Hello!

Yes it is ready to use.

Cheers!

Ed

Marmes wrote on 2022-06-20, 14:58:

Hello! […]
Show full quote

Hello!

Yes it is ready to use.

Cheers!

Ed

What a nice surprise!

Thanks for the fast reply.

Hello! It´s been a while since I followed this project so I don´t know what´s the current status. I´m very interested in purchasing one of these beauties somewhere in the near(ish) future, so I have a few questions:

1. I´m planning a Windows 95 build (440BX chipset) and I want to pair this card with a SB Live! so that I´d run one cards signal through the other (for example SBs line-out to Orpheus line-in), and from there to my amplifier. The idea is to use the cards simultaneously in Windows. LGR did this type of setup in one of his videos couple of years ago, and he could choose the sound card and midi device for each game in Windows. I became fascinated with this idea. Would this be possible with your Orpheus?

2. Some people say that the Crystal chip is not compatible enough for them with some games. Is there some sort of a compatibility list?

3. Since this is Orpheus 1, is there going to be Orpheus 2 and if so, what would that be about? 😀

khyypio wrote on 2022-06-24, 06:41:

Hello! It´s been a while since I followed this project so I don´t know what´s the current status. I´m very interested in purchas […]
Show full quote

Hello! It´s been a while since I followed this project so I don´t know what´s the current status. I´m very interested in purchasing one of these beauties somewhere in the near(ish) future, so I have a few questions:

1. I´m planning a Windows 95 build (440BX chipset) and I want to pair this card with a SB Live! so that I´d run one cards signal through the other (for example SBs line-out to Orpheus line-in), and from there to my amplifier. The idea is to use the cards simultaneously in Windows. LGR did this type of setup in one of his videos couple of years ago, and he could choose the sound card and midi device for each game in Windows. I became fascinated with this idea. Would this be possible with your Orpheus?

2. Some people say that the Crystal chip is not compatible enough for them with some games. Is there some sort of a compatibility list?

3. Since this is Orpheus 1, is there going to be Orpheus 2 and if so, what would that be about? 😀

1. It's possible to do that. In windows games you just play using the card of your choice. In MSdos games you must select according to game specifications, (SB, SBpro or WSS) with orpheus card. PCMIDI part is configurable for 300h or 330h IRQ 2 3 5 7. As told before it's better to get an external mixer, but you can have one card as input, in MSDOS you may need initialize both cards.

2. About compatibility, Crystal chips are one of the most compatible chips around. Of course, not being an original Creative SB, some games may work diferently. But on CS4237 the only drawback I see is ADPCM 3bit support, which is only used in a handful of games. SB , SBpro & WSS work just fine.
Please have look on http://www.pcmidi.eu/orpheus.html for more info.

3. There are a few things on drawing board. Stay tuned for news!

Marmes wrote on 2022-06-24, 10:46:

1. It's possible to do that. In windows games you just play using the card of your choice. In MSdos games you must select accord […]
Show full quote

khyypio wrote on 2022-06-24, 06:41:

Hello! It´s been a while since I followed this project so I don´t know what´s the current status. I´m very interested in purchas […]
Show full quote

Hello! It´s been a while since I followed this project so I don´t know what´s the current status. I´m very interested in purchasing one of these beauties somewhere in the near(ish) future, so I have a few questions:

1. I´m planning a Windows 95 build (440BX chipset) and I want to pair this card with a SB Live! so that I´d run one cards signal through the other (for example SBs line-out to Orpheus line-in), and from there to my amplifier. The idea is to use the cards simultaneously in Windows. LGR did this type of setup in one of his videos couple of years ago, and he could choose the sound card and midi device for each game in Windows. I became fascinated with this idea. Would this be possible with your Orpheus?

2. Some people say that the Crystal chip is not compatible enough for them with some games. Is there some sort of a compatibility list?

3. Since this is Orpheus 1, is there going to be Orpheus 2 and if so, what would that be about? 😀

1. It's possible to do that. In windows games you just play using the card of your choice. In MSdos games you must select according to game specifications, (SB, SBpro or WSS) with orpheus card. PCMIDI part is configurable for 300h or 330h IRQ 2 3 5 7. As told before it's better to get an external mixer, but you can have one card as input, in MSDOS you may need initialize both cards.

2. About compatibility, Crystal chips are one of the most compatible chips around. Of course, not being an original Creative SB, some games may work diferently. But on CS4237 the only drawback I see is ADPCM 3bit support, which is only used in a handful of games. SB , SBpro & WSS work just fine.
Please have look on http://www.pcmidi.eu/orpheus.html for more info.

3. There are a few things on drawing board. Stay tuned for news!

Awesome! I´ll surely buy one, hopefully I get to drop my order by the end of summer. My summer vacay is coming up so I´m away, and I travel a lot internationally because of my work which means I´m away again, so I have to plan these kinds of purchases carefully 😁

khyypio wrote on 2022-06-24, 06:41:

2. Some people say that the Crystal chip is not compatible enough for them with some games. Is there some sort of a compatibility list?

IMO the compatibility of the crystal chip is not something you really need to worry about. There are definitely a few weaknesses on the WSS side of things, but sbpro2 works with everything nearest I can tell, and the mpu 401 interface is almost 100% as well.

Btw there are some patches for the orpheus for certain Seirra games that fix WSS, and there are also some ways to force WSS in a few titles that use the miles sound system that don't otherwise detect it. Sbpro2 of course works without issues .

khyypio wrote on 2022-06-24, 06:41:

The idea is to use the cards simultaneously in Windows. LGR did this type of setup in one of his videos couple of years ago, and he could choose the sound card and midi device for each game in Windows. I became fascinated with this idea. Would this be possible with your Orpheus?

Managing many soundcard on one computer is certainly a fascinating idea for someone who can appreciate it's implication. Something you might want to investigate if you dont know already is the midi mapper of Windows 9x. The Orpheus is a very competent performer when it's about audio mixing and midi devices. Using the midi mapper you could create a scheme that would play midi channel to different devices. Imagine sending the drum to an external drum machine connected to the Orpheus's PC-MIDI part and sending the lower MIDI channel to it's OPL3 synth and the higher channel to the EMU10k of the Live! with a huge soundbank loaded in memory ! You can then enjoy your hardware mix with your favorite midi player or maybe a video game that support it.

In case the topic interest you and you dont know everything about it already here is a good article I found about it : https://www.pgmusic.com/tutorial_multiple_midi_devices.htm

Question about the SPDIF output: does the OPL3 sound pass through it?

Also, what is a good way of recording SPDIF output from the Orpheus? A Sound Blaster live/audigy/X-Fi with digital coaxial (SPDIF) input I know about, but I'm having trouble getting one. Are there other sound cards I can use?

perhenden wrote on 2022-07-17, 23:15:

Question about the SPDIF output: does the OPL3 sound pass through it?

Also, what is a good way of recording SPDIF output from the Orpheus? A Sound Blaster live/audigy/X-Fi with digital coaxial (SPDIF) input I know about, but I'm having trouble getting one. Are there other sound cards I can use?

First question : I don't know. It does indeed. Sorry about my brain fart, I was thinking of something else.

Second question :
Any card with a digital coaxial (SPDIF) input can be used . You can also use any card with an optical input if you use a coax to optical converter (this is lossless).
This includes firewire, USB, PCI or ISA devices, as long as you can physical connect it to your recording computer and that device drivers compatible with the recording computer's OS exist .

perhenden wrote on 2022-07-17, 23:15:

Question about the SPDIF output: does the OPL3 sound pass through it?

When the card is initialised with ORPHINIT, all sources are available via both line-out and S/PDIF output, for both WSS and Sound Blaster modes. I am not familiar with the current state of other tools, so cannot make an authoritative comment, but at least OPL3 and digital audio playback should be available in all modes.

Hello,
French owner of the Orpheus card here. My original version of Flashback hang with INSTALL.EXE with Orpheus card installed. I can launch the game but it was configured with AdLib only and no digitized sound. Is there any option to try in the ini file ?
Thanks.

EDIT: Im' using a 486DX50 with 16MB.

DjLc wrote on 2022-08-08, 18:36:

Hello,
French owner of the Orpheus card here. My original version of Flashback hang with INSTALL.EXE with Orpheus card installed. I can launch the game but it was configured with AdLib only and no digitized sound. Is there any option to try in the ini file ?
Thanks.

Flash Back sound compatibility is CPU/System speed sensitive. An old not of mine says that a 600MHz Pentium III will not work well with it, and a drop to about 200..100MHz net speed fixes things.

After some research my Installer version is 1.0
US version of game i've found installer is version 1.1 and work flawlessly. I've modified the FB.CFG with the corresponding 1.1 settings for BLASTER settings. My french version works now with sound effects.
The 1.0 installer version must have some kind of weird routine to detect the SB.
PS: I'm using a 486DX50 with 16MB.

I don't think that is allowed..

Just out of curiosity, Is Orpheous (I) potentially impossible to adjust PCM volume with OPL3 activated not like Orpheus (II)? I saw a post that Orpheus (II) doesn’t have the issue. Should it necessarily involve some changes hardware-wise to realize the function with Orpheus (I)?

copymaker wrote on 2022-10-04, 14:24:

Just out of curiosity, Is Orpheous (I) potentially impossible to adjust PCM volume with OPL3 activated not like Orpheus (II)? I saw a post that Orpheus (II) doesn’t have the issue. Should it necessarily involve some changes hardware-wise to realize the function with Orpheus (I)?

This has been discussed before. The problem only exists in SB-compatibility mode, when used in combination with an external synth chip. With Orpheus II being a complete re-design, they were able to integrate changes that successfully bypassed the problem. The solution depends on rather significant changes to the hardware, as well as specific software support; there is no currently-known software-only solution for Orpheus I. As far as I'm aware, there is no appetite to re-visit the Orpheus I design at this point, given the changes that would be involved.

Hello. First off I love this card! It is so nice having an all-in-one solution without installing multiple cards.

However, there is a slightly annoying issue when playing games on Windows 3.1. Whenever a wave file plays the computer will freeze for a second before playing the sound and then freeze a second again after playing the sound. It is especially noticeable in games like Myst when there are sounds for buttons and levers. It is not game breaking, but it does kind of take away from the immersion a little bit.

I have tried adjusting the driver settings to no avail. No matter what I change there is still a delay when audio is played. Is this maybe a bug in the drivers? Did the original hardware also have this problem? Has anyone else noticed this?

Thanks.

Hello

I wonder if it is possible to drag spdif signal internally from Orpheus. I’m building a PC with Orpheus and Soundblaster Audigy ZS Platinum pro. SB Audigy has 2 pin SPDIF input socket and if it’s possible, I guess Orpheus spdif digital signal can be fed to SB Audigy and sound from Orpheus can be heard from SB Audigy external HUB.

@copymaker
sadly the opl3 changes cannot be carried over to the original orpheus, they are just way to many to patch... it is not visible but 80% of the layout is different in that area

@ndavis82
I have not had reports of this happening, all I can think of is either some resource conflict? IRQ or DMA? meaning the dos initialization does not match the windows assigned resources
or the game just being like that. Maybe there is an earlier win3x driver that can work better - I will have to check later at home in my archives if other versions exist

@ychh0
all I can think of is soldering directly under the s/pdif jack to make an internal digital connection ... hardly an elegant solution :\

ychh0 wrote on 2022-10-17, 05:42:

Hello

I wonder if it is possible to drag spdif signal internally from Orpheus. I’m building a PC with Orpheus and Soundblaster Audigy ZS Platinum pro. SB Audigy has 2 pin SPDIF input socket and if it’s possible, I guess Orpheus spdif digital signal can be fed to SB Audigy and sound from Orpheus can be heard from SB Audigy external HUB.

Doesn't the Audigy's external unit have a RCA SPDIF input on the back?

You can use a coaxial SPDIF cable to connect the Orpheus there. I've used this approach to get the SPDIF out of my Aureal Vortex2 card to my Audigy without any issues.