A Brand New ISA Sound Card That Ticks The Right Boxes! video review by vswitchzero

More info and development log can be found on VOGONS forum, in the OrpheusII thread.
Please also check the OrpheusI 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
	MIDI Signal Routing Control (to allow a dual-mpu setup) If PCMIDI is installed and you also activate CS4237 MPU device 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. Why there are fewer golden audio capacitors on the new LT 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.


2. 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.


3. I have the LIMITED EDTION BLACK Orpheus2 LT board, where is it's homepage now?

The homepage is located HERE just for archival reasons- updated drivers/info are located in this page you are looking at. :)


4. 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.


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. 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.


7. 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.


8. 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".





Driver downloads:

Orpheus II LT DOS drivers

DOS: Orphinit 0.58ß version released, download HERE .

0.58b Changelog
PC Speaker output bug fixed

Please test this new version and give feedback / bug reports either directly to Edro or Leo
or more preferably post directly in the official ORPHINIT thread over at VOGONS forum. Thanks!


Old versions:
DOS: Orphinit 0.57ß version released, download HERE .
Changelog
Several bug fixes and improvements
Added support for the Orpheus II (LT) boards
Temporary 0.57b fix for enabling PC Speaker output , download HERE .
More info on VOGONS thread , next version of Orphinit will also include this fix but for now it's a standalone program.


Revised Crystal WSS driver for Impulse Tracker
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.

OrpheusII LT Windows 9x drivers consists of 2 parts: a. OrpheusII Win9x driver for the CS4237/YMF289 parts b. PCMIDI driver

Windows 9x: Orpheus II driver (CS-4237/OPL3), download HERE.



Driver is based on the last Crystal CS4237 driver version PV2860.
Just extract archive to a directory and when asked about CS4237B drivers point Windows to said directory.


Windows 9x: PCMIDI driver
PCMIDI related files/drivers are located HERE .

it is recommended to just use the built-in MPU-401 driver that Windows 3x/9x offer

(alternatively you can install one of the drivers found in the PCMIDI website linked above if you want their
extra functionality like multiport mpu but keep in mind these are mainly for windows-only usage with midi sequencers
so no guarantee how they will behave running DOS applications under windows for example).

Remember that the onboard PCMIDI MPU-401 interface is not a PnP device and needs to be added manually
to the system if you are not making a fresh install from scratch.

OrpheusII LT Windows 3x drivers consists of 2 parts: a. OrpheusII Win3x driver for the CS4237 part b. PCMIDI driver

Although Orpheus is designed as a DOS sound card windows drivers do exist - but sadly due to it's closed-source nature some limitations are in effect...
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.

• Windows 3.x driver is under testing , unfortunatelly the win3x driver disables s/pdif output as it configures the chip for it's own usage, when you exit windows you need to run
  orphinit/unisound again to re-enable it. The driver is old and cumbersome (like almost all old win3x drivers...) with hard-coded values that cannot be changed.
  Therefore 2 driver packs exist: one if you configure your card to use IRQ5 and another if you use IRQ7 - these are drivers for PnP BIOS systems
  If you need to make a change after the win3x driver is installed you'll have to manually edit SYSTEM.INI in your WINDOWS directory.
  
  update 09-02-2021
  There are now IRQ5 and IRQ7 drivers for non-PnP BIOS systems that solve win3x not loading after driver installation , you will now get this "Configuration" window on setup
  
  
  
  Do not bother changing any values other than the (CS) MPU 401 enable/disable box - they change the values for the DOS part of the driver and not the win3x one - even
  with the original driver one would still need to edit SYSTEM.INI to pass any different values...
  The MPU 401 enable/disable checkbox is for the Crystal MPU device - PCMIDI will still work with it but if you need to install the Roland driver then it is easier to just not
  install the CS MPU driver at all so you avoid system.ini editing....
  A line in config.sys will be added "DEVICE=C:\CRYSTAL\CS4232C.EXE /O" that will do nothin and can be ignored or edited out - the target file will not be installed as
  it is the stock Crystal DOS driver that we do not use - instead we use ORPHINIT or UNISOUND to configure the card prior to loading Windows 3.x
  
  download Windows 3.x Orpheus IRQ5 driver for non-PnP systems
  download Windows 3.x Orpheus IRQ7 driver for non-PnP systems
  
  TIP:
  Did you install the previous driver and win3x does not load? Edit SYSTEM.INI file inside your win3x directory:
  - find the line " UsePnP=1" and change it to "UsePnP=0" , save the change and load windows again :)
  

Windows 3x: PCMIDI driver
PCMIDI related files/drivers are located HERE .

it is recommended to just use the built-in MPU-401 driver that Windows 3x offer





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:

17 Aug 2024: Orpheus2 LT is now sold out!



Be advised that these are the only email addresses that will contact you about a purchase (either Edro or Leo depending on availability) :

Problems?

Just contact us! We'll be happy to help and resolve any issue you might have!

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