To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>
Now that there's talk about someone (if not Gravis, then someone) writing a GM driver (possibly), here's a potential (?) problem. I ALREADY have an MPU-401 type MIDI card in my system. You'd think if there was a driver making the GUS
emulate another MPU-401, games (or whatever is trying to utilize the MIDI) would become confused as to which port to dump to, unless IRQs and what nots are
explicitly defined. Most software just tries to figure out where th MIDI port is on their own.
I _know_ that no such driver exists yet for the GUS, and it might not even be
a problem, but I'm bored, and thought I'd bring it up.
-Anthony Tang
aktang@sdcc13.ucsd.edu
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 13:36:46 EST
From: timkwan@Athena.MIT.EDU
Message-Id: <9303241836.AA29676@m11-116-8>
Subject: Hidden files
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>
Can someone who knows exactly what those hidden files are please provide
a list of those files so we don't have to cd into the suspicious directories
to hunt for them?
Personally I think the new disks and the setup sucks. I don't think the
new patches are great at all...in fact, I find the added vibrato makes
most of the sounds somewhat 'manufactured' and unrealistic. Also, the media
player in Windows doesn't work anymore (complaining that the MIDI device is
not found or some such thing) after I ran the new install program. I haven't
had time to read the "fine print" in the GUS digests about how to fix the
problem but I think there is still too much 'hacking' that needs to be
done to make things work. How long will this go on? I feel that many of us
are 'thriving' on the quirks and the software deficiencies. I'd rather have
something that works the first time! But yes, for the price, the GUS does
sound good, but the technical support and the software it puts out sure leaves
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>
>
> I just got this from Origin customer service:
>
> >The reason the the GUS is not supported is do to the fact that it is NOT
> >an industry standard sound card (SOUND BLASTER is an industry standard). If
> >it were, there would be more software companies that would support it. The
> >GUS does not even come with a silicon FM chipset, which is required to host
> >most of the digitized sound/speech fx. The GUS is a bargain basement sound
> >card. It is less expensive, and show it with its incompatibility with the
> >industry standard.
>
> I suggest we flood origincs@aol.com with mail, this guy (Rik Packham) is
> way off base about the GUS being a bargain basement sound card.
Yeah, but don't immediately assume that this is the "official" position of Origin. Remember, a few months ago, the Compuserve rep for LucasArts said that the GUS "sucks" and got himself fired as a LucasArts rep for his troubles. This could just be another guy at AOL who doesn't know squat about ANY soundcard, and is just trying to cover his butt.
I'm going to Summer CES this year, and I'll be able to talk to whoever is manning the Origin booth. I'll get this straightened out once and for all. (Warren Spector, Richard Garriot, and/or Chris Roberts should be there.)
Chris Kalin
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 13:44:31
From: john.smith@gravis.com
Message-Id: <9303231344.A1981wk@gravis.com>
Subject: POINTS OF INTEREST
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>
Points of Interest
------------------
I've been reading some of your reviews in the last few digests...
1) Why 188 patches instead of 192? According to Forte 4 of the patches
where so close they simply remapped them.
2) The Windows setup defaults to 8bit mode for patches simply because
most users run the UltraSound with the standard 256K. If 16bit
was enabled by default then they may run into problems loading
too many patches. The new addendum which will go out with the mail
out talks about this.
3) There is now an SBOS 2.04 (GUS0022.ZIP). This version of SBOS
will fix the problem of XWing not working on some computers. It
also properly supports multiple digital channels which will help with
digitized sounds being cut off.
Some of the others problem you may have experienced with SBOS 2.02
is no digital sound capability if EMM386 is installed. This has
also been fixed.
4) Keith Smith asked about a GUS 3D demo (Digest #72). There is no
publicly available 3D demo as of yet. Let us get the software
out first <grin>.
5) The problem with the temporary directory not getting deleted after
the new windows install has been fixed in V2.04. V2.04 looks
like it'll be our shipping version (we hope). The main differences
between V2.02 (which is available on Internet) and V2.04 is
the Install and SBOS.
6) New MIDI Demo. I'll be putting a file on our BBS tomorrow which
will contain some tweaked MIDI files for the new patches. I'll
probably call it GUSMID1M.ZIP, or something like that. Most
of these MIDI files REQUIRE more than 512K of GUS memory or more to
work properly. In it will be a new HIDNSEEK.MID (Digest #72)
==== I tried to post these points last week and have just realized that
they never made it into any of last weeks digests.
7) (#76) I didn't say that we "Don't know how to support SBOS in a DOS
box in Windows" but that we can't do this due to the limitations
Windows imposes on us in their DOS box.
8) (#76) You should leave both your DMA settings in your SET ULTRASND
the same. Different DMA's won't be usefull until the 16 bit
recording card is available.
9) (#77) The easiest way to handle volume is via an external source.
The GUS volume control is all handled by the software.
10) XWING: I'm going to do some more work on this but here are some
things to try:
- Disable the background music if you are having slowdowns
during the digitized sequences
- Make sure you have PLENTY of EMS available
- Read the XWING README! There are some very usefull pieces of
information in there.
11) FPS: Football - Because of the way Dynamix handled digital speech
you will always get a constant echo effect. For example:
"First, down, down, down". There is currently no way for us to
fix this.
12) Our Windows install program does not like Windows program manager
shells, such as NDW. We are looking into this but for the time
being you'll simply have to disable your shell.
Enjoy.
That's all folks...
John
---
~ QMPro 1.01 05-8925 ~ It's not hard to meet expenses, they're everywhere.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 10:28:23 -0500
From: "It's your hand, Buckaroo" <dantonio@magick.tay2.dec.com>
