keropi wrote on 2021-01-28, 22:37:

I must mention that the needed components for Speaker-INPUT to work safely are present in all cards that are sold so connecting the speaker cable will not cause any damage or other electrical issue.

I stand corrected; so that's yet another improvement you've made since we last discussed it, when you mentioned that you might drop the feature altogether. Good thing I didn't remove support for it prematurely.

keropi wrote on 2021-01-29, 07:41:

He is actually the only person mentioning problems with orphinit - since then noone made a similar complain or submitted a bug report.

Speaking of bug reports, for those who aren't following the ORPHINIT thread, I have requested specific information that would be helpful in trouble-shooting problems; details listed here. Anyone experiencing problems can contact keropi (since he has diligently and patiently worked through the bugs with me), contact me directly, or post in one of the two threads. Nobody is abandoning either project, and all problem reports will be actively investigated, but those with the problems have to take the first step; we can't fix what you don't report.

640K!enough wrote on 2021-01-29, 16:58:

I stand corrected; so that's yet another improvement you've made since we last discussed it, when you mentioned that you might drop the feature altogether. Good thing I didn't remove support for it prematurely.

Yeah I forgot to mention it - my bad! 😶
Instead of ditching it all together we just kept it so the end-user has a choice of what to do, it was only some 5-6 components anyways...
On the cards I assemble I leave the pin header unpopulated so the people that understand what they do can decide if they want to use it or not

keropi wrote on 2021-01-04, 19:22:

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-01-04, 19:17:

Hey just curious, any idea how long the order backlog is?

pm me your email or name and I will tell you where on the list you are 😀

Hi Keropi, I also have registered the interest on the PCMIDI website for the new card + X2 for about two months ago. not sure it has been went through or not as I haven't heard anything or got any confirmations since then. Tried to find how to PM you but it seems I'm limited here as I was always reading and not posting. How can I check the status of mine ?

a_h_adl wrote on 2021-01-30, 06:34:

Hi Keropi, I also have registered the interest on the PCMIDI website for the new card + X2 for about two months ago. not sure it has been went through or not as I haven't heard anything or got any confirmations since then. Tried to find how to PM you but it seems I'm limited here as I was always reading and not posting. How can I check the status of mine ?

I have sent you contact info via pm , thanks 😀

Hello

Today received Orpheus Sound Card.
Sometimes it is needed to load ctsbpro.sys and ctmm.sys in config.sys and at first booting the drivers does not load well.
It seems before setting environment using Orphinit driver, the IRQ is not set to its value. After setting environment using Orphinit, the drivers are loaded well after reboot.
Are there any way to set IRQ value at first booting to load above drivers?

Thanks

ychh0 wrote on 2021-02-02, 11:01:

Hello […]
Show full quote

Hello

Today received Orpheus Sound Card.
Sometimes it is needed to load ctsbpro.sys and ctmm.sys in config.sys and at first booting the drivers does not load well.
It seems before setting environment using Orphinit driver, the IRQ is not set to its value. After setting environment using Orphinit, the drivers are loaded well after reboot.
Are there any way to set IRQ value at first booting to load above drivers?

Thanks

Are ctsbpro.sys and ctmm.sys needed for some games or something?
Until the card is initialized by the driver there is no way to have it assign resource values by default.
*MAYBE* a PnP bios can assign it resources on boot and when the driver gets loaded those get altered or validated by orphinit - I assume you are not running with a PnP bios right?

A workaround would be to use a program to load the .SYS drivers after the system is booted , it is discussed here: How to load DOS device drivers from the command line?

I will ask 640k!enough if there is a possibility to make orphinit.exe useable from config.sys - with the idea of loading it first and then the extra creative drivers.

keropi wrote on 2021-02-02, 11:18:

Are ctsbpro.sys and ctmm.sys needed for some games or something? Until the card is initialized by the driver there is no way to […]
Show full quote

ychh0 wrote on 2021-02-02, 11:01:

Hello […]
Show full quote

Hello

Today received Orpheus Sound Card.
Sometimes it is needed to load ctsbpro.sys and ctmm.sys in config.sys and at first booting the drivers does not load well.
It seems before setting environment using Orphinit driver, the IRQ is not set to its value. After setting environment using Orphinit, the drivers are loaded well after reboot.
Are there any way to set IRQ value at first booting to load above drivers?

Thanks

Are ctsbpro.sys and ctmm.sys needed for some games or something?
Until the card is initialized by the driver there is no way to have it assign resource values by default.
*MAYBE* a PnP bios can assign it resources on boot and when the driver gets loaded those get altered or validated by orphinit - I assume you are not running with a PnP bios right?

A workaround would be to use a program to load the .SYS drivers after the system is booted , it is discussed here: How to load DOS device drivers from the command line?

I will ask 640k!enough if there is a possibility to make orphinit.exe useable from config.sys - with the idea of loading it first and then the extra creative drivers.

I heard that some games for example Prehistorik2, Quarantine and so on need to load those drivers.
Actually there is no problem for use. Those drivers can be loaded after reboot, but if it can be loaded at first booting it would be better.

I'm not using PnP bios.... how to enable PnP bios?

I just tested Orpheus on Tandy 2500 RSX and it is working well as intended as for DMA configuration.
DMA can be set 1 or 3 using Orphinit regardless of setting value at first booting , and Tandy sound works well when DMA is changed to 3.

Well you would know if you had a PnP bios... it is only available from late-era 486 and upwards systems where win95 was a thing and it could use Plug'n'Play.
Device loading from command prompt is nothing weird , some games that need those creative API drivers they automatically load them on demand.
Personally I would not use these driver full-time - they just consume valuable ram and their usage is rare.

keropi wrote on 2021-02-02, 11:38:

Well you would know if you had a PnP bios... it is only available from late-era 486 and upwards systems where win95 was a thing and it could use Plug'n'Play.
Device loading from command prompt is nothing weird , some games that need those creative API drivers they automatically load them on demand.
Personally I would not use these driver full-time - they just consume valuable ram and their usage is rare.

I agree with you.
I have multi-booting setup on MS-DOS 6.22 or PC-DOS 2000 and normally don't use the setup to load those drivers. They use extra memory and make booting slow.

PC-MIDI card function of Orpheus also seems to work well as intended.
I found Tandy series computer have some conflicts with some sound cards and it seems Tandy sound and 3 voice function are cause of problem (due to DMA??). I have some sound cards which are known to support intelligent MIDI but Wing Commander, Savage Empire, Martian Dreams hang up unexpectedly during opening when using MIDI. (They work well on other systems)
I have used two PC-MIDI card on the other systems including SEGA Teradrive and I expected Orpheus sound card will work well as before. And yes, it works well, does not hang up during opening of above games. Great.
I think Orpheus will be useful for those who have limited ISA Slots and want to use all the functions including intelligent MIDI, SB Pro, SPDIF output and so on.
Tandy 2500 RSX has only 3 ISA slots and one Orpheus can do all what I want as for functions required for sound card.

PCMIDI part of Orpheus is exactly the same like a stand-alone pcmidi so no difference in operation will exist.
I still kick my self I turned down a Tandy 1000EX with a color monitor some years ago - sadly they are not common here and no tests have been made with them...

It always nice to hear people liking PCMIDI as I have a soft spot for it! 😀 Thanks for your ongoing support ychho!!!!

Tandy 1000 machines, the ones with the Tandy graphics and sound require DMA channel 1 for the PSSJ DAC. Only the machines starting with the SL have the PSSJ DAC, so it is common for users to put a Sound Blaster on DMA 3. The Orpheus requires at least a 286, so it won't work with a stock SL. I'm not sure if the 286 requirement for the driver was just assembler/compiler default assignment or if the driver in fact uses 286 instructions. If the latter is true than it should work on an SL with a NEC V30. Maybe one day i'll give it a try.

Speaking of PnP BIOSes... Should I be enabling it? I tested without enabling on the Orpheus (I just got it yesterday!) and there was some stability issues with some games (crashes and such)... I usually have it disabled for Windows 98SE has some issues sometimes (blue screens) from some of my devices when Windows loads the drivers and then the drivers are loaded by third party software.

But, after re-reading the website today... it seems that enabling PnP is recommended? I did that and it auto-loads the Crystal drivers on boot into DOS and assigns the SB PRO IRQ/DMA. Then I just loaded Orphinit after that.

Is that right?

Hey Tense!

no , I cannot say I recommend to enable PnP bios - what gave you this impression on the site? (asking so I can potentially re-phrase things there)
basically PnP is just trouble for dos and resource allocations... just like early ACPI pentium1 motherboards, it is a source of instabilities in those systems.
Just leave PnP off, edit your orpheus.ini with the desired settings and you are set 😀

Hi Keropi,

I submitted interest in the card with PCMIDI installed and Dreamblaster X2 daughterboard approximately a month ago. I'm trying to hold out for it on a build, and I was wondering if a restock is coming soon.

Thanks

Dog wrote on 2021-02-04, 08:13:

Hi Keropi,

I submitted interest in the card with PCMIDI installed and Dreamblaster X2 daughterboard approximately a month ago. I'm trying to hold out for it on a build, and I was wondering if a restock is coming soon.

Thanks

we are always building and sending out cards - demand is so overwhelming though that the queue is very long
we are doing the best we can - but this is a high-demanding project when it comes to time needed

Sounds great, I noticed that the note on the site but I wasn’t sure how long ago it was written. Looking forward to it, and thanks.

keropi wrote on 2021-02-02, 18:25:

Hey Tense! […]
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Hey Tense!

no , I cannot say I recommend to enable PnP bios - what gave you this impression on the site? (asking so I can potentially re-phrase things there)
basically PnP is just trouble for dos and resource allocations... just like early ACPI pentium1 motherboards, it is a source of instabilities in those systems.
Just leave PnP off, edit your orpheus.ini with the desired settings and you are set 😀

I got it from here: ORPHINIT: New Init Software For The Orpheus Sound Card

Known Issues […]
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Known Issues

Volume variations when some software manipulates mixer values upon start-up sometimes cause sources to be silenced. Still looking into these; please report any you find.
On some systems, bus timing/configuration problems seem to cause trouble, resulting in init failing. If it takes more than a couple of seconds, something is wrong.
This software does not upload any firmware to the board.
Only Plug and Play mode is supported. Initialisation when Plug and Play support is disabled in the CS4237B (no EEPROM or jumpered off) will not work.
Support for systems without a Plug and Play BIOS is implemented, but may not be 100% reliable. Any problem reports appreciated.
Error handling isn't particularly thorough yet. Garbage values in the configuration file may yield garbage results.

Now, I for the life of me cannot get the Dreamblaster to work. I am not the smartest person in the world. But, I have the jumpers on 330/IRQ 3 (IRQ 2 is reserved on my MB) and I am basically just booting into DOS and running Orphinit with the only change to Orpheus.ini is enabling OPL3 instead of CrystalFM.

I can select "Roland" or "GM" and it initializes but it certainly doesn't sound like the Dreamblaster... and I tested by plugging in a pair of headphones to the X2 and no sound out of the Waveboard.

Besides loading Orphinit am I supposed to do anything else?

X2 should just work after oprhinit, maybe you have messed with the 3 jumpers for midi routing?
can you try the X2 in a modern system? connect via mini usb and play a midi file selecting the X2 as output - you should get sound out of it if you connect some speakers in it's jack - just to verify the X2 is ok
under windows you can use TMIDI for a small midi player that easily selects devices

@Tense

Can you take a picture of the card in a way that we can see all the jumpers?

@carlostex Sorry for the delay getting back to you guys. I have been working on the setup some more and realized it is working. It was just a couple games (like DOOM) that do not sound that great with the X2 setup as Roland/General. But, I am going to mess around some more with that. But, I have a majority of my games working just fine with PCMIDI/X2.

So thank you.

My only outstanding issue with with the midi/digital mixing. I have been testing various volumes in the orpheus.ini and none of them seem to help with PCMIDI/X2 output being half the volume of digital. I have pretty much adjusted every mixer vol level in the ini PCM,FM,CD,LINE under sb and it just will not balanced out. The midi is very quiet and the digital is super loud.

But, besides that its working quite well now. Though, I still have no idea why the headphone jack on the X2 won't output. But, its not a huge concern right now. It is def working in game.