home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
OS/2 Shareware BBS: 14 Text
/
14-Text.zip
/
soundc.zip
/
SOUND.ASC
Wrap
Text File
|
1994-08-21
|
8KB
|
249 lines
The following is a high level overview of Sound Cards and how they
function under OS/2. This document is not an endorsement of any
particular sound card or company.
OS/2 terms:
Multi-instance: the ability for more than one application at once
to open the sound card. This is important if you want to do any
serious activity with multimedia. For instance, a multi-instance
driver will allow you to open the digital audio editor and hear
system sounds or open a MIDI application. Without this, you must
close each application down before starting another (very
inconvenient).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MediaVision (PAS 16)
(Spectrum, Studio, Basic, Pro-3d).
The OS/2 drivers for these cards were the first to have multi-instance
support. In addition to multi-instance support, they offer simultaneous MIDI
and Digital Audio playback.
Mediavision offers an os/2 mixer (called promix/2) which allows one to
change volume, bass etc.**
Since the Mediavision card can also run Sound Blaster programs, you can
load the SoundBlaster driver for Windows while simultaneously
accessing the hardware with OS/2.
The differences between cards is that the Studio has improved
signal/noise ratios (i.e. improved sound) and the BASIC does not
have a SCSI port. The SCSI port on the PAS16 works with popular
CD-ROMs like the Toshiba 3401B and Texel drives.*
*Although the PAS-16 hardware interface supports ~600KBS, the OS/2
driver performs poorly and really achieves only between 200-300KBS.
If you have a PAS16 and would like to see better SCSI drivers,
either contact Mediavision or Trantor or purchase a sound card with
better SCSI throughput.
**Newer pas16 cards have mixer chip (508b) which are unsupported by the
drivers shipped with OS/2 2.1, OS/2 2.11 or OS/2 for Windows.
Drivers for this card are available from the mediavision forum on CIS.
The PAS16 cards with the unsupported chip are have the following model number
on the board:
Model 650-0082-03
where the critical number is the "0082." In addition, if you look at the
chips on the card, the suspect chip has the following part ID:
MVA-508B.
These cards are ISA only.
------------------------------
Creative Labs
(Sound Blaster, Pro, 16 and 16 ASP, SCSI-II, AWE-32)
The SB drivers that ship with 2.1 (and OS/2 for Windows) are all single instance and can
only play one MIDI or WAVE file at a time.
Fortunately, Creative Labs has newer drivers
available in the Blaster forum (and on their BBS) which support multi-instance.
The Sound Blaster drivers in OS/2 2.11.
Creative Labs also has beta drivers available for simultaneous playback of MIDI and
PCM on the SB16 card.
Creative has a pm-based mixer available in the Blaster forum and an os/2-based mixer
is available in os2user (sbmix) with similar functionality to the
mediavision mixer.
You cannot access the card simultaneously under OS/2 and DOS.
The SB16 ASP does offer hardware compression and decompression
which can ease the burden on the CPU.*
Drivers for the Awe-32 (they just were officially released) are available from the
Blaster forum on CIS.
If you have an older SB card (i.e. pre-2.0) and receive a SYS1201
on boot up, you must upgrade the DSP module (available from
Creative Labs).
There are two version of the SB16 card, one with a proprietary CD-ROM interface
which support many popular CD-ROM drives. In addition, there is the SB16 SCSI II card.
This SB16 contains a true Adaptec 152x SCSI interface so it can drive any SCSI CD-ROM.
Since most the of higher-performance CD-ROM drives are SCSI-based, this SB16 model
is proving rather popular among OS/2 users.
These cards are ISA only except for the Pro which is also Microchannel (the microchannel
pro has been discontinued).
*Newer SB16s have software configureable IRQ/DMA combinations (just like the Media
Vision Pro Series). OS/2 drivers for these cards are available on the Creative Labs
BBS or the Creative Labs forum on Compuserve.
-----------------------------
IBM Maudio card
The Maudio drivers are multi-instance.
There is no OS/2 mixer currently available.
It utilizes a DSP (digital signal processor) so advanced hardware
compression and decompression is possible.
This card is not SoundBlaster compatible.
ISA and Microchannel versions are available.
-------------------------------
Thinkpad 750c, 755 audio
The 750c, 755 drivers are multi-instance and offer simultaneous MIDI + PCM
playback.
There is no OS/2 mixer currently available.
This card is not SoundBlaster compatible.
If you install the OS/2 2.1 service pack and experience problems with MIDI files,
download the latest drivers from the thinkpad forum.
ISA only (since the 750C is ISA only).
--------------------------------------------
Gravis Ultrasound.
Gravis has been working on drivers for a while. However, there are
official drivers have not yet been released.
Fortunately, some independent vendors have written their own drivers
The drivers are currently available on ftp-os2.cdrom.com and should be
uploaded to CIS soon. The CIS name will be gravis.zip
ISA only
--------------------------------------------
Aztech Nova Sound 16
Drivers for this sound card are available in os2user.
--------------------------------------------
ESS Audio Drive
This chip is primarily found in OEM Sound Systems. Drivers are available in
os2user.
-------------------------------------------
Business Audio (Compaq, MS Sound System, Everex, Toshiba etc.)
BUsiness audio drivers for the toshiba system are available in lib 17 of
os2support. Compaq and MS Sound system versions should follow shortly.
----------------------------------------------
IBM Windsurfer and Audiovation.
The Windsurfer is a 3-in-1 type of card. It offers telephony, fax and audio
support via its powerful Mwave Digital Signal Processor. The audiovation uses
the same Mwave technology, but has less memory available, so it can only perform
audio functions.
The Audiovation drivers for OS/2 and Windows are on the IBM National BBS
at 1-919-517-0001.
Beta drivers for the Windsurfer (both Telephony and audio)
are also available in pspbeta.
Microchannel + ISA versions available.
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
Portable Audio Solutions.
----------------------------------------------
DSP Solutions
Drivers for the DSP Solutions Port-A-Sound parallel port device are available
from the DSP BBS. These are multi-instance drivers.
I need to do some checking.
----------------------------------------------
Arkay Technologies
Drivers for the Arkay Technologies parrallel port audio device are available
from Arkay.
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
OS/2 multimedia programs
1. Digital Music Player. Awesome OS/2-based mod player.
It's multi-threaded, supports drag drop, dynamic
thread management, playlist support etc. Version 1.00 is currently on compuserve
(called mod.zip) in os2user (fun and games) and os2df1 (mmpm2 section)
Current version level is 1.01
2. Wipeout (MM Screen saver with After dark support) and System Sounds for OS/2
from Bocasoft (support/info available from os2aven).
3. Window Washer from One Up Corp.
4. DIsplay Master (MM Presentation package) from Commix.
5. Ultimedia Builder (Multimedia presentation package)
and Ultimedia Perfect Image (image editing software) from IBM Corp. 1-800-3ibm-os2.
6. Icon Author from Aimtech.
7. Ultimedia Video IN. Cool video editing software from IBM. Create movies from
bitmaps, add audio tracks to movies, copy sections from one movie and paste into
another. 1-800-3ibm-os2.
8. Multimedia version of roids. Asteriods shoot-em-up with multimedia support. This
game is well worth the download cost and takes advantage of OS/2 features such as
multithreading and multi-tasking.
9. PM Sound Exchange. MMPM/2-based audio file editor and file format converter.