Absolutely. It was interesting following the development of graphics throughout the 90s, but what absolutely changed everything for me was the sound. I could not believe that I could hook up my pentium win95 machine to my hi-fi and play my CDs and my mp3 from there. What a time to be alive
Clearly remember that day back in 1996. After the upgrade launched Prince of Persia 2. Had been playing that game for quite a while but then there was human voice in the intro along with unbelievable good bgm . "In ancient Persia...". Almost fell off my chair....
I miss getting a disc drive but sound cards have evolved to sound just as good if not better on a tiny chip. Just look at all the portable DAC/Amp combos on the market, a fraction of the size
Hearing Clint mix up two consecutive words in a line, and then instead of simply fixing it in post simply points it out & laughs over what he just said during editing, is a constant joy. "The Ultra-side Sound of Things" is right up there with "Hoddware Oddness".
@@DryPaperHammerBro Look up "LGR Oddware - Thermaltake PC Drive Bay". That's the one with the "Hodware Oddness" in it. Also "The KeyStik Clip-on Joystick for Keyboards: LGR Oddware" has the "constructions" instead of "instructions".
That card is looking like the holy grail of 90s sound cards. A single ISA slot used to do literally all the sounds (assuming no memory conflicts). Zero compromises and the ability to add MIDI is just the icing on an already delectable cake. I wonder how many of these OPL and AMD sound chips are still out there in the wild. Also, what an era of computing. Where sound cards were a legit thing to upgrade your setup with and some of them had RAM slots.
@@nicwilson89 It's probably a good investment. There are probably limited numbers of those chips available. It almost certainly won't be available in 5 or 10 years.
It's the holy grail of 1985-1995 sound cards, but the later-90s introduced environmental audio effects and advanced surround sound which were mind-blowing at the time.
@@AngelDemonn You should be using the hardware GS bank. The samples are more or less the same, Yucatan is just super bass heavy out of the box, as well as prone to clipping issues.
The AC97 Audio header is a nice touch. I remember back in the day adding a sound card to a pre-built system usually meant sacrificing the front panel ports.
I own the original Orpheus card which I got for my 486 desktop system with the built in speakers and I was impressed by that card. Just seeing the Orpheus 2 in your video certainly got my attention. Especially with the beautiful design, the care and passion taken to design this thing is absolutely amazing! I love the passion the retro community has for making these amazing sound card options available.
Man, I had a "10,000 in 1" shareware games and one must fall 2097 was on there. Our Presario definitely only had a Soundblaster card of some sort and I am blown away about the difference with the gravis
I am always impressed with all the cool stuff being made like this, would have never imagined people would be making stuff like that now back in the day. The retro scene people are awesome.
So cool. I used to make S3M's and Impulse Tracker mods back in the day using my Gravis Ultrasound. What a gamechanger it was when I upgraded to it from my original Thunderboard.
I still have my GUS. ( in my display cabinet ) It was one of the best buys i have ever done. I have spend hours every day making music with programs like fasttracker.
What we need is a PCI Express sound card that's compatible with the old MS-DOS sound card so that we can add DOS sound support with a "modern" computer running FreeDOS.
The problem you're going to run into though is that there's no PC DOS drivers for the pcie bus. So there's no way for your software to talk to your Hardware cuz you can't communicate on the bus.
The problem is that while PCI Express cards could respond to all the right I/O ports, PCI and PCI Express cannot do ISA compatible DMA like what DOS programs expect. There's nothing for PCI and PCI Express to do that with. When sound cards moved from the ISA bus to the PCI bus in the late 1990s, they either didn't bother with DOS games, or you had to load EMM386.EXE and run a special TSR in the background that intercepted the I/O to emulate a Sound Blaster for the DOS game, or you had to run the DOS game in a Windows 9x DOS box where Windows or a 3rd party driver would emulate it. There were some hardware level hacks too at the time. On some motherboards there was a special cable you had to connect to the card and the motherboard to carry the ISA DMA signals. On Intel boards, there was a hack called "Distributed DMA" which allowed the PCI card to fiddle with the motherboard DMA controller to fake ISA DMA which sometimes worked. But that hack didn't last very long. On a related note, you may have noticed that the disappearance of the standard floppy controller in the late 2000s coincided with a particular version of Intel motherboard chipsets where they completely dropped support for any kind of ISA DMA at all, because the standard floppy controller and floppy drive also used ISA DMA to operate.
My name came up in the purchase list for this just before the video came out. Cost a damn fortune after converting to Canadian dollars, but I'm stoked to get it for a future DOS build project I'm planning. Can't wait! In terms of what I'd add to a next-gen model, I'd say probably the AdLib Gold (just to complete the trifecta) and I'd love to see genuine Sound Blaster chips in it, though I'm sure that would be a tall order. Other than maybe the ability to swap out the headphone amplifiers for the truly nutbar among us, I can't think of much else.
so very cool that new cards are still out there. That being said my favorite card of all time is the awe 64 gold. I think it is because it was what I had back in the day.
They should make a V3 with an FPGA, these ASICs are getting harder to source and make up the majority of the cost. An FPGA card could have multiple soundcards flashed onto it and different combinations to use, all while taking up a much smaller footprint than a custom card that uses multiple ASICs. A prototype of this was pitched at VCF Midwest so it's an idea that has been around for a while now.
I think this is the most ideal solution. I wonder if that card that was being developed and shown at VCF Midwest would have seen the light of day if the chip shortage hadn't happened...
Somebody have to create the FPGA first. And then thre is the question - isn't it simpler to have it emulated on something like RPi. Or isn't it simpler to have it in DosBox. I just like it as is - the discrete sound card on real chips. On real device with real hard drive and real CRT.
@@rkurbatov no need to "create" a new FPGA - they are called "Field Programmable Gate Array" for a reason - simply put, you can "rewire" the transistors inside a FPGA any way you want so they can be anything you tell them to be. If you have the wiring diagram of the real chip and an FPGA that has enough transistors inside to rewire, you can recreate an EMU8k and a CT1749 for example ... or even a voodoo cards TMU and FBI. It's the closest you can get to the real chip and, if done right, indistinguishable in function - it beats "software emulation" like dosbox or some RPi thing. Only downside is that FPGAs cost money too, and the more capable they get, the more money they'll cost - so - it might not matter if you use FPGA or NOS/Salvaged original chips, you might end up with a mighty expensive clone card either way
I really enjoy watching old LGR videos and seeing how far Clint has taken his channel. The channel could compete with any cable or tv show. Best RU-vidr.
oohhhhh man that card is dope maybe have to get one one day, I have plenty of isa sound cards to play with though. so glad that there is people that can build this stuff and keep the retro computers going strong :)
Huge fan of my original Orpheus and the MK8330, these guys do amazing work. I'm on the fence about this one - not sure the GUS support is worth the upgrade as I doubt I'll use it outside of novelty value. Still very cool that it exists!
I love the fact that in the audio sections on the card they didn't use normal electrolytic's and instead went for nichicon ufg Fine Gold audio grade electrolytic capacitors, really no expense spared AT ALL, the sound speaks for itself!
I built my own 20 Mhz computer and added a simple soundcard. After those wonderful months I decided to step into Soundblaster mode. Never did anything really with midi because... For me it all started with a Pong computer, Atari 2600 (still have it) from there the C64 road to Amiga and now rely on pc with windows 10 almost 11. I had a blast time and love to see your passion still alive.
Hmm... sounds promising. Let's see what it's made of 👍🎶🎵🎶 Oh. What a sweet multipurpose card it is. Thanks for the One Must Fall 2097 music test. The menu music is great. Actually it's been my ringtone for many, many years. 😃
OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH. I HAVE HAD MEMORIES OF ONE MUST FALL IN MY HEAD FOREVER. I STILL HUM THE SONG ALL THE TIME, BUT I COULDN'T REMEMBER THE NAME OF THE GAME! You've made my year.
This sound card is what I've always wanted for a retro pc setup. I hope one day we can get some of the old stock chips replaced with FPGAs. Also respect for playing Jazz 3D music.
I really miss my GUS, not sure what happened to it, but hands down my favorite sound card. It was the PnP Pro as I recall. It's replacement was the SB X-Fi Xtreme music with the full front panel. Almost as amazing. Now I run whatever my MB has 😢
oh. my. god. for years I've thought about that fish game, and could never figure out what it was called, when I randomly see it in an LRG video and get hit with a megaton blast of nostalgia and now know its name. odell down under.
I think you are officially my favorite RU-vidr man love the content! Inspired me to build my first PC working on it right now Dell Optiplex GX260 currently only upgrade is a 1gb ram chip just ordered 2 more of those. If anyone sees this what's a good place to learn and ask questions about the hobby for a new guy?
i love myself some LGR.... greetings from Woodgrainy northern germany... I did some FT2 tracks you loved... i know that.. ;) still.... I love your videos more... thank you sir!
I just got this card a couple of weeks ago and I must say it is phenomenal! I installed it on my Pentium system with 98lite. There was some hassle on the windows side with resources, but that is not Orpheus fault. It is just the PnP and so much stuff there which require IO, IRQ and DMA and Windows likes to throw those around. I needed to configure PCMidi or IRQ3 too. Pure DOS should be much more easier.
I am one of those lucky ones that purchased a Ultrasound (Max!) back in the day, and I have also collected over the years a nice lot of ISA Soundblasters, so I will not need this, but it is beyond fantastic seeing there is still passionate people creating amazing things like this. It is expensive, but back then that Gravis was also a massive amount of money, at least here. One of my favorite pieces of hardware I have been so lucky to get, and even luckier to preserve (I wish I could go back in time and prevent myself from selling my 1st gen Vodoo1 card) From this video, I am jumping into the card stand STL head first. I have been for ages being a lazy ass about finding a nice way to have my collection of cards properly displayed, and this design is awesome. Cant wait to test it.
i remember One Must Fall. I had the shareware version on my 386 dx 25 i think. It was novel for me to play pc games with a game pad when i was older as we only had consoles to use growing up.
I honestly don’t know what any of these audio technologies are, soundblaster midi wavetable midi, it’s all very confusing. How about a video explaining what they are? ❤
SoundBlaster is/was a brand of sound cards that became the standard that everyone else had to imitate for a while. MIDI is a standard for hooking digital synthesizer equipment (including both audio emitters and keyboards) together. It used to use a round DIN connector, and now gets routed over USB. Wavetables are sets of audio samples that are stored in a computer's memory, and are used to imitate MIDI synthesizers using a computer's soundcard.
To be even more specific about midi, it's a system where, instead of sending over the audio you wanna play itself to the chip, you send commands to the chip saying like "play this note for this long, change to the fourth instrument," etc, with the chip able to use a different sound depending on your setup. In this case, the wavetable is a bank of various "instruments" available to the chip to pick from. It's basically like giving a chip sheet music instead of an audio CD.
@@SheepUndefined DOS games also make use of the General Midi standard, which is basically just a set of pre-defined instrument locations ensuring correct playback on any compatible device. The main exception being the MT-32, which is also a midi device but not a GM one (it didn't exist yet), relying on direct developer support instead. MT-32 can sort of do GM with a special init program, but GM devices can't really emulate the MT-32 outside some specific circumstances.
Wow, I really enjoyed this review. I'd love to get one of these cards as it's pretty much a perfect card for everything i'd use for my own DOS/Windows Super Socket 7 system. SPDIF, Wavetable Header, Upgradeable memory and support for GUS would be really nice. Thanks for making a video about this card. I couldn't think of anything useful i'd want to add to this card, so here's something silly instead: I'd want to add the Hanging note bug from the AWE-32 sound cards to this card. (I wouldn't really want to see this annoying bug on this card)
I was admittedly zoning out a little bit while watching it, but that One Must Fall lightning and theme song immediately snapped my attention back. Love that game.
I thought I was intimidated when I built my first pc, but man oh man....My hat's off to those who built them back then (and even more so with building retro pc's nowadays with how rare and expensive parts are becoming and how information isn't as widely available as it once was)! I'd LOVE to build something a retro set-up like this, but I simply don't have the time it'd deserve to do it justice. Getting things set-up seems WAY more complicated than building a pc nowadays, with things being basically plug and play with very little tinkering required. Back then on the other hand, It's just seems like an endless rabbit hole, that seems to pull you deeper and deeper, with near endless options and variables to consider, with technology rapidly changing and evolving, and as soon as you think you are satisfied you find out it's just the beginning...if you're willing to put the time into learning and tinkering. As someone who's has played pc games like the ones show here but never really got into the technical side of things, at least not until I got older and the technology drastically changed, it's always just kinda of amazing to see how things worked back then and just how different things are now. It's definitely given me a better appreciation for the way things are today, but also a kind of odd yearning of things to return the "wild west' period of PC's, where everything was still so new and everything was changing and evolving so fast you could barely keep up.
I can't wait to get my hands on the Orpheus II "red edition". I managed to sneak a pre-order in. If you email them right now they MIGHT still have a few extra pre-order slots, despite the website saying pre-orders ended on August 15, 2024.
@8:27 I had this in the day. I will try to find it again. I Like AMIGA .MOD files :) - I had a Soundblaster AWE64. I miss i now. I lost the Computer years ago :(
Honestly the only extra feature I could think to add for a possible Orpheus 3 would be the ability to apply reverb to the FM output like the AWE32 could. I'm no FPGA expert, but I imagine a simple Schroeder-style reverb like freeverb wouldn't take up too much space on the chip
What I really want is an 8 bit version. I'd be happy with a new card that was just a SB 1.5, with the SA1099's, with smart MPU-401 support that I could put into a PC/XT class machine. Maybe with tandy/jr sound? Maybe even do us a real solid by adding the holes for the "flat" T1K's (HX/EX) port since it's pin to pin?
5:39 my friend I have dyslexia and heard your sentence correctly the first time and got really confused when you played it back a second and it was all jumbled. Funny stuff 🤣
I think the integrated SCSI interface idea would add capabilities to a lot of systems out there. I only had IDE, parallel, and serial on my system growing up. Seeing interesting devices that utilized the standard filled me with envy for some reason....
No matter how many of LGR"s videos on sound cards I watch, and I do love watching and learning about them, I always end up more confused then when I began and that's despite Clint's calm and easy to understand explanations. It just seems whenever I think I'm getting a grasp on it, it just gets more and more complicated. So many options, standards and details and it's just one aspect of retro PC's... Sometimes when I read about or watch a video about them, I feel like I'm watching a video about alien technology, which kinda makes it oddly that much more interesting to me. I usually end up googling different things to understand more about them until I get exhausted and completely forgot what I was watching/reading in the first place....and unfortunately most of time feeling none the wiser... It's kinds crazy things like sound cards and audio in general, have seem to be almost forgotten about when it comes to modern PC builds with it being relegated to simple on-board audio usually paired with average speakers, with it generally considered to be more than good enough for most people. Are they even a thing nowadays? I know they are still out there, but you almost never hear anyone talk about them, at least outside of professional use cases anymore. Last time I heard someone recommend one, was for a HTPC specifically to set-up a surround sound system.
Something that would be neat for a successor: Switchable output filters for the SoundBlaster portion. SB Pro and earlier have a characteristic way of playing back low-sample rate sounds like those used in Doom, Duke 2 etc. On SB16 and later the same effects lack some punchiness. So being able to switch that to accomodate different games would be cool.
As someone slightly too young to have been around during this era i always wonder why sound cards were such a big thing during this time and why these days it's just a solved issue. You don't hear people upgrading their sound cards, the only thing they may do is get an external DAC+Amp.
These are going to be in super limited supply, all of the new old stock chips required to make these are getting impossible to find. I am so glad I got ordered before this video went live. Just like the Goldlib.
The first thing I thought of on seeing it was wondering if it would be possible to replace the new old stock chips with some sort of FPGA replacement. The problem is that it would probably be very time consuming, and definitely expensive to make, though the likes of the MiSTer project and the Analogue clone consoles have shown it is possible in theory.
The Gravis makes some nice sounds. I remember the Gravis UltraSound box on top of my Father's Desk in the 90s. I also remember the Gravis Gamepad I'd use to play Commander Keen on that thing. We had 4 computers, 286, 386, and two 486s back then. The 286 and 386 became our computers as kids (my parents old computers) whereas by Father got both he and my mother new 486s for work. I just remember I had basically every game imaginable on that computer because my Father would, umm, "Shareware" all the Warez. My first computer was either the Colleco Adam or the Commodore Vic-20, hard to remember which came first tbh as this was in the 80s.
Bro i would literally pay a monthly subscription to have JUST your content on a binge level... if i ever have a kid, you should be the godfather..... 😂
