Essentially, it's a Gravis Ultrasound Classic combined with an ESS AudioDrive chipset, which then gives you very good Sound Blaster Pro and Adlib compatibility (and by extension OPL3 FM synthesis as well).
It therefore offers General MIDI compatibility together with Sound Blaster support for games. It will also provide better sound to those games that support the GUS directly.
Only downside, I would say, is the fact that the ViperMax only has a maximum of 512 KB onboard, which is not upgradeable. The GUS Extreme had 1MB of RAM onboard. So, you're limited in terms of how much samples you can upload into memory.

In the end, what you probably have to ask yourself is whether you require the special capabilities of the Gravis Ultrasound. If not, then you could obtain a standard Sound Blaster Pro compatible sound card and perhaps get a wavetable daughterboard (like the DreamBlaster S1).

EDIT: Sorry, mistyped. The ViperMax/GUS Extreme's memory isn't upgradeable above 1MB.

jesolo wrote:

Only downside, I would say, is the fact that the ViperMax only has a maximum of 512 KB onboard, which is not upgradeable. The GUS Extreme had 1MB of RAM onboard. So, you're limited in terms of how much samples you can upload into memory.

That board has 1mb!

Yeah, the ViperMAX can be upgraded from 512KB to 1MB with that socketed RAM. I'll have one in my hands soon.

cons
- ViperMax is backward compatible only with GUS Classic, not with GUS MAX codec.
- card wasn´t PnP. Distributed in year when all new computers were Plug and Play.
- ESS chip was only 8bit SB pro compatible. Similar card with available Vibra16 chip should be much better.

I also posted this in vintage hardware you purchased...

So I got this bad boy...........Brand new IN BOX, MINT condition, NEVER USED. 😎

Even comes with extra RAM already installed for 1MB of RAM.

peklop wrote:

- ViperMax is backward compatible only with GUS Classic, not with GUS MAX codec.

Not too much of an issue. GUS MAX codec is rarely used. The ESS chip is compatible with WSS however, which is also supported by various software that can use the GUS MAX codec (most notably Windows).

peklop wrote:

- card wasn´t PnP. Distributed in year when all new computers were Plug and Play.

Doesn't prevent it from working. If you want an original GUS (GF1-based), it's never Plug and Play, so not specifically a disadvantage of the ViperMAX.

peklop wrote:

- ESS chip was only 8bit SB pro compatible. Similar card with available Vibra16 chip should be much better.

No. Vibra16 is not SB Pro-compatible, which is a disadvantage, since there's quite a bit of software available that supports SB Pro but not SB16.
For 16-bit support, ESS is WSS-compatible, and various software also supports the ESS natively, as it was one of the most popular SB clones back in the day.
16-bit SB support isn't that relevant.

Nice card dogchainx and seems really great as well, SBPRO-only is fine in my book after James-F's threads 😉
Is this supposed to be a rare card though? Any history we should know?

keropi wrote:

Is this supposed to be a rare card though? Any history we should know?

I think the main history is that this card was first launched as the "ViperMAX" by some OEM, and later reworked into the "UltraSound Extreme" as an official Gravis product.
I don't know which of the two cards is cheaper/more readily available.

ah, I see now
still a great card 😁

In my opinion the ViperMAX is much rarer, saw only a few for sale. Perhaps it sold better in certain regions. I think Gravis decided early on to relabel them to Ultrasound Extreme as the PnP wasn't selling as they wanted too. Don't forget to try out some ScreamTracker songs that combine GF1 with OPL.

Scali wrote:

Not too much of an issue. GUS MAX codec is rarely used. The ESS chip is compatible with WSS however, which is also supported by […]
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peklop wrote:

- ViperMax is backward compatible only with GUS Classic, not with GUS MAX codec.

Not too much of an issue. GUS MAX codec is rarely used. The ESS chip is compatible with WSS however, which is also supported by various software that can use the GUS MAX codec (most notably Windows).

Doesn't prevent it from working. If you want an original GUS (GF1-based), it's never Plug and Play, so not specifically a disadvantage of the ViperMAX.

No. Vibra16 is not SB Pro-compatible, which is a disadvantage, since there's quite a bit of software available that supports SB Pro but not SB16.
For 16-bit support, ESS is WSS-compatible, and various software also supports the ESS natively, as it was one of the most popular SB clones back in the day.
16-bit SB support isn't that relevant.

PnP is not too much an issue for DOS and advanced users. But card was released when Win95 and PnP was widely used and non-PnP card was obsolete for windows users. Gravis drivers for windows 95 were generaly bad. And configure ViperMax with two chipsets is same like configure two separade cards [and IDE controller in time when most 486 boards used secondary channel]. So much adresses, IRQ and DMAs. Without PnP it was hard for non-experienced users.

Vibra16 is not SB Pro2 compatible? I don't know because i was owner of original [jumperless but not PnP] non-problematic Sound Blaster 16. I remember some Vibra chipset has problems with DMA. There were more Vibra chipset versions. But Vibra chips were widely used at cards and some mainboards. Not only third party companies like Asus, MediaForte and Dell but Creative used Vibra chips for some SB16 and SB32 cards. Its is strange if these cards werent compatible with SB Pro.

peklop wrote:

PnP is not too much an issue for DOS and advanced users. But card was released when Win95 and PnP was widely used and non-PnP card was obsolete for windows users. Gravis drivers for windows 95 were generaly bad.

The ESS part was PnP if I'm not mistaken. Also, the ESS part had very good support in Windows.
GF1 doesn't have much use in Windows except for MIDI. You don't want to use the GF1 for regular sound effects/WAV.

peklop wrote:

Vibra16 is not SB Pro2 compatible? I don't know because i was owner of original [jumperless but not PnP] non-problematic Sound Blaster 16.

The SB16 is not SB Pro compatible either. In fact, Creative never made any card that was SB Pro-compatible afaik (AWE32/64 weren't either).
Basically the SB Pro 2 was the last good card Creative made. After that, you were generally better off with a decent clone (Sound Galaxy, Pro Audio Spectrum, ESS AudioDrive).

Scali wrote:

I think the main history is that this card was first launched as the "ViperMAX" by some OEM, and later reworked into the "UltraSound Extreme" as an official Gravis product.
I don't know which of the two cards is cheaper/more readily available.[/quote]

Under Synergy logo is wrote AGT - Advanced Gravis Technology and card is red like all original Gravis cards (except prototypes).

Ultrasound CD3 was the only Gravis card with green PC. It was sold as Altrasound (and Primax) and same PCB design with different label and Gravis FCC ID.

Not so true.
1. Both GUS PnP and Extreme were produced by Synergy as ODM. The difference is that GUS PnP was initially marketed by Gravis (and silkscreened as such) and Extreme was re-labelled Synergy ViperMAX. There were even 2 versions of Extreme - the earlier had the Gravis Ultrasound Extreme silkscreened right over the initial Synergy ViperMAX label. The second did not have the original, only the Gravis marking.
The fact that GUS PnP was produced by Synergy as well can be verified by looking at the Synergy logo on the back of GUS PnP PCB.
2. AGT is not Gravis. The full name of Gravis is Advanced Gravis Computer Technology Ltd.
3. ESS 1688 is not a PnP chip. Neither part of Synergy ViperMAX / GUS Extreme is PnP.
4. Ultrasound CD3 is not a Gravis card originally. It has a similar history as Extreme, but its ODM was Primax, not Synergy.
5. All original Gravis equipment was produced in Canada. Everything that came from other places was Gravis-labelled 3rd party ODM.
6. SB16/AWE32/AWE64 are not that SBPro non-compatible - they have a bug that makes them sound mono if SBPro is chosen for them. The classic game to check is Wolfenstein3D.

hard1k wrote:

3. ESS 1688 is not a PnP chip. Neither part of Synergy ViperMAX / GUS Extreme is PnP.

Well, it has jumperless configuration, so in Windows it acts the same as PnP: the driver selects the configuration for you.
In DOS you need to initialize it by running a utility from autoexec.bat (which makes sense, because SBs aren't PnP, and are generally assumed to be at a specific base address, IRQ and DMA... usually 220h, 7 and 1 respectively).

hard1k wrote:

The classic game to check is Wolfenstein3D.

Actually, from what I understood, Wolfenstein 3D is one of the few games that does work in stereo, because it plays a single mono sample, then uses the SB Pro mixer to pan it left or right. The SB16 mixer is compatible with the SB Pro mixer, so the panning should work.
Many other games play actual stereo samples, and then it doesn't work. The SB Pro has some DSP modes for this that aren't supported in the DSPs on the SB16/AWE cards.