Just received mine and tested it briefly. Currently only 386 is on my desk, so I put it there and run Impulse Tracker. Hardware mixing offloads CPU so much, I could barely play non-interpolated 8 bit mods (not all of them) on BlasterBoard few days ago and Interwave chip does all the job in 16 bits. Such a joy!

Thank you, guys, for your work!

LGR just posted a video review of this card. I think he likes it. 😉

Orpheus II: The Best Retro PC Sound Card in 2023? Perhaps!

What OS and Motherboard bios type works best with this card to get full functionality and performance ?

Computer recommended specs please ?
CPU ?
System RAM/ Card Memory?
Motherboard Bios type/version ?

DOS and Any system with ISA.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-06-10, 10:41:

DOS and Any system with ISA.

But LGR said in his video review that it’s a Plug-n-play card that requires specific resources ( IRQ/DMA )

As told in LGR video, if you use a system with non pnp bios or integrated peripherals , you need to configure hardware manually your IO cards and so on.
So any system with pnp bios or with integrated peripherals configurable in bios with ISA slots are advisable for ease of installation, otherwise you need to set by hand.
Please check PCMIDI.EU.
There's also plenty of information on Internet . You can start in PCMIDI.EU and Vogons.org .

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2023-06-10, 12:39:

But LGR said in his video review that it’s a Plug-n-play card that requires specific resources ( IRQ/DMA )

Nothing different than any other card out there.
You free up on your system the needed IRQ/DMA and the card works, PnP or not it makes no difference - only how you do the resource management differs.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2023-06-10, 08:46:

What OS and Motherboard bios type works best with this card to get full functionality and performance ? […]
Show full quote

What OS and Motherboard bios type works best with this card to get full functionality and performance ?

Computer recommended specs please ?
CPU ?
System RAM/ Card Memory?
Motherboard Bios type/version ?

I tested it on 386DX-40 and it worked fine. GUS hardware mixing helps MOD players definitely but for my taste this card is somewhat excessive for such build, most of the games of that era would prefer something like SB Pro and MT32. Technically it should work on anything with ISA (late Socket 370 / Socket A) and it can be a good choice if this is your only retro PC. But to me the best match is something in range 486 DX4-100 .. Pentium 133 that will allow you to utilize all the games with native GUS support.

What MS-Windows version works Best with this card for Full Support in games ?

You try and tell us🙂

Marmes wrote on 2023-06-11, 13:28:

You try and tell us🙂

There is no trolling like counter-trolling.

Are there plans to produce more of the LT type? I get 404 on the form.

It's working fine for me.

The link on the LT page is http://pcmidi.eu/SOLDOUTFORNOW. Should I just use the form from the non-LT page instead?

anderswk wrote on 2023-06-16, 12:25:

The link on the LT page is http://pcmidi.eu/SOLDOUTFORNOW. Should I just use the form from the non-LT page instead?

next week or so there will be a new dedicated LT homepage with working form link since more LT cards will be available to purchase

Great, thanks.

All,

I received my Orpheus II card about a week ago and like all of you have been tinkering.

Here is the target system (for now)

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-p … p-oem#downloads
P5S-VM socket 7
AMD-K6 -2 500 Mhz (Running underclocked at 166 Mhz)
Cache RAM 512 KB
PhenixBIOS 4.0 Release 6.0.3 Revision 1.02 (I hate this BIOS what crap...)
192M memory
Standard PCI video card 8MB video ram (onboard AGP is jumpered disabled)
Orpheus II in ISA slot
PS2 Mouse and Keyboard

BIOS is limited:
IRQ 3 - > IRQ 11 is allowed to reserve for ISA but no IRQ 6 or IRQ8 option or IRQ 2 for this matter.
BIOS does not have reservations for ISA with respect DMA.

IRQ3 Reserved
IRQ4 Available
IRQ5 Reserved
IRQ7 Available
IRQ9 Available
IRQ10 Available
IRQ11 Available

IRQ 7 / 9 I can't reserve as system won't boot due to PnP device.

====================
Orpheus II
Jumper:
Joystick enable
MPU MIDI to IRQ 3

Rest are default jumpers.
-----------------------
Connection:
DB15 connected with Joystick and to DB15 to MIDI
MIDI - > Roland Sound Canvas SC-55mkII

------------------------
OS : DOS 6.22
------------------------

Alright, with that out of the way. At this point, I'm just trying to duplicate my setup as it was on my Pentium II P2B computer in terms of physical general midi and sound setup for two games as a test.
Doom II DOS
X-Wing DOS

Orphinit is called from AUTOEXEC.BAT and it initializes fine at 220, DMA1, IRQ 5. I get sound effects and digital speech no issue there.

Two issues (one is probably a knowledge issue):

1. If I run Orphinit only on boot or manually I get sound but no general MIDI music. I do get both if I run Unisound /C2 (card 2 is the SB portion) I'm not testing anything GUS right now as I'm waiting for a memory stick for that.

2. This is the biggest issue and I've been going up an down seeing where I'm going wrong. The general MIDI is working with above usage (see #1) but it's working badly, in that music instrument are incorrect, skipped or there is timbre issues and then hanging notes. I thought for sure it's a speed issue and it still might be but I reduced the speed from 500 Mhz to 166 Mhz with little change. I tried using "Setmul" to disable the L1 or L2 cache but it reports my AMD-K6 -2 is not supported and only disabling L1 cache is possible. I tried that option but I don't believe it worked either.

I've tired also setting the IRQ on the MPU MIDI control from IRQ2 to IRQ3 as I thought a conflict might be an issue but that didn't solve it.

I also tried to use the 3.5mm midi cable directly to the SC-55mkII and switching the jumper on the Orpheus II Jumper "J4" to 2-3 to the MIDI out connector option, but I'm getting same results.

I also have a Dreamblaster X2 wavetable board which I installed the Wavetable header. This also cues up the same way with missing notes / wrong instruments etc when enabled the jumper "J2"

My perception is this motherboard sucks or there is problem with MPU 401 / PCMIDI section on the card. I'm planning to build another Asus P5B computer to see if I can replicate the problem in a Pentium II setup.

Any thoughts? I love the card though!!! Nice sound on the SB side.

these midi issues are most likely because there is a resource conflict. Probably something is using port330 (either CSMPU or some other device in the system)
there is no "joystick enable" jumper on OrpheusII - this is controlled via orphinit
the midi selection jumper just assigns either CSMPU or PCMIDI to the 3 midi connections on the board: dedicated jack, gameport midi and wavetable connector
I think there is also some confusion on the jumper block , please tell me what setup you want to use and I will tell you how to put the jumpers

Ok. I don't have any other card in the system besides the Orpheus II and the PCI video card.

An ideal setup would be the following and what i'm trying to accomplish.

Port 330 for MIDI

Wavetable connected to Dreamblaster X2
Joystick connector to MPU401 UART for General MIDI -> Roland SC-55 Mk II MIDI Input -> Analog audio - > Mixer
MIDI Out connector set to PCMIDI intelligent mode -> Roland MT-32 MIDI input -> Analog audio - > Mixer

As of this writing, I have only simple setup to test General MIDI to SC-55 Mk II through Joystick connector only and nothing on Wavetable header.

MIDI Signal Routing Jumpers:
J2 - 1/2 PIN
J3 - 3/4 PIN
J4 - 1/2 PIN

PCMIDI Resource Control
P - CLOSED FOR PORT 330
3 - CLOSED FOR IRQ 3

I also tried port 300 instead of 330 but I get the same result.

In everycase, I have to use unisound to get any MIDI sound from the card -- is that normal ? or should running orphinit handle this without needing to run unisound?

Thanks!!!!

so basically your midi routing block looks like that:

PCMIDI controls WT header and JACK midi out
CSMPU controls JOYSTICK midi out

if you open ORPHEUS.INI there are these lines that control CSMPU:

1; This controls the on-chip Crystal MPU-401-compatible UART.
2; This tool has NO control over the PCMIDI device, which is configured
3; with on-board jumpers.
4MPUBase=disabled
5MPUIRQ=disabled

so you need to change MPUBase=300 to instruct orphinit to enable CSMPU at port300
running UNISOUND on top is never needed , all you need for DOS is orphinit and the gravis ultrasound driver from ULTRASND.ZIP

I am not sure what kind of success you will have since you report both ports 300 and 330 do not work correctly but do try the above and report back if anything changed
it looks like this was a board meant for HP systems? most likely this is why BIOS options are so limited
the audio parts on the board are unpopulated like the photo on retroweb, correct?