github guide is just not clear to me 😀 but i got the soundblaster mode working 0 problems with duke3d both version and blood work perfect
so there is bug in the gravis mode firmware ??

https://youtu.be/qEjMqkb-ejQ?si=Ngmv8FjvwjiBVQLP

scroeffie wrote on 2024-06-09, 18:39:

github guide is just not clear to me 😀 but i got the soundblaster mode working 0 problems with duke3d both version and blood work perfect
so there is bug in the gravis mode firmware ??

https://youtu.be/qEjMqkb-ejQ?si=Ngmv8FjvwjiBVQLP

All you have to do is choose the options in the setup program that match what the hardware is set to. You seemed to just pick random values until you finally guessed the right ones.
Why change the address setting when the setup program is telling you the IRQ is wrong?
Why did you choose IRQ 5 right after you set the jumper on the card to IRQ 7?

because i dont understand the numbers on the card 😀 iam also not good with software 1133 ? < there is no option in the setup menu for that
adress 240 did not work so i tried 220 and irq 5 irq 7 did not work not shure why

scroeffie wrote on 2024-06-09, 20:50:

because i dont understand the numbers on the card 😀 iam also not good with software 1133 ? < there is no option in the setup menu for that
adress 240 did not work so i tried 220 and irq 5 irq 7 did not work not shure why

Seriously? sigh.

you have the choice between DMA 1 & DMA 3 in software.
For the hardware selection of either DMA1 or DMA3 you HAVE TO SET BOTH JUMPERS marked 1 or 3 for the respective DMA1 or DMA3.

i have no idea what you are talking about but i wil try and do some more testing tomorrow ,wil load the gravis firmware and test again
maybe i did something wrong ?

scroeffie wrote on 2024-06-09, 21:07:

i have no idea what you are talking about but i wil try and do some more testing tomorrow ,wil load the gravis firmware and test again
maybe i did something wrong ?

scroeffie, i think a few of us are trying help you but if you dont want to read the basics about setting up the card its hard to give you more time.

This is straight from the wiki page and Im not sure how this confusing. There is a picture as well that shows a IRQ of 5 and DMA of 1.

Choose a free IRQ and DMA on your system. A single jumper sets the IRQ, and two jumpers are used to set the DMA. In the following image, the jumpers are set for IRQ 5 and DMA 1, which are typical for GUS emulation. If you are using DMA 1, both DMA jumpers marked "1" must be closed, and for DMA 3, both DMA jumpers marked "3" must be closed.

Go a little lower in the wiki and there is section covering the autoexec settings
The ULTRASND variable has to match the IRQ and DMA you selected on the card or if your using Sound Blaster the BLASTER variable should match the IRQ and DMA you selected on the card.

Also study the options returned by the pgusinit application.

For DMA 1 it needs to look like this; two jumpers on each of the DMA 1 channel headers.

to be idiotproof pgusinit could maybe even display ascii art jumper configuration

scroeffie wrote on 2024-06-09, 21:07:

i have no idea what you are talking about but i wil try and do some more testing tomorrow ,wil load the gravis firmware and test again
maybe i did something wrong ?

Scroeffie, please flash the PG-GUS.UF2 to your card with PGUSINIT.EXE /f PG-GUS.UF2
Then, do the following Setup :

SETUP

1. JUMPERS

^ This works for Gravis Ultrasound firmware and also for Sound Blaster firmware (and all other firmwares, too). Be certain your jumpers are exactly this. Do NOT change them, when flashing new firmwares. Leave them as this, always.

2. AUTOEXEC.BAT

In your AUTOEXEC.BAT, always include these three lines :

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T3
SET ULTRASND=240,1,1,5,5
SET ULTRADIR=C:\ULTRASND

3. Install the Ultrasound Software

Download the GUS v4.11 software installation .zip, and unzip the contents to C:\ULTRASND
GUS v4.11 software installation .zip

4. Configure a game

Run your game's setup program. Choose the Gravis Ultrasound, Address 240, IRQ 5, DMA 1.
Run your game. Success?
Setup is complete.

THEN

To play a game in Sound Blaster mode :

• run PGUSINIT /f PG-SB.UF2
• Configure your game to Sound Blaster, Address 220, IRQ 5, DMA 1
• Run your game

To play a game in Ultrasound mode:

• run PGUSINIT /f PG-GUS.UF2
• Configure your game to Gravis Ultrasound, Address 240, IRQ 5, DMA 1
• Run your game

That is all. DO NOT edit jumpers or edit autoexec.bat for each mode change.

both games are working now maybe i had the wrong jumper settings or setup not shure
thanks for helping

Hello everyone.
I assembled picogus v1.2 as suggested here.
Got all parts except DAC.
Programmed pico with little problems, my windows laptop didn't wanted to recognise pico at first, but got it working eventually.
So I got it all together and thought I could test it without the DAC. I stuck it to 486sx20 I got on the bench. 486 had sb16 value installed so I configured gus to 240,7,3 ran pgusinit and it recognised the card.
Next I browsed the machine and noticed it got epic pinball installed so I tried if it recognise the card. Odly setup only asked card and didn't ask any kind of configuration. After starting game screen went black and then machine teturned to dos asking to run setup, and it was stuck there. I hit the reset and machine booted but was very slow. Next i tried to power cycle the machine but it got stuck with black screen. After removing the card machine worked normally. I also tried with second machine same behaviour, black screen no boot.
So did I break the card by testing it without dac?
And does anyone have suggestions what part is most likely burnt?
Probably what I'm going to do first is reflow every part I can reach.
I've got four more PCBs so shotgun approach would be to just order new parts and start over... But it wasn't that much fun soldering the pcb 🤪

A missing DAC shouldn't damage anything and wouldn't even reflect back to the pico - there's just three outputs going there (LR, DIN, BCK). The only effect on the pico from the DAC-side I could imagine would be, if there were shorts in that area (e.g. from soldering) - but that's not how it looks from here...

Since you mention that the pico had troubles being recognised on windows already, I'd start there. Was the pico already mounted on the card, or did you upload the firmware with the pico off the card? If it wasn't even soldered on the card, there might be a chance it's having an issue. If on the card, I'd also go over the soldering of the ICs on the card - they're easy to bridge (also behind their legs), which is very hard to see and this could easily affect the bus on the PC.

Kekkula wrote on 2024-06-16, 07:18:

Hello everyone. I assembled picogus v1.2 as suggested here. Got all parts except DAC. Programmed pico with little problems, my […]
Show full quote

Hello everyone.
I assembled picogus v1.2 as suggested here.
Got all parts except DAC.
Programmed pico with little problems, my windows laptop didn't wanted to recognise pico at first, but got it working eventually.
So I got it all together and thought I could test it without the DAC. I stuck it to 486sx20 I got on the bench. 486 had sb16 value installed so I configured gus to 240,7,3 ran pgusinit and it recognised the card.
Next I browsed the machine and noticed it got epic pinball installed so I tried if it recognise the card. Odly setup only asked card and didn't ask any kind of configuration. After starting game screen went black and then machine teturned to dos asking to run setup, and it was stuck there. I hit the reset and machine booted but was very slow. Next i tried to power cycle the machine but it got stuck with black screen. After removing the card machine worked normally. I also tried with second machine same behaviour, black screen no boot.
So did I break the card by testing it without dac?
And does anyone have suggestions what part is most likely burnt?
Probably what I'm going to do first is reflow every part I can reach.
I've got four more PCBs so shotgun approach would be to just order new parts and start over... But it wasn't that much fun soldering the pcb 🤪

While this may not solve anything, I'd recommend to remove any other soundcards from the system, during your initial setup and testing of PicoGUS. It makes things simpler, by ensuring that (e.g.) certain resource conflicts aren't present. Once the PicoGUS is tested and running properly, by itself, then the other soundcard can be added back, and any related issues dealt with separately. This the first thing I would try, in your place.

Otherwise - if you would like to post some more close up photos, from different angles, showing the soldering work in as much detail as possible, then we would be happy to look and try to point out any potential problem areas.

Also, if you are in any doubt about your AUTOEXEC.BAT setup, then we would be happy to also look at that.

Seems that my flux is conductive and very hard to remove from board. I found many shorts with multimeter and removed them by cleaning the board again.
I washed whole board with soap after first assembly.
Pico was completely dead and I didn't find another working at the weekend.
Now I got the shorts sorted out and got system booting again but I think the problem is now with pico.
Have to wait for new pico to arrive.

Kekkula wrote on 2024-06-17, 06:24:

Seems that my flux is conductive and very hard to remove from board. I found many shorts with multimeter and removed them by cle […]
Show full quote

Seems that my flux is conductive and very hard to remove from board. I found many shorts with multimeter and removed them by cleaning the board again.
I washed whole board with soap after first assembly.
Pico was completely dead and I didn't find another working at the weekend.
Now I got the shorts sorted out and got system booting again but I think the problem is now with pico.
Have to wait for new pico to arrive.

Ah yes, flux. It can be quite stubborn. The flux I use needs thorough isopropyl-based scrub, which dilutes the flux down to nothing. Then a further rinse afterwards (water is cheaper) to remove all residue, else there is still a surface patina left after the iso evaporates.

Hopefully a new Pico will solve your issues. This is where the socket is useful. It is no fun to remove a soldered-on Pico.

Hey picogus users! Can the picogus act as an mpu401 while in ultrasound mode? I know there is a standalone MPU401 firmware. But being able to use my MT32-pi while retaining GUS capabilities would bring tears of joy to my eyes….

Not yet, as far as I know, but it might be coming:

https://github.com/polpo/picogus/issues/43
and:
Re: PicoGUS: ISA sound card emulator with Raspberry Pi Pico (Gravis Ultrasound, AdLib, MPU-401, Tandy, CMS)

Maybe silly question, but can you have multiple Picogus's installed in the same system? I.e. so one can e.g. emulate SB and the other GUS.

I have to admit, I haven't tried it so far, but I wouldn't really expect issues from the cards themselves, per se.
I just don't think that pgusinit is able to separate them for initialization (yet...).

It seems the GUS-fw might work without pgusinit if set to 240: Re: PicoGUS: ISA sound card emulator with Raspberry Pi Pico (Gravis Ultrasound, AdLib, MPU-401, Tandy, CMS)
So, I guess, it's a fair test to see if the SB version by any chance might be working without pgusinit when set to e.g. 220. 😀

And an update:

I actually couldn't resist trying it. Setting both cards to different IRQs and DMAs and using port 220 in the blaster and port 240 in the ultrasnd variable, I was able to play an s3m via the Soundblaster and then Ultrasound emulation and also a .rad through the (now) integrated OPL emulation in the SB-firmware.

Not sure it'll work with games like doom, but there certainly is a chance.

Edit: In a first quick test, it didn't work for me. The Adlib / SB did, but the GUS didn't work in doom without pgusinit. With both cards in and as expected, pgusinit was a little unhappy , too 😁

I finally happened to get a chance to try out the PicoGUS I recently bought from Joe's Computer Museum.

I am using it in my recently acquired 486DX-33 system with a MS-4132G motherboard.
At first I was having problems with system crashes that I was not experiencing with a Sound Blaster 2.0.
I was able to getting things running reliably after cleaning the card edges of the other ISA bus cards.

I have been spending most of my time trying out GUS emulation. I still haven't bothered to try Sound Blaster emulation yet.