esher wrote on 2024-10-29, 19:47:

Well, i'm not using the bracket at all,my plans is to route Picogus audio out to CD line in @SB16, and the MIDI port to custom bracket with mini DIN which Creative use in SB Audigy 2 ZS with 5.25" module.
Anyway, i recommend to build a custom bracket with 2xRCA stereo out, as i did to SB16 before. Just take one of the dummy bracket from the PC case and drill the holes for RCA.

My card is already installed on the system, with its modified bracket. Just that I need to run pgusinit twice.

I don't use its MIDI output so I used "/mpuport 0" to disable it. For MIDI on that system, I'm using a Raspberry Pi 3 with a MT32-Pi hat connected to my AWE64 Gold using an external MIDI cable. It works in the same way as the WavetablePi module. Sadly AWE32/64 don't have wavetable headers like SB16...

I'm curious about the SB16 RCA mod, however, as I don't know if ordinary SB16 PCBs even have rooms for such a modification. After all, AWE64 Gold is the only RCA-equipped ISA Sound Blaster I know.

LSS10999 wrote on 2024-10-30, 02:57:

My card is already installed on the system, with its modified bracket. Just that I need to run pgusinit twice. […]
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esher wrote on 2024-10-29, 19:47:

Well, i'm not using the bracket at all,my plans is to route Picogus audio out to CD line in @SB16, and the MIDI port to custom bracket with mini DIN which Creative use in SB Audigy 2 ZS with 5.25" module.
Anyway, i recommend to build a custom bracket with 2xRCA stereo out, as i did to SB16 before. Just take one of the dummy bracket from the PC case and drill the holes for RCA.

My card is already installed on the system, with its modified bracket. Just that I need to run pgusinit twice.

I don't use its MIDI output so I used "/mpuport 0" to disable it. For MIDI on that system, I'm using a Raspberry Pi 3 with a MT32-Pi hat connected to my AWE64 Gold using an external MIDI cable. It works in the same way as the WavetablePi module. Sadly AWE32/64 don't have wavetable headers like SB16...

I'm curious about the SB16 RCA mod, however, as I don't know if ordinary SB16 PCBs even have rooms for such a modification. After all, AWE64 Gold is the only RCA-equipped ISA Sound Blaster I know.

RCA mod is simple, no need to modify SB16 at all. I take the stereo out from pcb to another bracket.

Why would you take the crystal clear audio out from the PicoGUS and run i it through the terrible SB16 mixer?..

appiah4 wrote on 2024-10-30, 08:54:

Why would you take the crystal clear audio out from the PicoGUS and run i it through the terrible SB16 mixer?..

It's interchangeable both ways. I can take SB16's line out to the wavetable header of Picogus, and route RCA bracket to Picogus.
I just have not tested it because volume controller at Picogus is still on the way, but can test Picogus->SB16 right now.

A little further tests on my PicoGUS board. The system is ANOVO AIMB-865, and compatibility is fair at best. I never owned a real GUS so I'm not sure if real GUS cards were also that sensitive. Its ISA slots are powered by a Winbond PCI-ISA bridge set.

- Must always init PicoGUS in GUS mode via pgusinit at least twice in total per boot before running ULTRAMID. If saved the setting to flash, then I only need to run pgusinit once after boot.
- Stargunner works fine. (ULTRAMID not required)
- Jazz Jackrabbit works fine. (ULTRAMID not required)
- DIGPAK/MIDPAK works fine for both GUS music and sound playback after loading ULTRAMID.
- Terminal Velocity (which uses DIGPAK) is a hit-or-miss. Need to use ULTRAMID from the ULTRASND package recommended by PicoGUS in the wiki, instead of the one came with the game, as the latter would hang shortly after some audio playback. Even with the right ULTRAMID, I'm observing some odd behaviors like the ship stops moving after unpausing, and in some cases, (PS/2) keyboard controls may intermittently stop responding.
- Tetris Pro (by Michiel Ouwehand) works fine, and sounds best when using GUS mode. The game does not require ULTRAMID, and it should not be loaded since the game requires 580k conventional memory to run.

(PS: The board's BIOS by default routes all DMA channels to LPC, and must be manually configured to PC/PCI using tools that can modify PCI device registers, before sound cards can work properly. In my case it's to flip a few bits corresponding to DMA channels 1, 3 and 5 which my sound cards use.)

LSS10999 wrote on 2024-10-31, 01:26:

A little further tests on my PicoGUS board. The system is ANOVO AIMB-865, and compatibility is fair at best. I never owned a rea […]
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A little further tests on my PicoGUS board. The system is ANOVO AIMB-865, and compatibility is fair at best. I never owned a real GUS so I'm not sure if real GUS cards were also that sensitive. Its ISA slots are powered by a Winbond PCI-ISA bridge set.

- Must always init PicoGUS in GUS mode via pgusinit at least twice in total per boot before running ULTRAMID. If saved the setting to flash, then I only need to run pgusinit once after boot.
- Stargunner works fine.
- Jazz Jackrabbit works fine at least in the menu. Haven't actually tested ingame on that system but it should be fine if nothing goes wrong.
- DIGPAK/MIDPAK works fine for both GUS music and sound playback after loading ULTRAMID.
- Terminal Velocity (which uses DIGPAK) is a hit-or-miss. Need to use ULTRAMID from the ULTRASND package recommended by PicoGUS in the wiki, instead of the one came with the game, as the latter would hang shortly after some audio playback. Even with the right ULTRAMID, I'm observing some odd behaviors like the ship stops moving after unpausing, and in some keys, (PS/2) keyboard controls may intermittently stop responding.

By the way... was ULTRAMID always that resource heavy? It takes about 60K (!) of conventional memory when resident. I've a game (Tetris Pro by Michiel Ouwehand) that does have option for GUS music but it requires 580000 bytes of conventional memory to run, and considering the huge footprint of ULTRAMID it's virtually impossible to meet the requirement.

(PS: The board's BIOS by default routes all DMA channels to LPC, and must be manually configured to PC/PCI using tools that can modify PCI device registers, before sound cards can work properly. In my case it's to flip a few bits corresponding to DMA channels 1, 3 and 5 which my sound cards use.)

What speed is the system's ISA bus clock running ? Picogus is best at ISA bus clock of 8.33mhz or lower.

Shreddoc wrote on 2024-10-31, 03:04:

What speed is the system's ISA bus clock running ? Picogus is best at ISA bus clock of 8.33mhz or lower.

No idea. The board is too new to have a native ISA bus, but I think most ISA bridges be it PCI or LPC should normally default to 8.33MHz (that would be 1/4 the clock of PCI/LPC bus).

From the look of some posts in previous pages, there were apparently some quirks with PicoGUS that affect other peripherals -- some of which also happen on real GUS, like this one.

LSS10999 wrote on 2024-10-31, 08:35:

there were apparently some quirks with PicoGUS that affect other peripherals -- some of which also happen on real GUS, like this one.

There are no other peripherals involved there, the joystick port is on the (Pico)GUS card. And joystick ports are very sensitive to speed because they're primitive analog-to-digital convertors, requiring multiple bus reads for one conversion.

LSS10999 wrote on 2024-10-31, 08:35:

Shreddoc wrote on 2024-10-31, 03:04:

What speed is the system's ISA bus clock running ? Picogus is best at ISA bus clock of 8.33mhz or lower.

No idea. The board is too new to have a native ISA bus, but I think most ISA bridges be it PCI or LPC should normally default to 8.33MHz (that would be 1/4 the clock of PCI/LPC bus).

From the look of some posts in previous pages, there were apparently some quirks with PicoGUS that affect other peripherals -- some of which also happen on real GUS, like this one.

Without testing against real hardware (a real GUS) in the exact same situation, it's proven difficult to pinpoint whether a given outcome is due to the PicoGUS, or to one of the many other system variables. The majority of quirks discussed in this thread turn out to be other factors, such as soldering errors, component faults, non-standard systems being used with fussy retro software, hardware conflicts, user modifications to systems, or many other things... and/or simply that a real GUS would do the same thing in the same place, which is the key metric here (rather than "what does the PicoGUS do?" in isolation).

I've not heard reports of others using the PicoGUS with that motherboard yet, but hopefully further info will come to light.

jmarsh wrote on 2024-10-31, 09:08:

There are no other peripherals involved there, the joystick port is on the (Pico)GUS card. And joystick ports are very sensitive to speed because they're primitive analog-to-digital convertors, requiring multiple bus reads for one conversion.

Thanks for pointing out.

Shreddoc wrote on 2024-10-31, 09:50:

Without testing against real hardware (a real GUS) in the exact same situation, it's proven difficult to pinpoint whether a given outcome is due to the PicoGUS, or to one of the many other system variables. The majority of quirks discussed in this thread turn out to be other factors, such as soldering errors, component faults, non-standard systems being used with fussy retro software, hardware conflicts, user modifications to systems, or many other things... and/or simply that a real GUS would do the same thing in the same place, which is the key metric here (rather than "what does the PicoGUS do?" in isolation).

I've not heard reports of others using the PicoGUS with that motherboard yet, but hopefully further info will come to light.

I know. I never owned a real GUS before so I have no idea how real GUS behaves. My system environment is very custom so some issues are to be expected, but in overall the card is working well enough.

I'm very new to the GUS world which this project has opened the door to, so I've a lot to learn.

Some questions,

1) If I have a waveblaster plugged in and a connection to a SC-55, how do I switch between them?
2) I have a waveblaster card that is 89mm high (Creative CT1900). Would that fit on the PicoGUS?

zuldan wrote on 2024-11-09, 10:08:

Some questions,

1) If I have a waveblaster plugged in and a connection to a SC-55, how do I switch between them?
2) I have a waveblaster card that is 89mm high (Creative CT1900). Would that fit on the PicoGUS?

MIDI gets routed to both. The internal header has an audio input that you can mute. The SC-55 needs to be mixed in somehow, just mute that input if you aren't using it.

zuldan wrote on 2024-11-09, 10:08:

Some questions,

1) If I have a waveblaster plugged in and a connection to a SC-55, how do I switch between them?
2) I have a waveblaster card that is 89mm high (Creative CT1900). Would that fit on the PicoGUS?

ct1900 fits without any problems 😀

adi wrote on 2024-11-09, 15:39:

zuldan wrote on 2024-11-09, 10:08:

Some questions,

1) If I have a waveblaster plugged in and a connection to a SC-55, how do I switch between them?
2) I have a waveblaster card that is 89mm high (Creative CT1900). Would that fit on the PicoGUS?

ct1900 fits without any problems 😀

How did you get it to fit? The jumpers are in the way

The ct1900 is mounted at a slight angle but there is nothing to short out there.
For safety, you can use insulating tape on the roms.

Would it be possible to implement some picomem functionality to picogus?
I'm thinking expanding memory from machines that only have 512k conventional memory like my europc1... 640k should be enough 😉

Kekkula wrote on 2024-11-10, 14:10:

Would it be possible to implement some picomem functionality to picogus?
I'm thinking expanding memory from machines that only have 512k conventional memory like my europc1... 640k should be enough 😉

Unlike picomem neither MEMR/MEMW nor ADDR10..ADDR19 are connected on the picogus. But even picomem seems to be bad at memory emulation anyway (see https://github.com/FreddyVRetro/ISA-PicoMEM/b … /main/README.md ):

Memory emulation limitations :
Memory emulation with PSRAM is quite slow for the moment, but multiple mechanism like a 32bit cache will improve this. (And Maybe DMA)
The emulated Memory does not support DMA, Add support for it may be done in one or two months (May/June 2024) Anyway:
As the real floppy use DMA, you should disable temporarily the RAM emulation if the real Disk access are not working.
For SoundCard, if the PC has 512Kb of base RAM, it is really unlikely that the DMA Buffer will be placed in emulated RAM, it may work 90% of the time.

I saw some memory extension cards on ebay, maybe they are a better solution anyway than adding another feature to picogus. At some point you cannot emulate everything with a single board.

Kekkula wrote on 2024-11-10, 14:10:

Would it be possible to implement some picomem functionality to picogus?
I'm thinking expanding memory from machines that only have 512k conventional memory like my europc1... 640k should be enough 😉

Hi,

The PicoMEM can do Audio, I will add sound blaster as well.

Caligula wrote on 2024-11-11, 09:47:

Memory emulation limitations : Memory emulation with PSRAM is quite slow for the moment, but multiple mechanism like a 32bit […]
Show full quote

Memory emulation limitations :
Memory emulation with PSRAM is quite slow for the moment, but multiple mechanism like a 32bit cache will improve this. (And Maybe DMA)
The emulated Memory does not support DMA, Add support for it may be done in one or two months (May/June 2024) Anyway:
As the real floppy use DMA, you should disable temporarily the RAM emulation if the real Disk access are not working.
For SoundCard, if the PC has 512Kb of base RAM, it is really unlikely that the DMA Buffer will be placed in emulated RAM, it may work 90% of the time.

I saw some memory extension cards on ebay, maybe they are a better solution anyway than adding another feature to picogus. At some point you cannot emulate everything with a single board.

Move from 512KB to 640KB is without wait stated and PSRAM Does not work on the EuroPC1 due to extreme timings needed by it.
It also increased the PSRAM Speed a lot with DMA (For the future firmware)

esher wrote on 2024-10-28, 03:54:

Edit4: well, it seems that there is faulty IC in ADDR/DATA MUX/DEMUX block. Waiting for replacement.

Problem solved, it was hidden unsoldered points at random places. Using lab heater and a bunch of flux fixed that. Now card works in GUS mode.