@MarcoGPUtuber I am not denying that this is a useful product. Just saying that most hobbyists will eventually try to sell you something, and PCL is no exception. His previous video on mini PCs was rather hilarious.
I love seeing how much is being done with the humble Pi Pico, the big surge over the last few years has been so cool to watch. Plus with how expensive (and, sadly, rare) vintage hardware of any type is getting over time, $45 for such a flexible card is a steal. Thanks for bringing this to us, what a cool new card.
Sample based music existed before the GUS but the mixer was implemented in software, e.g. MOD trackers. The advantage of the GUS was all of the resampling (for different frequencies) and mixing was done in hardware and at a very high quality. This then allowed the CPU to spend more cycles on graphics. The biggest limitation of the GUS was compatibility with older games written for the Adlib & SoundBlaster cards. I've often wondered what would have happened if Gravis had included SoundBlaster Pro compatible direct access to the DAC.
Great video, Phil! I managed to pick one up from Ian's last batch and am very excited to give it a try. What an amazing project and its capabilities just keep expanding too 🙂
Its a nice card. I recently got an Orpheus II from Leo. Impressive recreations the enthusiast groups have developed and offered to the community. Really amazing work. Cool video.
Great video! I also managed to get my hands on one of these, and am pleasantly surprised with how well it sounds, in addition to being so versatile, and also how Ian not only sells these at a third of a price of this other GUS replica going around (which doesn't have any of the additional functions like MPU-401, CMS, Tandy emulation, the joystick port or wavetable support), but even gives you the opportunity to build your own. A real champ.
Absolutely blows me away how good the music and game sounds are with this PicoGUS and wavetable. I just bought the GUS, but can clearly see the benefit of adding the Dreamblaster. Great video!
I've been a big fan of the PicoGUS project for quite a while now, and version 2 is a terrific piece of retro-modern engineering. Love it! Can't wait to dig into mine; it's been decades since I had the pleasure of using a GUS.
If one could combine Adlib/SB and GUS simultaneously for this in terms of output, it would be the end-game for 8-bit audio on older PCs. I know one tracker has the capability to mix samples for GUS on top of Adlib synth for its music.
I love this! Both the Raspberry Pi SBCs and Pico micro controllers give vintage machines another breath of life, it's fantastic! Would totally order one if I still had a machine from that era. On a side note, nice glasses!
Me at the beginning: "Looks cool, but I don't need a sound card, thanks" **two seconds later* me: "Holy S**t, I can use an xbox controller? Give me 5!!!!"
... or rather a powerbank sized vintage pack that combines something like the 486+ 128MB@200+ MHz with a PicoGUS and comes with HDMI and USB 3. 😅Something almost like this already exists too, a project called the "Tinyllama" combining a Vortex86EX SOC + Vortex86VGA graphics + "Crystal CS4237B" sound-chip + Raspberry Pi Zero 2 for MT32 emulation.
Definitely interested. I've wanted a GUS to try out in my older PCs for a long time. I never had one at the time they were current, so I never got to have the GUS PC gaming experience. Gotta jump on the chance if I can get one now without paying unreasonable Ebay prices.
Hope they eventually support flight sticks like the thrustmaster T1600m to emulate dos hotas flight control systems with rudder and throttle as well as all the buttons. man Mechwarrior 2 and decent would thrive on it.
I have been trying to not get a PicoGUS since I already have sooo many soundcards (and there's even this Swedish guy who has a replica GUS and SB 2.0 which I am also tempted to get) but man, Phil, you are really pushing me towards getting one. It's definitely a very handy and versatile little card. I love some of your game choices for showing the music. Lotus III is one of my favourite games but the AdLib music really falls so short of the Amiga's MOD files here but you picked the best track which is Miami Ice, track 5. Sooo good. Metal Machine is really good too but it just sounds way better on the Amiga. Raptor is so good. I thought the Tandy was going to be a lot more fiddly as I know that the CVX4 can have issues with it but this is good to see that there are patches to make the Tandy work better. And of course Dope is one of the few demos which has issues with the PicoGUS, just my luck but at least it's being worked on. Well, ultimately for $45 I will probably get one anyway. Thanks for the great demonstration! :)
i also built a mt32-pi wavetable from scrap computing so now i have a built in mt32 or fluidsynth soundfont's. the picogus hits so many niche points one of the best modern projects for retro.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Phil, you are an asset to the retrogaming community. Thank you for investigating this piece of hardware and making those files and links easily available. I was blown away by all the options this card has and the USB compatibility got me especially interested. I'm now dreaming of using my PS4 controller on some old DOS games, especially the racing games! I noticed you were using the D-Pad. Do you know if it is possible to use the analog sticks? I think it would be cool to use it in the Lotus/Lamborghini style of games, or maybe Stunts, Big Red Racing, Screamer, and so on. Thank you once again for showcasing this very cool product! Cheers from Brazil!
@HistoriacomoJorge yes, the analog sticks work. Left stick is joystick 1, right stick is joystick 2. Also the analog shoulder buttons map to the +/- Y axis which I added so I could play DOS racing games with an Xbox 360 driving wheel controller and its foot pedals.
Wow! I didn't see any info on wireless support for usb/gameport feature, and the development of SB compatible firmare. If that goes official - then, well, I'm totally sold. Fantastic device.
Just installed PicoGUS in my Toshiba T5200 plasma-monster. It had GUS MAX but PicoGUS is better because 1. it's a 8bit card so the second 16bit slot is free for 3com ethernet 2. the upcoming SB2.0 emulation!
For me, the MPU-401 was worth it at that price. SoftMPU has gotten me by for years, but I no longer get any hanging notes from my MT-32 if a program exits/pauses at an odd time. I also get less low memory warnings when playing an old SCUMM game on my 486.
I'm honestly SUPER excited about this, since having The REAL Gravis UltraSound or SoundBlaster 16 and so on may be fun, but if you want to collect them all you might as well declare bankrupcy 😂 And also switching between all those sound cards may be tiresome than just flashing your PicoGUS to what you want to have now. I'm just happy to see this card actually existing, the flexibility... Well, it's just Insane. (In a good way.)
Wow, this is an amazing card. I need to get one asap. :) Always loved how the GUS sounds but never owned one myself. A good friend of mine bought it back in '93 and I've played with it a lot though. I had a SB16 myself. Now what we need is for some genius to make a complete Roland emulation card, hehe. I've no idea if that's even possible, but how cool would that be!?
Very impressive piece of hardware - I noticed the first revision using a Raspberry Zero, as well as the related projects Orpheus 1/Orpheus II/Orpheus IILT . I like the idea of combining an Adlib compatible Soundblaster 16 on Port 220, a GUS on Port Port 240 and a Roland Midi Wavetable on MPU-401 port with wavetable support.
The problem I had with my Orpheius II is that it doesn't like a lot of motherboards. I finally gave up on trying to get it to play nice with a board with anything on it and got an old 486 that has expansions for everything. It is a beat up old thing, and I am still wondering if I should try and find a case that isn't all cracked, or if that just adds character...
@@slaapliedje I wouldn't pick a new case unless it's very inconvinient like that, since vintage partly is about the feel, but I would make sure to get myself a DX4-100+, DX5/AMD 5x86 P75/Pentium overdrive with around 32/64MB ram combined with a PCI graphics card ( if supported, ideally a Banshee PCI 16MB ) to not be kept wanting. If you want a Non GUS ISA soundcard that just works ( though you should install a Dreamblaster S2+ to not suffer the Adlib sound provided ) is a "Terratec Base-1" you can still get used for around $20.
@l3lue7hunder12 I actually have multiple builds, the 486 does not have PCI, just VLB and ISA. But is a Amd DX4-100 with a CL... something, I would have to look again. When it shipped, the upper corner cracked hard and other pieces broke off... I glued it as best I could, and it is horribly yellowed, but the Turbo works and it has an awesomely chunky switch. The only other want that I have is a digital display for the Mhz. This is the system I have the Orpheus II in. I also have a 286 (that I broke the memory on :() a couple PS/2s with 386 and a 486 CPU upgrade, etc. For faster stuff, I have a tualatin CPU in another build. Those newer builds have everything from a Matrox G400 to an AGP Voodoo 3. I am really well covered for Retro systems. 😜
@@slaapliedje Well covered indeed ! 👍 And if you got a VLB 486, then it already is a later generation, and if the graphics card starts with "CL" then it probably is a "Cirrus Logic" - those things are pretty decent. The last generation of 486 boards that shipped around the time the Pentium was introduced, already did come with PCI. One of the best known such boards is the "Soyo SY-4SAW", using the "SiS 85C496/497" chipset combo to provide what Intel would not. 🤓 I got plenty of hardware, but only a Pentium 3 with a Terratec Base-1 and ATI Radeon 9250 running Win 98 SE all ready to go - Windows 98 is a nice middle ground since it covers both classic DOS and early Windows by means of a simple Start-Menu tweak ( or just exiting to DOS ).
@l3lue7hunder12 oh yeah, I know the CL is Cirrus Logic, was just too lazy to type it out. By the time the 486 was king, I was rocking an Atari Mega STe, so didn't have to deal with ISA PnP shenanigans until my parents had bought a Pentium 75 Packard Bell, so a lot of the computers before that are somewhat new to me, but dealing with DOS and such is only weird as I am a Linux admin by trade. But I have always been 'a hardware' guy, so like playing with that.
Nice project, thanks for sharing. The site showing how to construct one is for a different version, not the one you demonstrated. It is a version you have to attach a real Pico, meant for portable computers. Ian will release it in the future, and it will be a more DIY user friendly version according to his page. MfG
I snagged 2 on the last restock for both of my ISA systems, I can not recommend it enough, It's incredibly versatile and very well built. I did have issues on my SIS socket 7 board with the mpu 401 not working but it was a board not on the compatibility list so i knew i was gambling. Works perfectly on my other system a Asus P5A with the ALI chipset. It's not period correct but who cares, it s a screaming deal...
That's brilliant! These devices having enough power to just emulate sound and being drop in replacements for the real things is excellent. One suggestion is to not run the flashing all the time. The PicoPi has a flash with limited writes. Casual flashing should be fine, but every time you run a game might be too much.
The flash on the PicoGUS is rated for at least 100,000 erase/program cycles. That's a lot of switching that's possible! If it ever wears out it is a common part that can be replaced by someone with SMD soldering skills.
Such card can be also used as a 3D accelerator or math/calculation accelerator for ISA based PC. At some point people from demoscene will make a demo using such card on 286 or even 8086 PC. DOOM port that run at full speed on slowest 386 SX is also possible. Just think of DOOM for Sega Genesis that uses hardware from Everdrive cartridge to run full DOOM at 100% speed on stock Sega Genesis. In the 90's similar accelerators were very popular in Amiga community. There were no new Amiga computers, but 3rd party companies developed and sold accelerator cards and Amiga ecosystem even moved from 68K Motorola architecture to PPC. Modern Amiga accelerators are often based on Raspberry Pi. PCs never got such accelerators, since it was just easier to buy new motherboard and CPU.
What a steal! When I get back to building my 486 (motherboard is currently out for repair) I'll have to consider grabbing one of these alongside a SB16. At the very least, it'll work as a substitute for either a real Gravis Ultrasound or an Orpheus II.
@@tadeustad yeah definitely need some physical 9x era hardware in my life. I'd love it if I still had the pentium 233mmx we had back in the day. It's super socket 7 board had AGP,PCI, and a pair of ISA slots
Nice card. While I already own the Orpheus II and Matze's Tandy Nano (self-soldered :D) plus the USB4VC, I can already think of multiple use cases. Still missing a Game Blaster device anyway. Most likely would replace my Tandy Nano inside my DOS PC with it. I wonder if it could be expanded to emulate different Roland devices without having to hook up other devices to it. At the moment I still use an old laptop with Falcosoft Midi Player for different VSTs like the Munt one or the Sound Canvas VA.
You mentioned the hardware mixing aspect but I feel like the advantage of this can't be stressed high enough, it's not just about freeing up the CPU which at the time multi-channel mixing of high quality samples, pitch shifted and filtered was a non-trivial task on the CPUs of the day - the advantage in latency is one that doesn't get enough attention. Software mixed audio needs a RAM buffer and buffering adds latency. Too little buffering and you get horrible underflow noise, too much and sounds play "late" compared to the visuals and rob the game of the "punch". This is still an issue that persists to this day as it's not really a CPU power issue and more a timing thing. The GUS just plays the samples when you tell it to and you never need to worry about underflows, the card just does what you need it to do. PC tends to prefer the "worse is better" approach over the long haul. If something can be offloaded to the CPU to make the hardware cheaper, that's the one that wins in the marketplace even if the loser was the better hardware. The upside though is flexibility.
After installing 4 retro pc, 2 win98se and 2 winxp pc i learned that to get sound drivers to work is a mess😂 for my win98se ibm aptivia 2171 p3 500mhz katmai 256mb ram on an ssd limited to 80gb with geforce4 mx440 64mb paired with a voodoo 2 8mb, the sound driver was a mess to install. And deamon tools is dont work well with some games sound. But😄 all my retro pc had some issues with sound drivers, some would not work. But i feel i learned alot about win98se that i wish i knew when i was a kid and had my ibm aptivia 2171. And thx to you this stuff is fun😊 all the games and sound, the story, battlezone 1 and 2, settlers 3 and so on.
Great card ! Amazing design. I used to have a GUS Ultrasound MAX and it was a great card, but it had a problem with SB emulation. I wonder if this GUS emulator can emulate Sound Blaster better than the original GUS :) By the way the FM synthesis sounds so flat and weak compared to GUS or General Midi. Yes, it has its charm, but in my first PC I had a sound card with a wavetable module and FM synthesis was a rarity for me :)
I love your channel. Have you done a comparison video of the PicoGUS with the Orpheus II? Also, wrt the PicoGUS, is the USB controller capability available in ALL sound modes?
An A-vs-B test, contrasting the PicoGUSes sound output against the original hardware cards it's emulating, in a bunch of popular game titles, would be an interesting metric to further our understanding.
@@philscomputerlab Given that the PicoGUS's GUS emulation is based upon DOSBox's (albeit with many changes to accommodate and improve the PicoGUS), some comparisons probably already exist somewhere, in the form of "DOSBox vs real card" content.
USB gamepad connector is a fantastic idea. There are plenty of joysticks around but its very hard to find a good pre-usb gamepad. I am tempted to order one just for that.
The whole firmware flashing bit is somewhat concerning on the off chance you lose power. Also i do keep wondering if there are enough reproduction parts to make a "new" old computer purely out of them.
That would be pretty neat, not just as a gimmick but because these things are usually meant to emulate something top of the line,or even several somethings. That said,I don't think the market is that extensive.
Fortunately, the PicoGUS is unbrickable as you can always use the card's micro-USB port to flash it to recover. Also, the flash lifetime is rated for at least 100,000 cycles, so that's a lot of reprogramming that's possible.
I got mine recently (I was able to grab one from February restock). I asked this to Ian, he replied he will look if this can be done in the future. I know it is strange to ask this (why would someone want to run a WT instead of Gravis mode), however it would be useful for the other modes - or a SB if he ever manages to squeeze that one.@@philscomputerlab
Quick Q, is it possible to run the card with wavetable card and sb emulation? eg for game like DOOM, use the SB emulation for digitised sounds and General MIDI for the music
@@philscomputerlab bummer. I just got the new Pocket 386 and wanted to run one card. I ordered the 8bit isa expander so will run PicoGUS for GUS/SB and use either RS232 with MP32L for GM or add another PicoGUS and run that one in MPU mode with a dreamblaster S2 on it.
The best platform for this card would be a "All in one" design like my Compaq Presario CDS 524 (486dx2-66) or a CDS 9220 (Pentium 75) both have 2x 16bit ISA slots, IDE for HDD+Optical drive, on board SB 2.0 sound 14" CRT already a wierd funny unit. Right now my config for sound is a MPU-401 clone + MT-32 + GUS ACE ISA (General midi) + onboard SB pro. I think that does most if not everything :) the USB gamepad is a nice feature, ALSO there is a ISA 2 USB (Mass storage drive) usb 1.0 / 1.1 / 2.0 that can load fat 16 file system usb sticks I wonder if this card can use the driver?
I am not really good with digital electronics, a Raspberry processor seens like a strange choise for a sound card. Wouldnt some kind of DSP be a more more fitting choise?Anyway, very interesting!
I'm curious if you can run more than one of these at a time in two different firmware modes and the appropriate jumper configurations. I have a pair on order but am curious if anyone else has tried this? Thinking one card could run the SB 2.0 firmware with the smart MPU 401 enabled while the other one rocks GUS mode which would functionally give you the same primary features as an Orpheus II card for $90 before shipping vs nearly $400. Pairing with an ESS Audiodrive or YMF71x card could also be an option, though I don't believe you still have to assign a resource to it's dumb MIDI port so that's going to require some resource juggling unless you disable the Intelligent MIDI port when the PicoGUS is running the GUS firmware. I think one of the least appreciated features of this bit of kit is the fact that it also emulates a Sound Blaster 2.0 but with an intelligent MPU-401 MIDI interface + wavetable header which gives you a ton of flexibility with non GUS wavetable or old MIDI hardware, waveblaster (Serdaco, etc..) cards and so forth.
Afaik this works, but the software can't handle setting the modes for two installed cards. You need to configure the first one alone, save the settings in the card. Remove it, configure the second. And then you're good to go to install both!
Phil's Computer Lab is more than just a channel!
You could say it's a lab for computers, that belongs to Phil?
Yes, unfortunately he is becoming more and more of an advertising agency. I miss the old hobby oriented lab.
@@lordwiadro83 I disagree. This product is quite useful for those who can't find retro components.
@MarcoGPUtuber I am not denying that this is a useful product. Just saying that most hobbyists will eventually try to sell you something, and PCL is no exception. His previous video on mini PCs was rather hilarious.
There is no problem to earn money while doing something you love. He is not only playing with hardware he is producing videos.
Exciting you got a PicoGUS, I'm astonished how many uses the retrocomputing community in general has found for the humble Pico 😅
I love seeing how much is being done with the humble Pi Pico, the big surge over the last few years has been so cool to watch. Plus with how expensive (and, sadly, rare) vintage hardware of any type is getting over time, $45 for such a flexible card is a steal. Thanks for bringing this to us, what a cool new card.
Sample based music existed before the GUS but the mixer was implemented in software, e.g. MOD trackers. The advantage of the GUS was all of the resampling (for different frequencies) and mixing was done in hardware and at a very high quality. This then allowed the CPU to spend more cycles on graphics.
The biggest limitation of the GUS was compatibility with older games written for the Adlib & SoundBlaster cards. I've often wondered what would have happened if Gravis had included SoundBlaster Pro compatible direct access to the DAC.
I think its a great product. We will be able to emulate more and more cards as development continues. $45 is a very reasonable price too.
Good design choice for the usb port, located to physically discourage people from trying to program it while plugged in.
As soon as it's back in stock, I'm ordering one.
That Epic Pinball intro music brings back so many memories
Great video, Phil! I managed to pick one up from Ian's last batch and am very excited to give it a try. What an amazing project and its capabilities just keep expanding too 🙂
Its a nice card. I recently got an Orpheus II from Leo. Impressive recreations the enthusiast groups have developed and offered to the community. Really amazing work. Cool video.
Beautiful review and thank you for the batch files!
Great video! I also managed to get my hands on one of these, and am pleasantly surprised with how well it sounds, in addition to being so versatile, and also how Ian not only sells these at a third of a price of this other GUS replica going around (which doesn't have any of the additional functions like MPU-401, CMS, Tandy emulation, the joystick port or wavetable support), but even gives you the opportunity to build your own. A real champ.
Absolutely blows me away how good the music and game sounds are with this PicoGUS and wavetable. I just bought the GUS, but can clearly see the benefit of adding the Dreamblaster. Great video!
14:05 "Hey, the music guy here has the same name as Supertramp's drummer?" Well, it was actually him!!
Now this is amazing. I would love if there would be some emulated graphics cards like the Vodoo 3 or any other with ISA or (and) AGP as well some day.
I've been a big fan of the PicoGUS project for quite a while now, and version 2 is a terrific piece of retro-modern engineering. Love it! Can't wait to dig into mine; it's been decades since I had the pleasure of using a GUS.
Very cool! Gotta get me one of those lol - I love the variety of games you cover when testing this old hardware btw!
If one could combine Adlib/SB and GUS simultaneously for this in terms of output, it would be the end-game for 8-bit audio on older PCs. I know one tracker has the capability to mix samples for GUS on top of Adlib synth for its music.
Just plug in a cheap ESS/Yamaha and you've got that combo.
@@valkaielod Yeah, but when the machine a PicoGUS is going to go into an Amiga 2000 with a bridgeboard..
I love this! Both the Raspberry Pi SBCs and Pico micro controllers give vintage machines another breath of life, it's fantastic!
Would totally order one if I still had a machine from that era.
On a side note, nice glasses!
Me at the beginning: "Looks cool, but I don't need a sound card, thanks"
**two seconds later*
me: "Holy S**t, I can use an xbox controller? Give me 5!!!!"
I can not wait to get to try the SB Pro firmware!
we need a PCIe version to go full circle
... or rather a powerbank sized vintage pack that combines something like the 486+ 128MB@200+ MHz with a PicoGUS and comes with HDMI and USB 3. 😅Something almost like this already exists too, a project called the "Tinyllama" combining a Vortex86EX SOC + Vortex86VGA graphics + "Crystal CS4237B" sound-chip + Raspberry Pi Zero 2 for MT32 emulation.
Love the channel. Peace from TX, USA.
Thank you!
Definitely interested. I've wanted a GUS to try out in my older PCs for a long time. I never had one at the time they were current, so I never got to have the GUS PC gaming experience. Gotta jump on the chance if I can get one now without paying unreasonable Ebay prices.
Hope they eventually support flight sticks like the thrustmaster T1600m to emulate dos hotas flight control systems with rudder and throttle as well as all the buttons. man Mechwarrior 2 and decent would thrive on it.
Fantastic project, I got one as well and will try to get few more when more stock comes in to use in my 386 and 486 setups. Thanks for the review !
Glad you managed to snag one... yeah that 1st batch went quick lol *pats 486* :D
Great showcase Phil. I wasn't aware of all of this card's capabilities!
I have been trying to not get a PicoGUS since I already have sooo many soundcards (and there's even this Swedish guy who has a replica GUS and SB 2.0 which I am also tempted to get) but man, Phil, you are really pushing me towards getting one. It's definitely a very handy and versatile little card. I love some of your game choices for showing the music. Lotus III is one of my favourite games but the AdLib music really falls so short of the Amiga's MOD files here but you picked the best track which is Miami Ice, track 5. Sooo good. Metal Machine is really good too but it just sounds way better on the Amiga. Raptor is so good. I thought the Tandy was going to be a lot more fiddly as I know that the CVX4 can have issues with it but this is good to see that there are patches to make the Tandy work better. And of course Dope is one of the few demos which has issues with the PicoGUS, just my luck but at least it's being worked on.
Well, ultimately for $45 I will probably get one anyway. Thanks for the great demonstration! :)
Very very cool.
Glad to see the community keeps going and coming up with solutions to the shrinking old hardware remaining.
Really nice soundcard. Awesome that can be used modern controllers like from Xbox 360.
i also built a mt32-pi wavetable from scrap computing so now i have a built in mt32 or fluidsynth soundfont's.
the picogus hits so many niche points one of the best modern projects for retro.
Happy Friday Phil!
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Phil, you are an asset to the retrogaming community. Thank you for investigating this piece of hardware and making those files and links easily available. I was blown away by all the options this card has and the USB compatibility got me especially interested. I'm now dreaming of using my PS4 controller on some old DOS games, especially the racing games! I noticed you were using the D-Pad. Do you know if it is possible to use the analog sticks? I think it would be cool to use it in the Lotus/Lamborghini style of games, or maybe Stunts, Big Red Racing, Screamer, and so on. Thank you once again for showcasing this very cool product! Cheers from Brazil!
Please check Ian's comment below!
@HistoriacomoJorge yes, the analog sticks work. Left stick is joystick 1, right stick is joystick 2. Also the analog shoulder buttons map to the +/- Y axis which I added so I could play DOS racing games with an Xbox 360 driving wheel controller and its foot pedals.
@@ianpolpo Oh wow nice, I wasn't aware of this!
Wow! I didn't see any info on wireless support for usb/gameport feature, and the development of SB compatible firmare. If that goes official - then, well, I'm totally sold. Fantastic device.
Hi Phil’s , I did the same kind of .Bat too in my Dos 6.22 setup.
I've been using them for must be over a year now in GUS mode, very excellent card
Just installed PicoGUS in my Toshiba T5200 plasma-monster. It had GUS MAX but PicoGUS is better because 1. it's a 8bit card so the second 16bit slot is free for 3com ethernet 2. the upcoming SB2.0 emulation!
WoW impressed me as usual Phil thanks for the great review
For me, the MPU-401 was worth it at that price. SoftMPU has gotten me by for years, but I no longer get any hanging notes from my MT-32 if a program exits/pauses at an odd time. I also get less low memory warnings when playing an old SCUMM game on my 486.
I'm honestly SUPER excited about this, since having The REAL Gravis UltraSound or SoundBlaster 16 and so on may be fun, but if you want to collect them all you might as well declare bankrupcy 😂
And also switching between all those sound cards may be tiresome than just flashing your PicoGUS to what you want to have now.
I'm just happy to see this card actually existing, the flexibility... Well, it's just Insane. (In a good way.)
WOW, this is an amazing card!!!
I have a GUS clone (Altrasound) but I'm definitely signing up for the waitlist for a PicoGUS. Such a cool card and very compact too!
Wow, this is an amazing card. I need to get one asap. :)
Always loved how the GUS sounds but never owned one myself. A good friend of mine bought it back in '93 and I've played with it a lot though. I had a SB16 myself.
Now what we need is for some genius to make a complete Roland emulation card, hehe. I've no idea if that's even possible, but how cool would that be!?
Wow... Nice review!
Very impressive piece of hardware - I noticed the first revision using a Raspberry Zero, as well as the related projects Orpheus 1/Orpheus II/Orpheus IILT .
I like the idea of combining an Adlib compatible Soundblaster 16 on Port 220, a GUS on Port Port 240 and a Roland Midi Wavetable on MPU-401 port with wavetable support.
The problem I had with my Orpheius II is that it doesn't like a lot of motherboards. I finally gave up on trying to get it to play nice with a board with anything on it and got an old 486 that has expansions for everything. It is a beat up old thing, and I am still wondering if I should try and find a case that isn't all cracked, or if that just adds character...
@@slaapliedje I wouldn't pick a new case unless it's very inconvinient like that, since vintage partly is about the feel, but I would make sure to get myself a DX4-100+, DX5/AMD 5x86 P75/Pentium overdrive with around 32/64MB ram combined with a PCI graphics card ( if supported, ideally a Banshee PCI 16MB ) to not be kept wanting. If you want a Non GUS ISA soundcard that just works ( though you should install a Dreamblaster S2+ to not suffer the Adlib sound provided ) is a "Terratec Base-1" you can still get used for around $20.
@l3lue7hunder12 I actually have multiple builds, the 486 does not have PCI, just VLB and ISA. But is a Amd DX4-100 with a CL... something, I would have to look again. When it shipped, the upper corner cracked hard and other pieces broke off... I glued it as best I could, and it is horribly yellowed, but the Turbo works and it has an awesomely chunky switch. The only other want that I have is a digital display for the Mhz. This is the system I have the Orpheus II in.
I also have a 286 (that I broke the memory on :() a couple PS/2s with 386 and a 486 CPU upgrade, etc. For faster stuff, I have a tualatin CPU in another build. Those newer builds have everything from a Matrox G400 to an AGP Voodoo 3. I am really well covered for Retro systems. 😜
@@slaapliedje Well covered indeed ! 👍
And if you got a VLB 486, then it already is a later generation, and if the graphics card starts with "CL" then it probably is a "Cirrus Logic" - those things are pretty decent. The last generation of 486 boards that shipped around the time the Pentium was introduced, already did come with PCI.
One of the best known such boards is the "Soyo SY-4SAW", using the "SiS 85C496/497" chipset combo to provide what Intel would not. 🤓
I got plenty of hardware, but only a Pentium 3 with a Terratec Base-1 and ATI Radeon 9250 running Win 98 SE all ready to go - Windows 98 is a nice middle ground since it covers both classic DOS and early Windows by means of a simple Start-Menu tweak ( or just exiting to DOS ).
@l3lue7hunder12 oh yeah, I know the CL is Cirrus Logic, was just too lazy to type it out. By the time the 486 was king, I was rocking an Atari Mega STe, so didn't have to deal with ISA PnP shenanigans until my parents had bought a Pentium 75 Packard Bell, so a lot of the computers before that are somewhat new to me, but dealing with DOS and such is only weird as I am a Linux admin by trade. But I have always been 'a hardware' guy, so like playing with that.
I’m on the list for one!!!!
Man these things are so tempting, but I simply don't have a suitable system for one.
Great video, always nice to watch videos from you. Greetings from Austria :-)
I am waiting for PicoGUS for long time already... I wish I can buy it LOL!
I need one of these in my life!
Thanks Phil, on the wait list for the restock. I'd pay the asking price for an intelligent MPU-401 card alone...
Yes agreed 👍
Nice project, thanks for sharing. The site showing how to construct one is for a different version, not the one you demonstrated. It is a version you have to attach a real Pico, meant for portable computers. Ian will release it in the future, and it will be a more DIY user friendly version according to his page. MfG
Amazing!
I love the PicoGUS, and look fwd to the SB firmware but for now have an old SB Live! riding shotgun. Great video, I learned some new tricks.
ausgezeichnete review Phil
That joypad capability will also help in Dos emulators. I remember there’s quite a few for DOS,including SNES, MD, C64, Spectrum, MAME.
Yes absolutely!
I snagged 2 on the last restock for both of my ISA systems, I can not recommend it enough, It's incredibly versatile and very well built. I did have issues on my SIS socket 7 board with the mpu 401 not working but it was a board not on the compatibility list so i knew i was gambling. Works perfectly on my other system a Asus P5A with the ALI chipset. It's not period correct but who cares, it s a screaming deal...
Very nice! Now I need this 😁
That's brilliant! These devices having enough power to just emulate sound and being drop in replacements for the real things is excellent.
One suggestion is to not run the flashing all the time. The PicoPi has a flash with limited writes. Casual flashing should be fine, but every time you run a game might be too much.
The flash on the PicoGUS is rated for at least 100,000 erase/program cycles. That's a lot of switching that's possible! If it ever wears out it is a common part that can be replaced by someone with SMD soldering skills.
Finaly a GUS
Yep this might be the only way I could get a GUS I don't think I'm lucky enough to find one inside a old cheap system 😅
Please add the comparison against an emulated GUS in DOSBox.
As it use DOSBox Code... :)
It's not supported in Windows, legacy device...
Such card can be also used as a 3D accelerator or math/calculation accelerator for ISA based PC. At some point people from demoscene will make a demo using such card on 286 or even 8086 PC.
DOOM port that run at full speed on slowest 386 SX is also possible. Just think of DOOM for Sega Genesis that uses hardware from Everdrive cartridge to run full DOOM at 100% speed on stock Sega Genesis.
In the 90's similar accelerators were very popular in Amiga community. There were no new Amiga computers, but 3rd party companies developed and sold accelerator cards and Amiga ecosystem even moved from 68K Motorola architecture to PPC. Modern Amiga accelerators are often based on Raspberry Pi.
PCs never got such accelerators, since it was just easier to buy new motherboard and CPU.
What a steal! When I get back to building my 486 (motherboard is currently out for repair) I'll have to consider grabbing one of these alongside a SB16. At the very least, it'll work as a substitute for either a real Gravis Ultrasound or an Orpheus II.
Good price (45 USD) considering the features.
If only I had a system with a ISA port...
Time to find a suitable system with a LPC/TPM port and cook a dISAppointment LPC -> ISA adapter then 😊
@@tadeustad yeah definitely need some physical 9x era hardware in my life.
I'd love it if I still had the pentium 233mmx we had back in the day. It's super socket 7 board had AGP,PCI, and a pair of ISA slots
Slot 1 boards are still pretty cheap on eBay
@@DarkLordValmar Mmmm not sure if I want to trust fleebay lol could be an option though...
Nice card. While I already own the Orpheus II and Matze's Tandy Nano (self-soldered :D) plus the USB4VC, I can already think of multiple use cases. Still missing a Game Blaster device anyway. Most likely would replace my Tandy Nano inside my DOS PC with it.
I wonder if it could be expanded to emulate different Roland devices without having to hook up other devices to it. At the moment I still use an old laptop with Falcosoft Midi Player for different VSTs like the Munt one or the Sound Canvas VA.
I.....need.....this....card!
You mentioned the hardware mixing aspect but I feel like the advantage of this can't be stressed high enough, it's not just about freeing up the CPU which at the time multi-channel mixing of high quality samples, pitch shifted and filtered was a non-trivial task on the CPUs of the day - the advantage in latency is one that doesn't get enough attention. Software mixed audio needs a RAM buffer and buffering adds latency. Too little buffering and you get horrible underflow noise, too much and sounds play "late" compared to the visuals and rob the game of the "punch". This is still an issue that persists to this day as it's not really a CPU power issue and more a timing thing. The GUS just plays the samples when you tell it to and you never need to worry about underflows, the card just does what you need it to do.
PC tends to prefer the "worse is better" approach over the long haul. If something can be offloaded to the CPU to make the hardware cheaper, that's the one that wins in the marketplace even if the loser was the better hardware. The upside though is flexibility.
Thanks for the detailed comment!
Waiting for the GUS review...
I loved my ultrasound for to make music on trackers.
I was about to say, the pi CPU can do just a whole lot of things, like emulate a Gameboy as well.
Awesome, I want this!
Would be cool if it supported the Tandy DAC too
I might have to get two, so i can do mpu-401 inteli mode and gus/adlib/sound blaster.
many ways to use wavetable original synth chips, ISA card?
I have no idea why the hell I threw out my Tandy 1000 when moving
All Yer Sound Card Are Belong To PicoGUS!
After installing 4 retro pc, 2 win98se and 2 winxp pc i learned that to get sound drivers to work is a mess😂 for my win98se ibm aptivia 2171 p3 500mhz katmai 256mb ram on an ssd limited to 80gb with geforce4 mx440 64mb paired with a voodoo 2 8mb, the sound driver was a mess to install. And deamon tools is dont work well with some games sound. But😄 all my retro pc had some issues with sound drivers, some would not work.
But i feel i learned alot about win98se that i wish i knew when i was a kid and had my ibm aptivia 2171. And thx to you this stuff is fun😊 all the games and sound, the story, battlezone 1 and 2, settlers 3 and so on.
Great card ! Amazing design. I used to have a GUS Ultrasound MAX and it was a great card, but it had a problem with SB emulation.
I wonder if this GUS emulator can emulate Sound Blaster better than the original GUS :)
By the way the FM synthesis sounds so flat and weak compared to GUS or General Midi. Yes, it has its charm, but in my first PC I had a sound card with a wavetable module and FM synthesis was a rarity for me :)
I love your channel. Have you done a comparison video of the PicoGUS with the Orpheus II? Also, wrt the PicoGUS, is the USB controller capability available in ALL sound modes?
Okay. The USB game port is really smart.
An A-vs-B test, contrasting the PicoGUSes sound output against the original hardware cards it's emulating, in a bunch of popular game titles, would be an interesting metric to further our understanding.
Don't have one, only the later GUS PnP.
@@philscomputerlab Given that the PicoGUS's GUS emulation is based upon DOSBox's (albeit with many changes to accommodate and improve the PicoGUS), some comparisons probably already exist somewhere, in the form of "DOSBox vs real card" content.
USB gamepad connector is a fantastic idea. There are plenty of joysticks around but its very hard to find a good pre-usb gamepad. I am tempted to order one just for that.
Agreed, I'm more interested in the USB gamepad support than the sound emulation to be honest. :D
It would be great (if possible) to combine this with PicoMEM and/or XT-IDE boards on one card.
Hi, PicoMEM is doing disk (No need for XTIDE) and will add Sound in the Future.
Is the wireless controller firmware available anywhere?
Yes it's public now!
Perfect, thanks. And thank you for all the great content:)
So this is sort of like an all in one dos sound card when sound blaster 16 emulation is released?
Awesome!
nice
The whole firmware flashing bit is somewhat concerning on the off chance you lose power. Also i do keep wondering if there are enough reproduction parts to make a "new" old computer purely out of them.
That would be pretty neat, not just as a gimmick but because these things are usually meant to emulate something top of the line,or even several somethings.
That said,I don't think the market is that extensive.
Fortunately, the PicoGUS is unbrickable as you can always use the card's micro-USB port to flash it to recover. Also, the flash lifetime is rated for at least 100,000 cycles, so that's a lot of reprogramming that's possible.
Nice video love it..
And for the cd connector and CD music?
GUS was Paula remastered
A2286 compatible soundcard? but line-in would be usefull for mixing mt32 to gus/adlib
ah no 286!
Phil, can you use the WaveTable while on GUS mode or does it require switching to MPU mode?
I don't think so! You can use GUS and gameport mode though.
I got mine recently (I was able to grab one from February restock). I asked this to Ian, he replied he will look if this can be done in the future. I know it is strange to ask this (why would someone want to run a WT instead of Gravis mode), however it would be useful for the other modes - or a SB if he ever manages to squeeze that one.@@philscomputerlab
Quick Q, is it possible to run the card with wavetable card and sb emulation? eg for game like DOOM, use the SB emulation for digitised sounds and General MIDI for the music
Good question, I don't think so...
@@philscomputerlab bummer. I just got the new Pocket 386 and wanted to run one card. I ordered the 8bit isa expander so will run PicoGUS for GUS/SB and use either RS232 with MP32L for GM or add another PicoGUS and run that one in MPU mode with a dreamblaster S2 on it.
How did the pico chip get on the circuit board? Do raspberry sell the chips separately?
Yes!
This is like sticking a V8 engine on the side of a lawnmower as a coprocessor lol
The best platform for this card would be a "All in one" design like my Compaq Presario CDS 524 (486dx2-66) or a CDS 9220 (Pentium 75) both have 2x 16bit ISA slots, IDE for HDD+Optical drive, on board SB 2.0 sound 14" CRT already a wierd funny unit. Right now my config for sound is a MPU-401 clone + MT-32 + GUS ACE ISA (General midi) + onboard SB pro. I think that does most if not everything :) the USB gamepad is a nice feature, ALSO there is a ISA 2 USB (Mass storage drive) usb 1.0 / 1.1 / 2.0 that can load fat 16 file system usb sticks I wonder if this card can use the driver?
I am not really good with digital electronics, a Raspberry processor seens like a strange choise for a sound card. Wouldnt some kind of DSP be a more more fitting choise?Anyway, very interesting!
I'm curious if you can run more than one of these at a time in two different firmware modes and the appropriate jumper configurations. I have a pair on order but am curious if anyone else has tried this? Thinking one card could run the SB 2.0 firmware with the smart MPU 401 enabled while the other one rocks GUS mode which would functionally give you the same primary features as an Orpheus II card for $90 before shipping vs nearly $400.
Pairing with an ESS Audiodrive or YMF71x card could also be an option, though I don't believe you still have to assign a resource to it's dumb MIDI port so that's going to require some resource juggling unless you disable the Intelligent MIDI port when the PicoGUS is running the GUS firmware.
I think one of the least appreciated features of this bit of kit is the fact that it also emulates a Sound Blaster 2.0 but with an intelligent MPU-401 MIDI interface + wavetable header which gives you a ton of flexibility with non GUS wavetable or old MIDI hardware, waveblaster (Serdaco, etc..) cards and so forth.
Afaik this works, but the software can't handle setting the modes for two installed cards. You need to configure the first one alone, save the settings in the card. Remove it, configure the second. And then you're good to go to install both!