Gravis UltraSound MAX Rev 1.8 Demo

Nix McRetro // 16th November 2012 // IBM PC, YouTube

The Gravis UltraSound MAX.

GUS, or GUX as I’ve somehow come to know him.

This one is a Rev 1.8 card built around the Gravis GF1, with a Crystal CS4231A codec added for the MAX model.

The GF1 takes a very different approach from the Sound Blaster cards I’ve been playing with. Instrument and audio samples are loaded into the card’s own RAM and the GF1 mixes them in hardware, which is one reason the UltraSound became so closely associated with tracker music and software with native GUS support.

The MAX also adds the Crystal codec for extra recording, mixing and Windows Sound System functionality.

It is also spectacularly long.

I may have trouble finding a PC that it physically fits inside.

Hopefully it doesn’t come to that because this thing is a glorious slab of red PCB.

I didn’t take many photos of GUX, but enjoy the video above and the great sounds of a great card.

Sources

Retronn - Gravis UltraSound MAX - identifies the GF1 and Crystal CS4231A hardware used on the UltraSound MAX.

AI-assisted revision: This post was reviewed and edited with OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol on 29 September 2026 for fact-checking, sourcing, and editorial cleanup. Final editorial responsibility remains with the author.