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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

The Orpheus II is a greatly upgraded Orpheus I souncard:

• added AMD InterWave chip for native compatibility with Gravis UltraSound PnP software (included are the standard 1MB InterWave ROM bank and a SIMM socket for up to 16MB of RAM)
• Crystal CS4237B controller which offers SB/SB-PRO/WSS compatibility
• discrete YMF289B OPL3 chip
• 44.100hz 16bit S/PDIF output of all internal and external audio sources
• 4-layer PCB design
• 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 that can be used at the same time with a common gameport->midi or DB15MIDI adapter for an extra OUT and IN ports
  
  So what is new over the OrpheusI design?
• the obvious addition of the AMD INTERWAVE chip giving the OrpheusII the extra capabilities of the Gravis UltraSound PnP soundcard
• revamped PCB design and analog output section which result in just a bit better sound quality than the original Orpheus I
• new way for OPL3 interfacing which allows the YAMAHA OPL3 to be accessible under Windows 9x (no more CystalFM-only limitation under win9x)
  
  Some notes on the InterWave part of Orpheus II:
  The InterWave part of the Orpheus II works and behaves exactly the same as having a discrete Gravis UltraSound PnP installed in the system.
  Every tool, application, driver, software that is made to work with the GUS PnP will also work in the same manner with the Orpheus II.
  Please refer to web/forum sources about GUS PnP usage and files, everything will apply to Orpheus II as well.
  The InterWave sound output is tied to the "Synth/OPL/Wavetable" input of the CS4237 chip - same as what the GUS Extreme does with it's ESS chip.
  Much like the original GUS PnP in order to achieve Classic GUS compatibility you must have RAM installed in the SIMM socket.
  
  

  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.

  
  
  

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
	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. 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 does 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.

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) .

DOS: Orphinit 0.57ß version released, download HERE .

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!
Changelog
Several bug fixes and improvements
Added support for the Orpheus II (LT) boards


DOS/win3x: Gravis UltraSound PnP driver download HERE .

DOS: Gravis UltraSound PnP PREINSTALLED driver v.4 download HERE .
This package is meant to be used under a pure DOS environment (and not for DOS-under-win9x) and includes the following pre-installed items :
latest Gravis UltraSound PnP DOS drivers
UltraSound Classic compatible patch set
UltraSound PnP 4MB patch set
Gravis sample midi files
UltraMID driver
Please read the ORPHEUS2.TXT in the archive for more info.
(v2 update info: muted unused inputs on InterWave in mixer app, changes saved to IW.INI and applied on initialization)
(v3 update info: changed PNP mode to LEGACY in IW.INI so IRQ/DMA settings are respected)
(v4 update info: UltraMID now really included and ULTRAMID.INI also present in \MIDI directory to fix music in some Apogee games)


DOS/win3x/win9x/winNT: Gravis UltraSound PnP driver floppy images download HERE .

Gravis UltraSound PnP CD image download HERE (VOGONSdrivers mirror HERE ) .

DOS: UltraMID v1.12, download HERE .

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) .

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: Gravis UltraSound PnP driver v2.2 (latest) download HERE .


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.



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.

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...




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.

02-APR-23: Batch #2 of Orpheus II has been received and cards are being made , so we are contacting interested
people according to the queue - please be patient as the queue is considerable... thanks!

Please fill this order form HERE - treat it as a non-paying pre-order , once a card is ready for you we will
contact you about payment info. Be careful to enter your email correctly so we can contact you back!

Price per card is 340eur if paid via paypal "friends and family" (or 370eur if you prefer to pay via "goods and services") .
Price includes worldwide registered airmail shipping.


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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Please check out our other retropc projects: PCMIDI , MegaCard and MK8330 soundcard

Thanks for looking!