SuperHack/SuperHack CD.bin/CODING/SOUND/GUS-701.ZIP/GUS-702.TXT

Text File | 1993-10-05 | 14.0 KB | 365 lines

Ultrasound Daily Digest     Sat, 2 Oct 93   007 MDT      Volume 7: Issue   2

Today's Topics:
                              .au player
                            Files on epas
                     It still isn't working (SC2)
                       Megaem and digital audio
                   MEGAEM response from John Smith
       OK, somebody else asked about the World Circuit Stuff...
                             SSI Dark Sun
                        Star Control II fix ?
                             tech support
                    Ultrasound Daily Digest V7 #1
                            Upgrade To 1MB
                                Zone66

Standard Info:
    - Meta-info about the GUS can be found at the end of the Digest.
    - Before you ask a question, please READ THE FAQ.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 08:11 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: .au player
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

    Thanks to everyone who responded! I found Goldwave, and Sox. They're
both working very well. I appreciate the help very much.
                            -Chris Hedberg

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 20:58:51 -0500 (CDT)
From: Phil Johnson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Files on epas
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

My first message was messed up, so I'll re-enter it..
  There are those 808* files and such on epas, and I was wondering what
exactly they are useful for...?  Can someone please explain?


 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| [e-mail]  Univ. of Minnesota - Duluth | "Lawnmower Man's in |
 -----------------------------------------------------  your head now,     |
                                                     |  Jake."             |
                                 | -- Jeff Fahey in    |
                             | Stephen King's THE  |
                             | LAWNMOWER MAN       |
                                                     |_____________________|

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 18:35:04 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Mike Batchelor)
Subject: It still isn't working (SC2)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

Not the Ultrasound Server once wrote...
$
$  > Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 21:12:56 PDT
$  > From: [e-mail] (Mike Batchelor)
$  > Subject: Star Control 2 wierd sounds
$  > Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
$  >
$  > Playing Star Control 2 with either native GUS, or SBOS, a lot of the
$  > sounds are really screwed up.  Playing melee in GUS mode gives a really
$  > raucus metal screeching noise when moving on the menu.  That goes away
$  > with SBOS, but other parts of the main game sound out of tune, or
$  > sometimes even backwards, like the sound data was signed wrong, maybe?
$
$  StarCon2 has a couple of pretty well known bugs with its GUS support.  First
$  of all, the game won't upload samples through an 8-bit DMA channel properly.
$  You'll need to use your GUS on a 16-bit channel.  Secondly, the game fails
$  to set up a voice correctly, so the voice ends up wandering through the rest
$  of GUS RAM after playing the sound meant for it.  This means that whatever
$  it finds in GUS memory will come pouring out your speakers, be it noise or
$  the other samples in the game.  The only way to minimize this noise problem
$  is to clear GUS RAM before playing the game.  I usually use p669gu0 to play
$  a small 669 file to clear the memory.
$
$  Phat.

I did both of those things, and it made no difference.  It's on DMA 7 now,
checked out free of conflicts with setgus, and sounds as bad as it always
did.  I played a 669 file all the way through before starting melee.
Anything else?  Offerings?  Bowing in obeisance?



--
Mike Batchelor      |
[e-mail]  |                  This space for rent
[e-mail]   |

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 93 11:28:46 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Megaem and digital audio
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

>Exactly my toughts.  I sure hope that Mr. Steere will successfully
>implement digital audio in Megaem.  But when I look at the huge >SBOS family
(each one handling digital audio its own way), I >wonder how it will sound.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see doing digital audio playback to
be all that difficult.  Seems like all you're doing is ripping data through a
DMA channel into a given i/o address, with a little buffering along the way
to smooth things out.  To me it looks more straightforward than emulating an
FM card, or handling MIDI commands, what with the almost infinite variety of
sounds those can produce.  Can anyone tell me the great technical barrier to
getting reliable DA playback out of the GUS while emulating another card's
music abilities?

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 16:09:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: Morgan Stair <[e-mail]>
Subject: MEGAEM response from John Smith
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

Here's a message I got back from John that I thought people would be interested
in...

Thanks John!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 93 12:26:03
>From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Subject: MEGAEM

M>  I read in you most recent FYI post that you're working on getting the rights
M>  (or something like that) for MegaEm.

M>  Has developement for MegaEm stopped during Gravis' negotiations with the
M>  Author?  I have been waiting for digitized output to be supported before
M>  registering.  Can you enlighten me at all?

Jayeson is still working hard on the next version of MegaEM while the
negotiations are taking place. Sounds hot! <grin>

M>  Feel free to respond to me via the digest or news.  I'm sure plenty of
M>  people are wondering the same thing.

Oops. Didn't see this part. Feel free to quote me on that.

John

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1993 09:11:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Bonjour, Le Prof" <[e-mail]>
Subject: OK, somebody else asked about the World Circuit Stuff...
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

Well.

After getting World Circuit, I've come to the conclusion that Formula One
is probably the most exciting form of car racing there is.

Nonetheless, the excitement is dampened by synthesized engine sounds.
That and the lack of brake screetching.

Now, I got to thinking.....After puttering around with HELIPCTR.PAT or
whatever it's called (and bugging the hell out of the upper apartment ;)
I figure there's got to be some way to manipulate a patch (frequency) so
that we could get an authentic engine sound by making the game play a MIDI
patch of the engine. The same applies for braking. Maybe we could sample
Ayrton Senna (note the proper spelling :) yelling when HE gets rear-ended
(what a switch that would be). Well, maybe not. Anyway, I think this has
some interesting possibilities for World Circuit diddling, or for the
next racing game.

So what do you think, sirs?

/Jeff

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 09:37:26 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Mark S. Wyman)
Subject: SSI Dark Sun
Message-ID: <9310011437@lead13>

I just went out and bought SSI's new Dark Sun game (their new
AD&D game engine).

IT HAS GUS SUPPORT!!!!!!!!!!

No SBOS or megaem needed for this game.  It uses ultramid (for
some this may be a curse) which it includes.  You will surely
need to load utlramid high (I am using QEMM) because Dark Sun
needs around 610,000 bytes of conventional memory.

When you select Gravis during the install a darksun.bat batch
file is created.  Within it is a call to ultramid. It is currently
 "lh ultramid".  You will have to go in and change this to
 "loadhi ultramid" if you have QEMM.  That should do it.

They have a tech section in their ref sheet for Gravis use that
will guide you along.

Now, how was the sound.  Te music is really good.  There are
some background sounds like the cheer and boos of the arena
crowd.  The sound effects are pretty good.  Some of the sound
during combat is weak but I haven't spent enough time with the
game to give a good review.

Sure doesbeat Privateer which I took back since it doesn't work
with SBOS, Megaem or Ultramid.

Mark

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 16:01:15 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Dean Ross-Smith)
Subject: Star Control II fix ?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

Ok, when I got my Gus, I bought Star Control II the same day.  They sounded
great together.  Then I upgraded the memory.  I could play Chris W's .mids
but Star control II sounded awful.
  Way back in May or April someone posted the same thing.  Star Control II
Sounds great with 256k installed, but with 1 meg the sounds get trashed.
Hope this helps.
Dean

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 16:27:26 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Dave Jiang)
Subject: tech support
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

Does anyone know how long does the gus tech support over internet to reply an
email? It seems taking forever...

                                                    David Jiang
  ------------------------------------------------------------------
  email : [e-mail]        phone:  [phone]
  usmail: 207 Carters Grove Rd.               FAX  :  [phone]
          Centerville, OH 45459
          U.S.A.
  ------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 09:03:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: Phat H Tran <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Ultrasound Daily Digest V7 #1
Message-ID: <Pine.3.05.9310010931.B6370-b100000@sciborg>

> Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 18:05:06 +1000 (EST)
> From: Andrew See <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Ideas for Ultramid
> Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
>
> Technically this may not be feasible, but it's just an idea...
>
> Why cannot the Ultramid TSR be downloaded to the Gus RAM, and be
> processed by the GF1 chip? I know the GF1 has MOD files processing
> abilities, so why not this?

The GF1 doesn't have any MOD-specific processing abilities.  It's
merely that its _fixed_ functions are so well-suited for MOD playing.
And since the chip isn't programmable, you can't pass to it a
program such as Ultramid to execute.

> If this isn't feasible, why not then add a programmable DSP to
> the 16 bit daughterboard? This could handle Roland, FM, MT32, GM
> just about anything, as well as add effects, like reverb, and chorus.
>

I don't know if the necessary lines of communication between the
daughtercard and the GF1 synth exist for this to work.  There would also
have to be serious cost considerations.

> Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 12:27:31 +1000
> From: adriano ennio raiola <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Sierra Drivers: UNREAL - but patch caching??
> Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
>
> Ok, The Sierra drivers are MEGA excellent, and about time, but a couple of
> questions.
>
> - Why wont Sierra support patch caching through ultramid? Is it a bug in their
>   drivers, or did they decide the delay in loading patches would ruin game
>   continuity?
>

The GUS drivers do not support patch caching probably for backward
compatibility with the older games.  For patch caching to be integrated
into a game smoothly, the game would have to know beforehand what
patches it will need and then let the driver know.  This foresight is
probably lacking in Sierra's games which were programmed before the
GUS was supported by the company.  Their new games might support patch
caching.

Phat.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 13:37 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Upgrade To 1MB
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

I upgraded to 1MB last night, then played 7th Guest (AIL).. Oh I love this
card!In fact I want to marry it and have its children...ahem! Upgrade now.
Im getting really pissed off with Origin - just bought Privateer. Everybody
moan at them.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 09:36:57 -0500 (CDT)
From: Michael Allen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Zone66
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

I recently downloaded zone66 from the wuarchive. When I start the game it
plays through the intro. but when the time comes to actually play it quits and
goes to the dos prompt. At the prompt it displays 8 columns of 3 rows of
numbers.
If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. I tried booting off a
clean floppy and I do not have any compression programs installed.
thanks for any help
Mike Allen

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 16:25:36 +0100
From: [e-mail]
Message-ID: <9310011525.AA29802@messua>

Hi there !
Could please somebody explain me how to use mt32pat.cfg with the mt32
sequenced mids on epas ? I get errors all the time during patchloading.
Thanx...Olli

------------------------------

End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V7 #2
************************************

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