home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Experimental BBS Explossion 3
/
Experimental BBS Explossion III.iso
/
gus
/
digestv7.zip
/
V7N10.TXT
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1993-10-12
|
15KB
|
358 lines
Apparently-To: john.smith@gravis.com
Ultrasound Daily Digest Mon, 11 Oct 93 0:48 MDT Volume 7: Issue 10
Today's Topics:
DOOM News
Future Crew Demo (IT's Great)
Good DOOM news
Gus support (2 msgs)
Id and Doom
mass mail
Missing notes under windo
my mistake
Origin & Crappy Coding
Origin address
Second Reality
Shelling Origin with Email
Still hanging in there, but for how long?
Tony LaRussa II
Ultramid programming info
Ultrasound Daily Digest V7 #9 (2 msgs)
undocumented parameters in playmidi?
Unreal ii
Whinge, whine -go away!
Zork DEMO
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: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 14:38:42 +0200 (EET)
From: tnikkane@clinet.fi (Toni Nikkanen)
Subject:
Message-ID: <9310101238.AA04317@clinet.fi>
ultrasound%itchy@dsd.es.com
I'm getting fed up with certain dudes telling how bad the GUS
is, there've been lots of negative comments here lately, so I
thought to add something positive for a change. I've been using
the Ultrasound for 6 days now. My previous sound card was an SB
2.0 clone. Immediately when the GUS arrived, I grabbed 768k of
DRAM from my ET-4000 vga card to the gus, and it worked
perfectly. There are lots of things I can do know, which were
beyond imagination before. I can play .mod files on the
background with no apparent speed decrease. I can play and
compose music that not even my grandfather (who's quite picky at
music) does not complain about.
Games are MUCH more playable now, if it does not support the GUS
directly, it can be played with MegaEm, and that's much better
than crappy bleeps and plobs with something like SB. I have
already played through many games that I've alreaddy played
before, like Space Quest 5, Wing Commander (yes! an Origin
product! Imagine!), Pinball Dreams and Zone66. When Doom comes
out, and I've seen the alpha versions, I will buy it
immediately!
Then there's the support of Gravis. I got my sound card
(actually, two sound cards) through a special offering of $99
per card, with the Software Development Kit and all. This was a
special offer for Assembly'93 attendants. So Gravis does a lot
of work to get people developing software for the GUS. The
complete PC demo scene is moving to the GUS because of it's
great programming advantages.
And imagine game programmers taking advantage of the Ultrasound
3D feature! I heard a rumor that Jurassic Park already does, and
companies like Origin and Spectrum Holobyte really should!
Then a reply to message by Adriono..
>Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 13:05:22 +1000
>From: adriano ennio raiola <adrianr@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU>
>Subject: SECOND REALITY - Sounds great, runs BADLY (386/40)
>Message-ID: <199310100305.AA01986@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU>
>After spending 1/2 a day at 2400 baud, I finally managed to check out the
>most awaited demo release of the past year, SECOND REALITY - Future Crew.
I admire your patience :)
>Well can I say, on my humble 386/40Mhz with Cirrus Logic VGA, I had to wait
>like nearly eternity even for the title screen to come up! The music is
On my much humbler 386sx20 with ET4000, the title screen
comes pretty quickly.
>GREAT (considering its only a demo with shitty 4 channel MOD music), but
It does not have "shitty 4 channel MOD music", Future Crew
uses the Scream Tracker 3.0beta (which they don't release,
don't they get it, it would be propably the best digital
composer program ever made..) which can use as many as
16 channels, and apparently the musics in the Second Reality
do, like Panic did.
>The docs warned that its designed for a 486 and might slow down on 386's
>but I seriously doubt It should slow down the extent it does here, ALL the way
Yes, there's something wrong.. FC has never produced bug-free code :)
>through, like even fading in a title screen, scrolling a bitmapped landscape,
>takes AAAGES, simply ridiculous for a 386, also the fact that when I turn the
>turbo off on the machine, it doesnt slow down any futher!!
Maybe there's some kind of timer problem?
>runs on a 386. And before you ask, I took off ALL tsr's, mem managers etc..
Do you have some strange hardware like network cards, SCSI
adapters or whatever else?
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1993 16:35:04 +1000 (EST)
From: Andrew See <asee@st.nepean.uws.edu.au>
Subject: DOOM News
Message-ID: <199310110635.AA15340@arthur.st.nepean.uws.edu.au>
Forwarded message:
> From johnr@idcube.idsoftware.com Mon Oct 11 04:14:17 1993
> From: John Romero <johnr@idcube.idsoftware.com>
> Message-Id: <9310101809.AA01557@idcube.idsoftware.com>
> Date: Sun, 10 Oct 93 13:09:41 -0500
> To: Andrew See <asee@st.nepean.uws.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: GUS support.
>
> We have the GUS driver in DOOM right now. We haven't tested it yet (soon!), but our sound guy has used it plenty. The
> code is PRETTY BULKY and if we have to cut anything from the shareware episode of DOOM, GUS may be it. We're
> talking 220K of code!
>
> ---
> John Romero (romero@idsoftware.com) id Software
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
End of quote.
220K? Looks like we're getting custom patches and Focal point 3d guys!
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 93 03:44:59 PDT
From: brian@ccnext.ucsf.edu (Brian Huddleston)
Subject: Future Crew Demo (IT's Great)
Message-ID: <9310101044.AA24724@ccnext.ucsf.edu>
I was able to run the Demo with no problems at all. Perfect speed. Start up
was quick, and the demo was terriffic (sp?) AND I'm running with Qemm installed?
Go figure?!? I have a 386/40 Trident 1mb vga, and 4Meg ram.
Oh well.
Happy Gus'ing,
brian@ccnext.ucsf.edu
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1993 16:32:41 +1000 (EST)
From: Andrew See <asee@st.nepean.uws.edu.au>
Subject: Good DOOM news
Message-ID: <199310110632.AA15292@arthur.st.nepean.uws.edu.au>
I mailed John Romero, head programmer at ID, asking how the GUS
support in DOOM was coming along. His reply follows. It sounds
like very good news.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 07:15:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: JPIERSON@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU
Subject: GUS Support
Message-ID: <01H3XT38K9AA99FGVG@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
I'm sort of happy with my GUS and won't get rid of it. (At least not yet).
The main problem I have is that there are only two games that REALLY support
it. I'm talking REAL support not loading a TSR to have it support it. The
GUS isn't getting any support because Companies don
GUS isn't getting any support because Companies don't want to load TSR's to
make their games work with something like a soundcars. Plus there may not
be enough room to load it. (To the guy that says Origin can't program: Get
real! They're games are the best programmed on the market. You're just ticked
'cause you can't get GUS support from them.)
--- To GRAVIS:
You guy's REALLY need better tech support. I've sent messages to you from
TWO different Internet accounts and I NEVER ONCE got a responce.
Also, You say you offered to program the drivers for Origin but their lawyers
said no. I wouldn't need lawyers to tell me that! Why should they give you
THEIR source-code to add support for you're card. You really need to make
more low-level info available.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 93 18:31:11
From: jason.lin@support.com
Subject: Gus support
Message-ID: <9310101831.A7388wk@support.com>
To: ultrasound@dsd.es.com
Subject: GUS support
>Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 16:33:59 +1000 (EST)
>From: int341m@lindblat.cc.monash.edu.au (Shan Yap)
>Subject: GUS Assault - Part 1.
>Message-ID: <9310100634.AA29163@lindblat.cc.monash.edu.au>
> Some of you have been urging other readers to write to Origin, but I
>am sure there are still a lot of you who haven't done that (hence that
>daunting response from Origin). Maybe it's just because you are too
>lazy to write or most probably it's because you are not sure if your
>writing is going to have any effects or not.
You're quite right, Shan. That's how I was when someone urged us to
write software publishers. Well, after reading your post I've decided
to write 4 emails to different software publishers.. So hurry up
everyone, do the same so your GUS may have better chance of getting
supports. Oh, thanks for the Internet list of software publishers.
---
______ __
(__ __) ~CG~ / / | Internet: jason.lin@support.com
_ / / / / | izzyvu9@mvs.oac.ucla.edu
( \/ / / /__ |
\__/ASON (_____)IN | Fidonet: 1:102/837
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 13:44:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Phat H Tran <ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Id and Doom
Message-ID: <Pine.3.05.9310101307.D13908-9100000@sciborg>
I just asked a person at Id about GUS support in Doom and he says that
if they have trouble fitting the game onto two disks that the first
thing they'll drop is GUS support. Please nicely ask Id to commit
to shipping DOOM _with_ GUS support. I think a good person to mail to
would be johnr@idsoftware.com.
Phat.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 93 09:34:14 -0400
From: hal wayne black <sylk@mik.uky.edu>
Subject: mass mail
Message-ID: <9310101334.AA03018@mik.uky.edu>
About mass mailing, one of the addresses has changed.
RO> LucasArts
RO> Email: LucasArts@aol.com
I have been trying to E-mail them forever about X-wing, so I wrote the aol
postmaster, who said the address is LucasArt1@aol.com (notice singular)
We don't want to have our mail bouncing, do we?
-----RE: Origin VOODOO
And though I just mailed Origin a letter about GUS support, I have to defend
them about their proprietary VOODOO driver. In an interview, the Origin rep
(may have been LB himself) said that they needed a larger ems page, so that
they could use one page write instead of two for those pop-up screens, which
sped up the game considerably (I read this long ago, so I can't recall any
numbers) and I'll agree to anything that will speed up that game - it is a bit
slow even on my 486DX LocalBus! So if removing the EMS managers (what tsrs
are you going to use while playing Ultima, anyway?) which greatly slow down
your PC will speed up the game, I say do it Origin!
But native GUS support would NOT slow down the game. Maybe a second or two
at the startup, but who cares about that.
A lack of GUS support is not acceptible. Bad Origin! They used to be such
a great company, wonder if it is because of EA. I dunno.
--
| sylk@mik.uky.edu | hwblac00@ukpr.uky.edu | Entitlements kill |
(tastefully short signature)
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 93 18:31:08
From: jason.lin@support.com
Subject: Missing notes under windo
Message-ID: <9310101831.A7387wk@support.com>
To: ultrasound@dsd.es.com
Subject: Missing notes under Windows
>Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1993 10:44:22 +0000
>From: Clarke Brunt <CLARKE@lsl.co.uk>
>Subject:From jason.lin Sun, 10 Oct 93 18:31:08 remote from support.com
Received: by support.com
id A7387wk Sun, 10 Oct 93 18:31:08
From: jason.lin@support.com
Message-Id: <9310101831.A7387wk@support.com>
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 93 18:31:08
Subject: Missing notes under windo
To: ultrasound@dsd.es.com
Organization: [ Los Angeles Valley College BBS (818) 985-7150 ]
To: ultrasound@dsd.es.com
Subject: Missing notes under Windows
>Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1993 10:44:22 +0000
>From: Clarke Brunt <CLARKE@lsl.co.uk>
>Subject: Re: Dropped notes, 2.06L disks
>Message-ID: <00973B50.8CCBD4A0.28665@lsl.co.uk>
>I don't know about notes being missed completely, but notes being
>truncated too soon can be due to your 'Number of active voices'
>setting. If all the voices are in use when the time comes to play
>a note, then all the Windows driver can do is cut one of the old
>notes off - presumably it chooses the 'oldest' note. So more active
>voices means that you can play more notes at once, but at the
>expense of lesser quality (quite noticeable on some patches,
>insignificant on others) because the GUS cannot sample the patches
>at 44kHz with more than 14 active voices.
If you're using slower machines you'd notice missing notes frequently.
On the faster machines, notes may be dropped if you're running multiple
applications. On my machine(486DX-25), missing notes may occur even if
I run only the MIDI player in the foreground. It is not due to the
setting of the number of active voices. It's weird to hear drum, bass,
or even a couple string notes being skipped.. BTW, 28 is the active
voices I set under Windows.
---
______ __
(__ __) ~CG~ / / | Internet: jason.lin@support.com
_ / / / / | izzyvu9@mvs.oac.ucla.edu
( \/ / / /__ |
\__/ASON (_____)IN | Fidonet: 1:102/837
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 93 15:27:01 EDT
From: Michael Sabia <sabia@eden.rutgers.edu>
Subject: my mistake
Message-ID: <CMM-RU.1.3.750281221.sabia@eden.rutgers.edu>
yesterday, i sent in a message about the origin address OSI@aol.com
not working; my mistake, it does seem to work. must have been one
of the other addresses that bounced me.
mike
mike