Experimental BBS Explossion 3/Experimental BBS Explossion III.iso/gus/digestv4.zip/V4N50.TXT

Text File | 1993-07-22 | 19KB | 480 lines

Ultrasound Daily Digest     Thu Jul 22 00:46     Volume 4: Issue  50

Today's Topics:
                    Adaptec 1542C, GUS and Falcon3
            Auto-reply to: Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #49
                       GUS+SB Another method..
                    GUSMOD conflict and uss8 mouse
       How can I get proper volume response under Windows 3.1?
                              MegEm b10
                       Number of active voices
                        Ultramid doesn't work
               Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #49 (2 msgs)
                            Various things
                         varying MIDI results

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: 21 Jul 93 11:38 -0700
From: Rolf Velthuys <[e-mail]>
Subject: Adaptec 1542C, GUS and Falcon3
Message-ID: <1663*[e-mail]>

Hi,

I've recently added an adaptec scsi card (1542 C) and a SCSI drive to
my system (already GUS equipped) . Essentially, installation went
fine, had no problems in selecting DMA channels, I/O addresses and IRQ
numbers.

All programs run just as fine from my old IDE drive as they do from
the scsi drive. Games can use SBOS succesfully, and all the regular
GUS demos work fine. All's well except for Falcon3. When I run Falcon3
it crashes the system (have to use reset button) after the
introductory screens and when you're supposed to go to the war room.
Anybody any hints as to things I should check ?

btw. I'm running DOS 6 (without stacker) (will change to OS2 soon).

Rolf

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

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 19:34:59 +0200 (EET DST)
From: [e-mail] (fingon [autoreply])
Subject: Auto-reply to: Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #49
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

I'm sorry, but I'm currently far away from my access to Usenet. I'll be back
sometime in the evening of friday, 23.7.

(To dudes at the Gravis lists: Feel free to drop me out if this reply annoys
you too much, :) ).

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

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 9:27:01 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: GUS+SB Another method..
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

Hi all!

    First of all I want to thank everybody who replied to my post about
Soundblaster and GUS co-existance.  I have got it working now, and this
is how I did it (some minor stuff deleted):

GUS.BAT:
  set ultrasnd = 240,3,3,11,7
  Ultrinit
  set blaster = A240 I7 D1 T1

SBON.BAT
  gusmixer -l1 -o1
  gusclear
  set blaster = A220 I5 D1 T1

Gusmixer and Gusclear are utilities that I have seen on Epas and
Wuarchive (I got em from a friend), one enables the line in and
the other clears GUS memory (and registers?).  Gusmixer is by one of the
members of TZ.

This setup allows me to run SBOS whenever I need it, which seems to be
something other people can't do.. (nyah nyah :-)  It still isn't quite
perfect, some games (lemmings 1) don't work at all, while others need SBOS
(oh no! more lemmings).  Most others, including POP II, BRIX and
MONKEY ISLAND work just fine in soundblaster mode.

Also, since I don't use DMA 1 for the GUS, I can't use the current version
of MEGA-EM.. *sigh*  Does anybody know if this will be fixed in the next
release?

And my .02$ about MEGA-EM:  DON'T USE ULTRAMID!  It takes way too much RAM!

  ______________________________________________   ___________________
 /                                              \ /                   \
( "Shee, you guys are so unhip its a wonder your O Bjarni R. Einarsson )
(  bums don't fall off!" -- Zaphod Beeblebrox    O  - - [e-mail] - -  )
 \______________________________________________/ \___________________/

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

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 11:09:13 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Gregg D. Asherman)
Subject: GUSMOD conflict and uss8 mouse
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

Hi;

    I downloaded GUSMOD to use as a module player, but it locks up
I think I know what the problem is, but you insight might help
my setup of GUS:
 220 7 7 12 7

I am using dma 7 (16bit)
       IRQ 12 (GF1)
       irq 7  (sb)

I have an adaptec 1542 scsi cont. as a second controller on IRQ 11
** when I run gusmod, it seems to force the GUS to IRQ 11, thus hanging my
scsi devices out to dry.  IF I can get a general failure message I then run
ultrinit.exe from my C: drive (IDE) and the interrupt is forced back to 12
on the gus and all is fine again.

to get this program to work I may try these variations

    set the adaptec to some other IRQ and run GUS at IRQ 11
     ( I think the programmer hard coded IRQ 11 in the prog.)
    220 7 7 11 5

    and change the (SB) IRQ to 5

&&&&&&&&&&&&& new subject &&&&&&&&&

I also had a problem with USS8, the mouse pointer was invisible.
you could pull down menus but not see a pointer.

I installed an older mouse driver for a microsoft 2 button mouse and
now I see the pointer under the USS8 program.

good thing my mouse is switchable 2 nad 3 button

P.S. I am still looking for a newer mouse driver to handle all three buttons

    Gregg Asherman
--

+-------------------------------------------+
| Gregg Asherman    [phone] work  |
|                        |
| [e-mail]        |
| [e-mail]           |
+-------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 16:35:03 CDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: How can I get proper volume response under Windows 3.1?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

While running my GUS under Windows 3.1, the volume response is terrible.
Any sound played 'softly' is nearly inaudible and any sound that is
audible drowns out all of the other instruments.

I know that the GUS hardware has a nonlinear response (as determined by
the human ear)...  but I would think that the MIDI driver for Windows
would have been designed to take care of it.

Can anyone tell me if there is a solution to this problem?  I've downloaded
the latest (2.07L?) disks and installed them with no noticeable change
in behavior.  If I'm missing some setting or option in the drivers
window, feel free to ding me...  ;)  I haven't checked these windows
since I upgraded to 2.07.

Thanks,

---Xeno

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

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 10:04 GMT
From: "Jonathan D. Hall" <[e-mail]>
Subject: MegEm b10
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

Hi all,

I've just downloaded megaem beta10 from epas and I'm having a few problems
getting it to work.

I had beta6 to work just fine, for the 10 minute demo period anyway, but I get
no soud at all from this newer version.

It says in the documentaion that the 10 minute demo period has been removed
from this version. I thought this would mean no time limit, not no sound at all!

Jon
=========================================================================
Jonathan Hall               University of Glamorgan
Computer Assistant          Department of Property & Development Studies
[e-mail]      Pontypridd
Tel [phone]            Mid Glamorgan CF37 1DL, United Kingdom

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

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 10:49:47 +0000
From: Clarke Brunt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Number of active voices
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

> Ok, this is just a thought for anyone writing midi players for
> windows. How about loading the midi file and then setting the
> number of voices to the number required by the midi file... In
> that way a song with 6 tracks will get the maximum of 14 voices
> 44khz, if the song has more than 14 tracks then only can the
> number of voices be reduced.  When the song is finished is sets
> the number of active voices back to the original setting... Any
> further comments or ideas ?

Sounds a good idea - as I've said before, some patches can sound
awful when played with a high number of active voices, presubably
because the sampling is then far less than 44kHz.

At present, the number of active voices under Windows has to be set
in Control Panel, and cannot be changed without restarting Windows.
I'm not sure if it would be possible to have a driver which allowed
dynamic changes. I think the problem might be that any patches
already loaded would need their parameters adjusting to suit the
new number of voices.

As a sideline, when you cache patches from a program in Windows (by
passing an array with bits set for each patch you want), does it re-load
all the requested patches, or just the ones no loaded already?

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

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 20:40:23 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Juergen Schaepker <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ultramid doesn't work
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

Hi !

I seem to be one of the only people having real trouble to
get these AIL/Miles-Ultramid-thing to run.

My problems are:
- Ultramid [-c] installs fine with
  Ultrasound MIDI and digital sound TSR v1.00
  Copyright ...
  All rights reserved.

but then
- no game with AIL (Dune 2, 1gate, jrob) gives any sound

- Ultramid -f shows:
  UltraMID TSR not resident.

QEMM's MFT and mem show Ultramid loaded normally.

- GF166.com shows:
  Unable to install interrupt vector.
  UltraMID TSR not detected.

I did install everything correct (pupdate, ultramid.ini), I hope.
I use the 2.06L installation (as registration disks did not hit me yet)
and the gus0034 patch, Ultramid is version 1.00 (not that 0.96 or 0.97
did anything else).

I never had problems with SBOS. MEGAEM works for me since 0.08B.
I tried it with any memory configuration I could think of
(QEMM 6.03, Himem, EMM386) - no difference.
If it matters: I have a 386-40 FOREX chipset and busspeed at CLK/4
(can't set it to CLK/5), my GUS has 1 meg.


Anyone out there who can help ? Please ...


                   Juergen

 --------------------------------------------------------------------
-  Internet: [e-mail]     -
 --------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 09:09:06 EDT
From: "Burns Fisher, VMS Engineering  21-Jul-1993 0909" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #49
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

>From: [e-mail]
>Subject: Re: Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #48
>Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
>
>Ok, this is just a thought for anyone writing midi players for windows.  How
>about loading the midi file and then setting the number of voices to the
>number
>required by the midi file... In that way a song with 6 tracks will get the
>maximum of 14 voices 44khz, if the song has more than 14 tracks then only can
>the number of voices be reduced.  When the song is finished is sets the number
>of active voices back to the original setting... Any further comments or
>ideas ?

For some reason, I was dropped from the digest for a few days, so I don't know
the context of this posting.  However, one problem with the idea presented here
is that a single track can easily have multiple simultaneous notes within it.
So unless you analyzed the MIDI file, you could not blindly assume that
tracks==(max notes).

Further, one might well have lots of tracks (maybe 1/patch), but not have them
all going simultaneously.

Burns

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

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 14:19:24 EDT
From: Phat H Tran <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #49
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

> Date: Tue, 20 Jul 93 9:14:24 CDT
> From: "Anibal A. Acero" <[e-mail]>
> Subject: SC2 demo hangs
> Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
>
> I can't get the sc2_demo to do anything; it hangs before any graphics are
> displayed, or any music sounded.  I've tried booting clean (only himem.sys
> + GUS setup stuff in config.sys and autoexec.bat; I probably even tried it
> without himem.sys) with and without SBOS installed
>
> Setup:
>     GUS w/ 1MB of memory (ULTRASND=220,1,1,12,5)

I know that SC2 will not upload samples properly if you are using
8-bit DMA channels (though the game didn't hang on me).  Try changing
your DMA's to 5, 6, or 7.

> Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 07:58:40 +0200
> From: [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #48
> Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
>
> Ok, this is just a thought for anyone writing midi players for windows.  How
> about loading the midi file and then setting the number of voices to the number
> required by the midi file... In that way a song with 6 tracks will get the
> maximum of 14 voices 44khz, if the song has more than 14 tracks then only can
> the number of voices be reduced.  When the song is finished is sets the number
> of active voices back to the original setting... Any further comments or
> ideas ?
>

Determining the number of voices a MID needs is more complicated than just
looking at the number of tracks since each track can control any combination
of the 16 MIDI channels, and each channel can have up to 128 notes going
at once.  Furthermore, the Windows drivers currently do not let you change
the number of voices without requiring a restart of Windows.

> Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 00:31:09 EDT
> From: Stephen Ferguson <[e-mail]>
> Subject: varying MIDI results
> Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
>
> Robert Lee DeRaud wrote about getting different results with .MID
> files depending on which player he was using.  I've noticed this myself.
> I thought I was just hearing things until I tried the file jump.mid
> which is quite a good version of Van Halen's Jump.  Playmidi snapped
> crackled and popped.  Media Player played a very flat sounding version
> and I thought "this isn't such a great Midi file".  Then I tried
> WinJammer's Player and was very impressed.  I loaded up Patchman to
> see what was going on.  Media Player only loaded about 7 melodic patches
> (and not all the right ones) where WinJammer loaded all the proper patches.
> Why?

When a MID "crackles and pops", turn down its overall volume.  For example,
use -v100 with PlayMIDI.  It's always a good idea to never play anything at
max volume on the GUS to avoid clipping, since clipping on the GUS results
in the signal wrapping around the scale instead of flattening out on the
floor or on the ceiling.  (This is due to the use of signed data.)

As for the differences between Media Player and WinJammer, you probably
have WinJammer bypassing MIDIMapper.  If you enter MIDIMapper and enable
all 16 channels for the Ultrasound setup, then you shouldn't hear a
difference between Media Player and WinJammer any more.

Phat.

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

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 16:59:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sam Mertens <[e-mail]>
Subject: Various things
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

1)  I have heard that Star Control 2 (the real version, not the game) had
some bugs with GUSs loaded with 1 meg memory.  It only makes sense, then,
if the demo does too.
2) Ultramid- gotta be carefull with what you jam into memory.  Ultima7,
for example, requires 560 or so k free.  add himem.sys, doublespc.bin (for
dos 6), and Ultramid (but NOT Qemm, 386Max, or EMM386 because Ultima7
requires the processor be in real-mode at startup)... w/o UMB drivers,
560k is impossible.  But you have to have a UMB driver that will support
YOUR chipset in real mode...  To make a long story short- how does Ultima
7 sound with the modified drivers?  <sheepish grin>
3) Setting maximum channels for MIDI files:  harder than you'd think.
Unlike MODs, 669s, etc., MIDI tracks can contain a LOT of notes to be
played simultaneously, and they frequently do.  So you've got to count not
just the individual tracks, but the amount of notes being played in ALL of
the tracks at any given time.  Then, you need to see how the instrument
sounds- if there's a slow decay upon release, that will have to be
calculated as being on, even if it was only played for a short time in the
MIDI file.  This means you've got to refer to each and every patch that
the MIDI file calls for, and either calculate just what cuts off when, or
have a predefined table, which makes things even more awkward when you
start adding new patches.

If you're still up for the job though, go to it!  :)

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

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 10:56:43 +0000
From: Clarke Brunt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: varying MIDI results
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

> I thought I was just hearing things until I tried the file
> jump.mid which is quite a good version of Van Halen's Jump.
> Playmidi snapped crackled and popped.  Media Player played
> a very flat sounding version and I thought "this isn't such
> a great Midi file".  Then I tried WinJammer's Player and
> was very impressed.  I loaded up Patchman to see what was
> going on.  Media Player only loaded about 7 melodic patches
> (and not all the right ones) where WinJammer loaded all the
> proper patches.

I can understand DOS programs and Windows programs managing
to sound different, since they use different drivers, but surely
Media Player and WinJammer should sound similar.

The only thing I can think of is that Media Player always uses
MIDI Mapper, while WinJammer has the choice of MIDI Mapper or
direct GUS MIDI Synth. So is Media Player's rendition being
ruined by a peculiar MIDI Mapper setup, e.g. with some channels
disabled, or with some patches mapped into other ones. The
MIDI Mapper setup supplied with the GUS has channels 11 to 16
turned off for one thing, so any .MID using these won't play
correctly until they are enabled.

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

End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #50
*************************************

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