Experimental BBS Explossion 3/Experimental BBS Explossion III.iso/gus/digestv2.zip/V2N81.TXT

Text File | 1993-03-26 | 17KB | 437 lines

Ultrasound Daily Digest     Fri, 26 Mar 93       Volume 2 : Issue  81

Today's Topics:
                        Boycott NON-GUS games?
                   FPS Football echoing on the GUS
                  GUS/Dashboard/Faxability Problems
                             jmprotr.arj
                              More GMOS
                  More on Windows drivers problems
                           My GUS problems
                        Proposed GMOS emulator
                        SB and Hardware Noise
             SBOS 2.04:  Much better; still mild problems
                          stereo in windows
                   Using GUS as a normal midi synth

    Information about the UltraSound Daily Digest (such as
mail addresses, request servers, ftp sites, etc., etc.) can be found
at the end of the Digest.

    *** HEY!!! ***

    Before you ask a question, *** READ THE FAQ ***.  It's
available on the request server and the ftp sites, or check the
newsgroup archives.

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

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 16:39:12 -0800
From: Eric N. Liao <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Boycott NON-GUS games?
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Someone mentioned the idea of boycotting companies that don't support GUS.
I can't handle it!  I MUST have Strike Commander when it comes out next month,
with or without GUS support.

As for the "GMOS" driver some users are thinking about, rather than making
your life so complicated with patch loading/unloading (in realtime), why not
make a "special" GMOS MIDI patch that is 1mb long.  In this large GMOS MIDI
patch, will be all 192 instruments.  Yeah,yeah, this will be kind of cheasy,
but it would still be a lot better than SBOS.  Without the dynamic patch
loading/unloading, I think the job of making GMOS would be made less difficult.

Oh, one last thing.  Someone posted that he could not get GUSWIN.EXE to work.
I think I figured out the problem.  If you run it YOURSELF from program
manager, you will get these "script error line#x"  Correct?

GUSWIN only works when it is executed from the GUS install program.  You have
to put WINDOWS in your path (or SET WINDOWS=C:\WINDOWS), and then INSTALL


will recognize windows and run it from there.

I'm not sure if this was the exact problem, but it worked for me.  The only
thing GUSWIN does is install the drivers automatically for you.  If you
install the drivers by yourself, make the patch manager icon, mixer icon, then
you haven't missed anything (except the GUS HELP icon, which you can access
through MIXER.EXE)

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

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 07:56:42 EST
From: "Ted Wright" <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: FPS Football echoing on the GUS
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

In Message Thu, 25 Mar 93 00:07:17 MST,
  Ultrasound Digest Owner <[e-mail]> writes:
>Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 13:44:31
>From: [e-mail]
>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.
Sierra's update to FPS Football version 1.02 instructs GUS owners to
select Adlib sound. Be serious! Not only does it sound as bad as an
Adlib board, but it also cause the screen to jerk when digitized
sounds are played.
My solution to this problem (which is not exactly optimal) is to push
F1 to get to the game settings screen and turn off sound effects. Part
two of the solution is to avoid Sierra games.
Ted Wright ([e-mail])
PGP public key available

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

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 7:12:51 PST
From: Lee Bollard <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: GUS/Dashboard/Faxability Problems
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Regarding my Dashboard, GUS Card, problem... Faxability is part of the
problem.

Setup:
486/66ST w/430mb SCSI HD
Gravis Ultrasound Card
Intel Satisfaxtion/400 Faxmodem, Intel Faxability Windows Fax Software.

It seems that Faxability is interfering with the Windows-based sound card
drivers.  I get error messages when trying to use a patch manager utility
designed for the sound card (it's Windows-based program).  The patch manager


thinks some other program is USING the sound card.

The weird part is this:

1. Using Program Manager as the shell - no problems whatsoever.

2. Using Dashboard as the shell - no problems UNLESS Faxability is in the
startup group or load= line of WIN.INI.  Then I see all the patch manager
errors.  Loading up Faxability after the fact causes no errors.  REPEATABLE.

The problem ONLY occurs when Faxability is loaded automatically, AND
Dashboard is the shell!

I've double checked the system configuration and setgus configurations,
tried different DMA's and IRQ's.  Same problem.

Ideas?

Lee Bollard
[e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 19:06:34 PST
From: [e-mail]
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: jmprotr.arj
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

This is really directed at Jerry but I couldn't remember his address.
Anyways, I downloaded UltraForce's player with great enthusiasm but was
really disappointed because I don't get any sound!

It looks as though it is playing but not the slightest bit of music or
any sound for that matter is produced.  I've got GUS set to port 220,
DMA channel 7, MIDI IRQ2, and GF1 IRQ11.  It auto detects fine but no
music.  I don't know what to do.


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

Date: 26 Mar 1993 01:25:35 +0800
From: TC <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: More GMOS
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

> 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.



If you already have an MPU401, you have an external synth right? Why
would you need to run the GM emulator? In the event you don't have a
external synth, can't you remove the MPU card?

Alternatively, the hardware combo I suggested (ie routing the MIDI-out
to serial-in) will WORK, regardless of whether you already have an MPU
or not. This type of driver will not care a hoot where the MIDI-in comes
from, it simply interprets the midi messages and plays them on the GUS.
:)

.tc

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

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 12:58:15 -0500
From: "It's your hand, Buckaroo" <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: More on Windows drivers problems
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

> I think the driver file may be damaged. The reason is because wingus.exe also
> doesn't work! I get 8 successive errors about the first 8 lines of the program,
> and then it doesn't seem to do anything. (I've also installed everything "by
> hand" with no success).

Wingus also failed miserably for me. Windows started up, Wingus came up and
immediately popped up an error box saying, "Too many lines in file" or
words to that effect and exited. I also manually installed the drivers (not
a big deal) but everything's been working for me. The new Windows driver is
different than the old one (it seems that WidMOD Pro skips notes on some
MOD files).

I also don't think the new MIDI patches are better than the old ones. The
pipe organ on tocatta.mid just doesn't sound as impressive as it did
before...

DDA

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

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 11:06:56 EST
From: [e-mail] (Phong Co)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: My GUS problems
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

I just got my GUS a few days ago, with the extra chips to go to the full
1MB, and installed them myself.  I got a lot of static running moddemo and
mididemo, which I thought I fixed by making sure the memory chips were on
snugly.  However, the problems persist.  It seems that the output is
clearer when the cover is off the computer, can it be causing
interference?  One of the memory chips is upside-down relative to the


others, should this matter?

I only have the 2.02 distribution diskettes to play with, so I don't have
a lot of things to test out.  My main yardstick for now is moddemo.  For
the first sequence, the first few seconds are pretty good, then static
starts to creep in.  For the second sequence, one of the channels (the one
which starts off first) is somewhat garbled, but the others seem to be OK.
 The sound is the same whether I'm using speakers or headphones.

I'm thinking of taking off the memory chips and testing out the bare GUS,
but this is a pain, and if the sound is sloppy because of interference
from the cover then that's even worse.

Any insight greatly appreciated.



--
Phong Co ([e-mail])
McGill University, Montreal, CANADA

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

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 11:15 EST
From: "Matthew E. Bernold" <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Proposed GMOS emulator
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

I've heard many suggestions on this project.  I've heard ideas on how to do
it, arguments for/against dynamic patch loading, suggestions for .cfg files
for each game, suggestions for a GM patchset that loads in 1Meg, and lots of
others.  The thing that strikes me as strange is that NOONE has mentioned
one crucial fact:  In order for this thing to be TRULY useful, it has to work
WITH SBOS!!

GM is good for background music, but there are NO digital sound effects.
If a program can make digital effects on the GUS without SBOS, then it
doesn't need a GMOS in the first place, so In order for this thing to
actually work, we're going to have to take care of the following things:

1) The GMOS (for lack of a better word) should either replace SBOS entirely,
   or it should work with the existing SBOS.

2) If GMOS works with the existing SBOS, realize that the ammount of free
   memory on the card is actually the real memory size minus the size of the
   SBOS patches.

I think that GMOS should be able to handle both GM music, and SB digital
sound.  In this way, we don't have to worry about the SBOS FM patches, and
we get digital effects, and decent sounding music no matter what method
of patch selection we wind up using.



I would be happy to coordinate efforts on this project if noone else is
doing so already.  If you are interested in helping with this project (as
a programmer) or if you just have some ideas on how you'd like to see this
thing work, send me some mail about it.  I'll collect the replies, and
post a summary.  Maybe Dave Debry will even make a GMOS mailing list... :-)

       Matthew E. Bernold             [e-mail]
         <<APOCALYPSE>>                  [e-mail]

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

Date: 25 Mar 1993 08:26:20 -0500 (EST)
From: DEATH BEFORE DISCO <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: SB and Hardware Noise
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

I just noticed the posting about the noise on the SB and or SB Pro.

Here's my story:

1) Got talked into picking up a PAS-16. Put it in....lo and behold, there
was a TON of noise. The wallys at MediaVision (or whatever it's called)
said to turn down the volume (A SWITCH ON THE CARD, for crying out loud)
and turn up the amp. Yeah, right. Their card sucks.

2) Returned the card. Bought an SB Pro. The noise was worse.


The reason is because the designers of those "sound" cards have their
heads firmly jammed up their asses. The noise is on the Mother@#$%^$%board
and needs FILTERING. The design gurus at Forte are aware of this.

This is why the GUS has no noise.


The other neat thing that was posted referred to how the Zone66 crowd
got GUS support, but Sierra doesn't. In answer to your rhetoric, nope.
Sierra doesn't have the talent to figure out the card. In fact, they
(almost all of them) lack the talent to write good programs.

Why does Sierra INSIST on using 639.99999999K of my lower memory?
Why does Sierra's sound effects suck?
Why does anybody even bother? Their inept programs aren't worth it.

Disclaimer: The people that wrote Aces and Incredible Machine are
excepted. Even though the sounds in Aces are worse than silence.

On the other hand, wny is the patch for Aces 1.2 STILL, after about
five (5) months, NOT AVAILABLE THROUGH FTP?

Instead, they have generously decided to offer it through their
speedy 2400 baud BBS...I guess $250 is too much to spend on their


customers (for a 14400). Never mind that the call is long distance for about
99% of the US. Evidently, they want your money and forget you.


Keep this in mind. If you boycott Sierra, not only are you protesting their
lack of GUS support, you're probably saving youself a major software
dissappointment.


Jeff

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

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 10:28:56 EST
From: "Burns Fisher, VMS Engineering  25-Mar-1993 1028" <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: SBOS 2.04:  Much better; still mild problems
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Greetings,

I'd really like to send this feedback direct to Gravis, but my mail is still
being bounced.  Anway,

I finally got to download SBOS 2.04.  It fixes the KQ5 problem that was in 2.02
(namely that Kings Quest 5 complained that it could not init the sound card and
promptly died in EMM386).  The music in the town sounds pretty good.  The
lightning sounds when the castle is stolen sound pretty good.

However there are still two problems:

1)  The bell sounds when the Sierra logo sparkles at the beginning are out of
tune (they should be a perfect 5th apart; they sound like the second tone is
about a 1/2-step off or so).

2)  More important:  The music played during the beginning scenes when the king
is cavorting around smelling flowers sounds kind of intermittant (some parts
seem to cut in and out at inappropriate times) and some parts are a bit out of
phase with the rest.  I think maybe these are the same parts that cut in and
out.  Maybe they are coming in late?  I'm not sure)


These are the same problems that were in 1.4b2 and 1.4b3, and also in the old
versions.  They were fixed in 1.37b, but then they reappeared.

They are, of course, relatively minor.  I've deleted all my old SBOS versions,
and I'm running with 2.04 installed by default.  It sure means a lot of 4DOS
aliases I can delete (that run SBOS, run the game, remove sbos).

Thanks, guys, and keep up the good work!

Burns



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

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 10:27:10 CST
From: John Riedl <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: stereo in windows
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

I installed the stuff that came on disks 17-21 (including SBOS 2.02),
but Petzold's "device capabilities" program still reports the Windows
device driver as *not* supporting stereo.  Is that correct, or did I
make a mistake in the installation?  The driver calls itself version
1.1, if I'm reading it correctly.

Thanks,
John

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

Date: 26 Mar 1993 15:19:28 +1000
From: [e-mail]
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Using GUS as a normal midi synth
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Is there an easy way to route the midi-in port so that the GUS listens
to it?  ie, can I plug my cheap midi keyboard into the GUS and play, using
the GUS for output rather than the keyboard?

Tony

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

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