DP Tool Club 8/CDASC08.ISO/VRAC/MEGEM13B.ZIP/WHATSNEW.DOC

Text File | 1993-08-09 | 5KB | 127 lines

Mega-Em Development History.


VERSION 1.00B013 (Beta) 10/07/93

* Fixed problems with the anti-debugger routines incorrectly identifying
  386 systems as being in 'no privilege' virtual 8086 mode.

* Changed protected mode installation routines slightly. The /NGDT switch
  has been removed and the /RGDT has been added (See MEGAEM.DOC for details).

VERSION 1.00B012 (Beta)  09/07/93

* Due to several 'cracks' appearing for Mega-Em's registration system,
  Mega-Em is now more resistant against reverse engineering techniques.
  Side effects include a short pause as Mega-Em loads, larger executable
  size, slower performance for unregistered users and a very low tolerance
  of memory resident debuggers.

* Added /NOEMS switch to MEGAEM.EXE, forcing Mega-Em to load if EMS has been
  disabled. Useful for users who disable the EMS page frame for extra upper
  memory, however requires some special considerations (see MEGAEM.DOC).

* The Ultrasound playback routines are now stereo. The /MONO switch has been
  added to disable this, as the occasional piece of music can cause audible
  crackling during very fast stereo pans.

* Made extensive modifications to Mega-Em's protected mode installation
  routines. Mega-Em should now be exhibit improved compatibility and
  stability with a wider range of memory managers and computer systems.
  For stubborn cases two new MEGAEM.EXE options, /FGDT and /NGDT, have been
  added. See MEGAEM.DOC for details on these.

* Temporarily removed support for 386MAX until stability can be guaranteed
  when using Mega-Em. Currently the system is prone to potentially dangerous
  system crashes when Mega-Em is loaded with 386MAX.

* Added many enhancements to Mega-Em's protected mode interrupt handlers.
  This has improved stability and now allows Irq 5 to be used for the
  Ultrasound.

* Added /F switch to EMUSET to allow the user to specify the sampling rate
  at which Mega-Em stores patches in the Ultrasound DRAM. 44 uses the full
  sampling rate of the Ultrasound patch. 22 strips the sampling rate in
  half, resulting in twice as many patches being loaded, however also
  results in noisier playback.

* Added /MEM switch to MEGAEM.EXE to allow users to manually specify the
  amount of memory on their Ultrasound card.

* Improved enveloping routines for Ultrasound non-looped percussion patches.

VERSION 1.00B011 (Beta)  26/7/93 (No Public Release)

* Changed the memory allocation routines slightly. Stops Mega-Em from
  'thrashing' the 386 paging mechanism, which was causing noticeable speed
  slowdowns. This has also removed some incompatibilities introduced with
  version 1.00B008. The latter appears to be caused by a 386 protected mode
  processor bug.

* Added support for several MT32 sysex messages, including channel note off
  and reset.

* Due to several programs still leaving 'stuck notes', all Ultrasound
  sustained instruments will now slowly fade away.

VERSION 1.00B010 (Beta)  25/7/93 (No Public Release)

* Fixed problems in routines which set sample start, loop start and loop end.
  Previously Mega-Em would play from the wrong portion of the Ultrasound's
  memory on some samples.

* Improved the Ultrasound enveloping routines. Patches such as APPLAUSE.PAT
  now play correctly.

VERSION 1.00B009 (Beta)  22/7/93

* Fixed problems in version 1.00B008 with emulation failing on many systems
  (except the development system of course). This was related to the bugs
  regarding the /CO1 and /CO2 options, which should also work correctly now.

* Added the /L switch to EMUSET. This enables the Ultrasound line in. Useful
  if using Mega-Em in conjunction with a real Sound Blaster card.

* The Ultrasound patch set is now loaded at full sampling rate (approximately
  44kHz) for 512k users. In previous versions the sampling rate was halved
  (approximately 22kHz) resulting in slightly noisy output. The sampling
  rate is still halved when using 256k.

VERSION 1.00B008 (Beta)  20/7/93

* Temporarily removed the 10 minute demonstration period, until the
  Ultrasound playback routines sound better.

* Experimented with the playback of the Ultrasound patches. Patches should
  now play on key, however the envelope on many percussion patches is
  worse than previous versions of Mega-Em.

VERSION 1.00B007 (Beta)  16/7/93 (No Public Release)

* Added /CO1 and /CO2 options to EMUSET, allowing Mega-Em to be used in
  conjunction with a real MPU-401 MIDI interface.

* Slowed down certain Ultrasound playback routines. On some systems the
  routines were too efficient (fast) for the Ultrasound to keep up.

VERSION 1.00B006 (Beta)  14/7/93

* Fixed problems on some machines with EMUSET crashing at the end of the
  Ultrasound MIDI patch load. This was caused by a 'POPAD bug' present in
  many 386 and 486 processors.

* EMUSET will now default to C:\ULTRASND\MIDI or (ULTRADIR)\MIDI if there
  is no PatchDir definition in ULTRAMID.INI.

* Several minor bugs fixed in the error handling routines.

VERSION 1.00B005 (Beta)  13/7/93

* Fixed ULTRASND environment variable checking. Mega-Em will now load with
  the Ultrasound Record DMA set to something other than 1.

VERSION 1.00B004 (Beta)  12/7/93

* First Public Release. Features Roland MT-32 and Sound Canvas emulation
  using a Gravis Ultrasound card as the output device.