ORPHEUS II SOUND CARD HOMEPAGE

12-MAY-2026 news: due to popular demand a new batch of OrpheusII is in the works!
You can find the pre-order information and form at the bottom of this page!
Thank you for your awesome support all these years! It's what makes things happen!

 

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 red REV 1.1 photo
click for green REV 1.0 photo

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)

REV 1.1 changelog:
- "classic" YMF262 OPL3 chip is now used instead of the YMF289 previous boards had
- OPL output filtering stage is now based on improved AdLib Gold design
- extra IRQ options added for PCMIDI , you can now use IRQs 10,11 and 12
- Hole-thru "golden" audio capacitors from Nichicon replaced with their SMD equvalents from the UUQ audio capacitor series


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. Please try and avoid using EDO ram sticks - as they are mainly 3.3v parts: if you need to use EDO please check if the chips used are 5v parts else the card will be damaged eventually as the InterWave chip is not designed for 3.3v memory. If you are unsure of the memory you want to use with the OrpheusII feel free to contact us so we can verify it is suitable to use.

Orpheus II Sound Card Review! review by My Retro PC

Orpheus II: The Best Retro PC Sound Card in 2023? Perhaps! video review by LGR

The Ultimate Retro PC ISA Sound Card video review by Always Obsolete

The Orpheus II - (Yamaha YMF-262 OPL3) playing classic DOS-Games music 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
	InterWave 8/16bit slot selection On 2026 production boards there is now a physical jumber to select if the card is inserted in an 8bit slot (meaning the 16bit portion of the ISA pins are left floating) or a 16bit slot (all ISA pins of the card are inserted in the slot). Reason for that is that in most systems when the card is used in a 8bit slot InterWave will not initialize correctly - the jumper forces 8/16bit detection on the chip. Please DO NOT set the jumper to 8bit slot mode if you are inserting the card in a full 16bit ISA slot. Jumper in position 1+2 is 16bit ISA slot selection (default) Jumper in position 2+3 is 8bit ISA slot selection

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.
MMX-aware driver released, offering MMX mixing and filter support - check out the VOGONS thread post! 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) .

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.



DOS: OP2MIX 1.721 version released, download HERE .

OP2MIX.COM, a DOS mixer I created by Dusko for the Orpheus II sound card.
A video showcase of it is HERE.

OP2MIX allows you to view and change the current volume levels, control SRS settings, and see the current sound card
mode and FM configuration, including Sound Blaster, WSS, OPL3, CrystalFM, and Layered mode.
The mixer reads the values and states directly from the sound card and does not rely on the ORPHEUS.INI file.
OP2MIX also includes Help and INFO sections that display additional information about the card's current configuration,
including routing, digital output, Crystal MPU, PCMIDI, and more.


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.
Extract in root directory of C:\ and re-create the directories inside the ZIP file, for example the DOS PKUNZIP command is: pkunzip ultrasnd.zip c:\ -d

(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: Jazz Jackrabbit v1.1 Shareware version - Prepatched for InterWave - download HERE .
This is a convenience package to test Gravis UltraSound playback under DOS - it's the shareware version of Jazz Jackrabbit v1.1 with PREPGAME already
applied - if you initialize the OrpheusII with Orphinit + ULTRASND.ZIP and have installed some RAM on the board then running JAZZ.EXE will playback sound
from the Gravis part of the card. Self-extract DOS archive + installer fit on a single 1.44mb floppy disk - just like EPIC released back in the day.


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) .

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.

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).

Updated PCMIDI driver/diagnostics package for REV 1.1 boards, when testing/detecting IRQ 10/11/12



Download HERE .

note: PCMIDI does not require any kind of driver to work under DOS, the package above is provided for completion/troubleshooting reasons
when PCMIDI is jumpered to use IRQs 10, 11 or 12.

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 usind the "Add New Hardware" wizard.

 

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.

Pre-orders of Orpheus II soundcard are now closed - thank you again for your support!




Contact information

Need to contact us? Need help to setup/troubleshoot things or extra info?
Please use our contact form, join our Discord Server or our Facebook group !

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last update: 24-SEP-2026 , always a WIP