Experimental BBS Explossion 3/Experimental BBS Explossion III.iso/gus/digestv9.zip/V9N8G.TXT

Text File | 1993-12-08 | 26KB | 599 lines

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GUS Daily Digest            Wed, 8 Dec 93   007          Volume 9: Issue   8

Today's Topics:
                                Arcade
                     Blake Stone under SBOS 2.08
        Can the Windows driver do multiple simultaneous WAVs?
                   Finally received 2.06a...yipeee!
                        For us poor 286 owners
                         GUS & CD-ROM answers
                        GUS Daily Digest V9 #7
               Master Tracks Pro (windows) Midi Program
                          Mega-EM SB Support
              MegaEm, GUS vs Soundwave & Ultrasound size
                           MegaEm and NOEMS
               Orchid Soundwave beats GUS in PC Format
                              The G-List
                What are the numbers on sound quality?

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: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 10:45:09 -0500 (EST)
From: Doug Nashold <[e-mail]>
Subject: Arcade

           Micsosoft Arcade locks up after about three seconds with the
  sound on, but works fine with no sound. I got hte game mostly to hear
 those asteroid explosions again. The few sounds that I did hear were
 quite good. Anyone have a fix for this?


  Doug Nashold
  [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1993 10:15:52 +1000
From: David Vu <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Blake Stone under SBOS 2.08

[e-mail] wrote:

> I have the Blake Stone demo and found it ran fine under SBOS 2.08 with no
> special modifications (I needed no -O switches or anything). The music
> instruments sounded cheezy, but clear (what do you want from FM synthesis?).
> Digital sound effects were fine. I liked hearing things such as doors
> being open and closed in the distance.  I had no drop outs of sound. However, I
> noticed it won't play more than 1 digitized sound effect at once so if you fire
> your weapon at a monster who's talking while a door is closing you will only
> hear one of the sounds.

The SB has only one digital channel and most games don't bother mixing
multiple digitised effects because it takes quite a bit of CPU load.
Wolf3d on the SB also does the same.  The GUS however, has 32
independent hardware digital channels so it can play 32 effects at once,
but then SBOS simulates an SB so you only get one channel at a time.

Hopefully game programmers take advantage of this GUS feature and give
us multiple digital effects in future games.

BTW, mod players mix 4-8, maybe more, channels into one digital stream
to play on the standard sb/sbpro/compat.  This takes quite a lot of CPU
time compared with GUS mod players, which takes almost nothing.

BTW2, does anyone notice that gusmod 2.11 timing routine is a bit off when
playing power-of-america.mod (?sp).  ZZPlay, damtracker, gusplay, pmp
play it fines.

> From: Nemesis <[e-mail]>
> Subject: S.G.I. compatibility and GUS
>
>    I wanted to know if anyone knows if the Silicon Graphics Industries
> Indy computer(almost home PC) would be compatible with the GUS.  I own a GUS
> and a 386 but might be getting an Indy...(on a longshot).  I love GUS, but
> What I see of Indy is just too amazing... both would be awesome!

I didn't know the Indy has ISA bus.  Doesn't matter, the Indy and most SGI
boxes have digital sound modules built-in, with DSP, I think.  So one can
probably write a modplayer and wave recording/processing for the Indy, but
gamewise and musicwise, I don't think so.

-David-

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

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 04:29:05 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Michael Chen)
Subject: Can the Windows driver do multiple simultaneous WAVs?

I was thinking of getting a sequencer that lets you put .WAV files into your
sequences for stuff that wasn't too terribly time-critical (soundbites, etc.).
Do the GUS drivers let you play back more than one .WAV at once?  If not, is
this a possible thing to add or hack?  I'd really like that, and I'd rather
not have to write my own sequencer...

-- Mike

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

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 10:40:33 +1100 (EST)
From: Andrew Leahy <[e-mail]>
Subject: Finally received 2.06a...yipeee!

I finally received the 2.06a discs from Gravis yesterday. After 3 months
of waiting!
Strangely the parcel was postmarked "Royal Viking Post - Denmark" although
the address printed on the box was USA! Maybe that explains why it took so
long to get here.

I had already grabbed 2.06l from epas, so I really only wanted Midisoft
Recording Session and Powerchords off the 2.06a discs...but the
installation program doesn't allow you to just grab these packages, most
annoying. So I had to backup my 2.06l \ultrasnd directory (with the new
windows drivers, patches etc.), install 2.06a, then copy the \ultrasnd\session
and \ultrasnd\pwrchord dirs to somewhere, recover 2.06l (plus bits), and
trash the 2.06a install....arrrgggh what fun!

Am I right in assuming the ONLY differences between 2.06a and 2.06l are the
\ultrasnd\session and \ultransd\pwrchord directories?????
__________________________________________________________________________
Andrew "Alf" Leahy                         email: [e-mail]
University of Western Sydney - Nepean.
Sydney, Australia.                         phone: [phone] (work ;-)

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

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 17:59:07 +0000 (GMT)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: For us poor 286 owners

I bought my UltraSound mainly to use it as a rythm-section for
my electric guitar jam-sessions. To my dismay I found most of
the fancy midi-software didn't work with my beloved 286 PC,
running Windows 3.1 in standard mode. My question to the
Ultrasond fans is: What is my best options, given that I don't
have enough money to upgrade to a 386 system? Any hints about
good software (preferable sequencing sw) working ok on a 286 are
welcome.  Thanks in advance,
  Tor E. Faegri.

--
  Tor, God of Thunder           (e-mail: [e-mail])

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

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 09:51:31 -0800 (PST)
From: Mark Harrison <[e-mail]>
Subject: GUS & CD-ROM answers

> Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1993 09:59:39 GMT
> From: Clarke Brunt <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Answers
>
> > I was wondering if I had a Toshiba 3401 SCSI CD-ROM drive and a GUS,
> > besides saving a slot, what difference would it be if I hooked up the
> > CD-ROM to my Adaptec 1742A SCSI Controller, would I still be able to get
> > sound from the CD-ROM out of the Soundcard?
>
> As long as the audio out pins of the CD are connected to the CD-audio-in
> pins on the GUS. I don't know how this is achieved with the daughtercard -
> is there a separate cable for it?

Note that the cable to go to the CD-audio-in pins are only necessary to
get Red-Book sound.  That is the kind that you would find on a normal
music CD.  The only disks I know of that use this method (though I'm sure
a lot of others do as well) are Mammals, Software Toolworks Encyclopedia
and the Nautilus disks.

Most other disks (like games) will access the card directly just as if
they were run off the hard drive.  So no cable would be necessary (of
course it's still recommended since you never know when something will
need Red-Book style output.)  But I would say 90% of the stuff doesn't
need the cable.

> Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 18:08:03 -0800 (PST)
> From: Vincent Poy <[e-mail]>
> Subject: CD-AUDIO Line IN Connector
>
> I have heard from many people that there is a CD-ROM Audio Line IN
> Connector on the GUS... I have the Internal Version of the Toshiba 3401
> CD-ROM and I have looked in both the GUS Manuals that came with the GUS
> and the Manuals that have came with the Software Update that Gravis
> shipped but have not seen anything mentioning this line in. Does anyone
> out there know anything about this?

Look on the card itself.  They should be on the opposite edge from the
slot, roughly in the middle of that side.  For better information (and pin
layout) check out the FAQ.

> And also where I can get the cable for the connection?

I made my own.

> Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 16:21:36 -0600
> From: [e-mail] (Ken Goach IBM)
> Subject: GUS & CD-ROM owners - help me please
>
> Hi all,
>
> I am planning to buy a CD-ROM drive for my PC, and I was wondering
> if anyone had any recommendations (or warnings) about drives that
> worked well (or didn't work) with the Ultrasound.

All drives I've tried work very well.  I've tried a Panasonic, Chinon and
finally settled on a Mitsumi.  All these drives came with their own
interface card.  The only thing I had to do was make a cable for the
CD-audio-in (For Red Book sound only.  See above.)  Other than that, I
can't think of any reason why any particular drive should give you
problems with the GUS unless you run into IRQ conflicts.

> Also, how's the GUS CD-ROM controller daughter card? What does it
> work with?

Depends on the card.  They have a LMSI card, a Mitsumi card and some kind
of SCSI card (SCSI-2?) either available or coming.  I don't use one myself
since I had a spare slot.

> And finally, what CD-ROM software does (and doesn't) work with
> the GUS?

Everything I've tried works.  But I've not tried much.  Let's see,
Mammals, The 7th Guest, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, Sherlock
Holmes, Software Toolworks Encyclopedia and Nautilus.  I can't think of
anything that doesn't work except for maybe Dracula Unleashed.

But CD software shouldn't give you anymore problems than non-CD software.
You still just take your chances and hope it works.

Mark Harrison
[e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 11:58:14 -0500 (EST)
From: Phat H Tran <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V9 #7

> Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93  12:35:02 EST
> From: [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: Blake Stone under SBOS 2.08
>
> ==================    *ENCLOSURE*     ==================
> I have the Blake Stone demo and found it ran fine under SBOS 2.08 with no
> special modifications (I needed no -O switches or anything). The music
> instruments sounded cheezy, but clear (what do you want from FM synthesis?).
> Digital sound effects were fine. I liked hearing things such as doors
> being open and closed in the distance.  I had no drop outs of sound. However, I
> noticed it won't play more than 1 digitized sound effect at once so if you fire
> your weapon at a monster who's talking while a door is closing you will only
> hear one of the sounds.
>

You can hear only one digitized sound at a time?  What do you expect? :)
That's the way it is when you have only one DAC to work with and the
software doesn't bother to mix the sounds together (which can be CPU
intensive).  The GUS is superior to every known card out there in that
it can play multiple digital sound effects without requiring the game to
mix the sounds into one channel.  Unfortunately, this feature has to be
specifically utilized by the game, and not many games have yet bothered
with it.

> Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 18:08:03 -0800 (PST)
> From: Vincent Poy <[e-mail]>
> Subject: CD-AUDIO Line IN Connector
>
> I have heard from many people that there is a CD-ROM Audio Line IN
> Connector on the GUS... I have the Internal Version of the Toshiba 3401
> CD-ROM and I have looked in both the GUS Manuals that came with the GUS
> and the Manuals that have came with the Software Update that Gravis
> shipped but have not seen anything mentioning this line in. Does anyone
> out there know anything about this? And also where I can get the cable for
> the connection? Also, I was planning on plugging a Walkman using a 1/8" to
> 1/8" stereo male cord from the walkman headphone jack (what's the volume I
> should have the Walkman at?) to the line in jack on the GUS but I am not
> getting any sound out of the GUS when I turn the Walkman on... Any help
> would be appreciated... Thanks in advance!

You must enable the line-in before you'll hear anything hooked up to it.
In DOS, ultrinit -o -l will do this.  In Windows, use the mixer.

As for the CD audio in, it's a labelled 4-pin jumper on the GUS.  The
four pins correspond to Left, Ground, Ground, Right.

> Date: Mon, 06 Dec 93 23:44:49 EST
> From: Steph <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Dr. Dobb's Journal
>
[...]
> No manufacturer, except 3-4, gave out how many of their sound cards were
> installed, not even Creative Labs.
>
> On the other hand, Advanced Gravis did : 100,000 GUS installed, they
> say.  There was another column listed for Advanced Gravis -- GUS MAX.
> 100,000 installed, as well.

Technically, no GUS MAXes have been sold yet, so I guess since the Max and
the original GUS are so functionally similar (identical) in their native
modes (disregarding 16-bit recording and compression), this number of
installed Maxes has the normal GUS factored in.

> The difference between those two columns?  $100, and under "sound
> compression", the GUS MAX was listed as "Yes", while GUS said "No." That
> is all the difference I could see.

The Max is also supposed to have a SCSI-2 interface.

> You know, I'm starting to think the GUS will always be an 'emulation'
> card.  If software developpers don't have to write native code for it
> because it can emulate Roland, SB, etc, then why bother?  Maybe this
> will be the Amiga of the soundcards : emulate everything that exists out
> there.  (Go ahead, flame on.  It's just an opinion)

Since the GUS can do so much more in its native mode than any of its
competition (in any price range), we GUS users must pressure the game
makers to support our card to its potential.

> Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 16:21:36 -0600
> From: [e-mail] (Ken Goach IBM)
> Subject: GUS & CD-ROM owners - help me please
>
> I've sorta got my eye on a Sony that comes packaged from Pro-Com
> Technology. It's double-spin and only $229.00. I've seen a few
> others, but I'm not really familiar with the specs, so any help
> would be appreciated, namely what does and doesn't work.
>
> Also, how's the GUS CD-ROM controller daughter card? What does it
> work with?

I think the GUS has a Sony CD-ROM daughtercard.  I don't know any
more than that.

> Date: 6 Dec 93 17:48:12 +0100
> From: "Alexander Majarek, Sascha, SAM"  <[e-mail]>
> Subject: MEGAEM 2.3 (or whatever is the latest beta)
>
> I get an error everytime I try to use MEGAEM using the /NOEMS switch.
>
> My problem is: I simply don't want to waste UMB-memory for an EMS-page-
> frame. So I tried /NOEMS, which should work, but ... No chance!
>
> I also tried to switch EMM386 explicitly ON. Ok, EMM386 is now active.
> But MEGAEM refuses to load saying that the EMS-service is DISABLED.

I'm not clear on where you're using the /noems switch since both EMM386
and MEGAEM use that switch.  If you're using the /noems switch in your
config.sys with EMM386 to get rid of the 64k page frame, then you need
to load MEGAEM with the /noems switch as well.

If you're doing all this and Mega-Em refuses to load, please report
your problem to [e-mail] as I'm sure he'd be interested to
know.

Phat.

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

Date: 7 Dec 93 19:46:32 EDT
From: "Tyler J. Mitchell" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Master Tracks Pro (windows) Midi Program

I am trying to run Master Tracks Pro (mtpro), a windows midi
program.  I haven't got a midi adapter, and I can't play any files
through this program. They'll run but I won't get any sound.
     I tried going in through midi setup and changing the address and
irq settings but they won't change unless I rerun the program, which,
when I do it, the settings revert back to the originals.  Is this
program for Sound Blasters only? <-that shouldn't make a difference
if it is running in windows should it?  I got a couple sounds out of
it once by changing the instruments it used, but I am now at my wits
end. Please help.
Tyler J. Mitchell****************************************
Tyler J. Mitchell, Residence Box #369, |
Lakehead University, Thunder Bay,      |
Ontario Canada, P7B 5E1                |
****************************************

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

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 10:23:37 EST
From: "Burns Fisher, VMS Engineering  07-Dec-1993 1023" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mega-EM SB Support

I have seen a few times in this list someone saying that MegaEm would soon or
someday support SB applications and "finally get rid of SBOS".

I don't really understand why this is a good thing.

It seems to me that MegaEm is a masterwork of programming...I would not have
been surprised it what Jayson did was impossible.  However, I don't see that
MegaEm can necessarily do a better job at SB emulation than SBOS.  Perhaps
someone with Jayson's skills can improve on SBOS (no offense to the original
programmers intended), and perhaps it can be incorporated into a single driver
which is more convenient than having two.  However, I don't see that the
techniques which MegaEm used are going to help.

What are the biggest problems with SBOS?  (1) Different programmers tweak SB
registers in different weird ways to get different weird effects, and the
results of such tweaking are difficult to emulate, and (2) The FM machinery in
an SB can be programmed to get special effects, and it is difficult to emulate
this.  I don't see MegaEm's 386 protected mode technique solving any of these
problems.

On the other hand, what is MegaEm's biggest problem? (1) It must use protected
mode, so games which also use protected modes are incompatible.  SBOS does not
have this problem, since it has hardware assist in the GUS itself, and does not
need to use protected mode.  So it seems to me that MegaEm would not do a better
job of emulation, and would add a disadvantage.

If better SB emulation continues to be a requirement, I would think that the
right solution is a daughtercard.  Of course, I would hope that it does not
continue to be a requirement.

Burns

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

Date: Tue, 07 Dec 93 13:07:53 -0500
From: "Momentary language, sexual situations" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: MegaEm, GUS vs Soundwave & Ultrasound size

> Mega-Em is available in the Gravis folder of the GUS area in
> archive.epas.utoronto.ca but I'm not sure if this is the "10 minute
> trial" shareware version or not. I'm writing this as I download it but
> since it's in the Gravis area it would *suggest* to me that it's the
> full version direct from Gravis. If I'm being over-enthusiastic and it
> turns out to be the shareware version I'll mail again tomorrow and
> apologise profusely.

It is my understanding (email [e-mail] for the real story),
that Gravis has bought the rights to Mega 'Em and will be distributing it
with all new GUSes as well as offering it on their BBS withOUT the time
limit. That (and SB support) is what the '2' in 2.3 Beta is all about :-).

> To finish, as a new GUS owner I've been blown away by the quality of
> the sound and annoyed by the installation procedure. The one quibble I
> have is why is the board so BIG?? Surely in these days of surface
> mount components a full length card is excessive?

It's not a full length card, it's "only" 3/4 length (at least my rev 2.2
board is). Perhaps its the memory sockets...

>   Second, let's be honest here. HARDWARE support for Roland,
> SB, etc is infinately preferable to messing around with drivers be
> they SBOS, MegaEm or whatever and that's the only advantage the
> Soundwave has.  Third, the review was aimed at games players. With
> this in mind it's easy to see why they rate the Soundwave higher than
> the Gravis, it's because it's SO compatible with every (!!) game on
> the market.

This is the heart of the situation. While the GUS has better sound quality,
you don't miss what you've never had. The SoundWave is no doubt better than
an SB (probably better than an SB16) and it's hardware compatible with
EVERYTHING. So, for a game player, it's fine. For a musician, it's not. But
most sound cards are still sold to gamers...Mega 'Em goes a long way toward
making the GUS compatible, but it's still something to mess about with and
most game players would rather just concentrate on the game...

On the other hand, I (usually) don't mind messing about with my machine and
I appreciate the higher sound quality of the GUS. But I'd dare say that
most of us on this digest aren't the average PC gamer...

DDA

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

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 07:43:17 -0800 (PST)
From: [e-mail] (Mike Batchelor)
Subject: Re: MegaEm and NOEMS

GUS Server once wrote...
$
$  ------------------------------
$
$  Date: 6 Dec 93 17:48:12 +0100
$  From: "Alexander Majarek, Sascha, SAM"  <[e-mail]>
$  Subject: MEGAEM 2.3 (or whatever is the latest beta)
$
$  I get an error everytime I try to use MEGAEM using the /NOEMS switch.
$
$  My problem is: I simply don't want to waste UMB-memory for an EMS-page-
$  frame. So I tried /NOEMS, which should work, but ... No chance!
$
$  I also tried to switch EMM386 explicitly ON. Ok, EMM386 is now active.
$  But MEGAEM refuses to load saying that the EMS-service is DISABLED.
$
$  So what ? Any hint ?
$  Thanx
$  SAM

Instead of using NOEMS, try FRAME=NONE.  EMM386 will still respond to EMS
requests with just FRAME=NONE, but does not respond when using NOEMS.

I also have an idea for MegaEm and the DOS4GW protected mode games.
DOS4GW is licenseable from Rational Systems (Quarterdeck uses a heavily
modified version in DESQview/X).  With the license, you get the source
code.  With the source code, you could build a special MegaDOS4GW, that
had MegaEm already built into its VCPI server.  It might be a bit of
trouble to get some games to use the special DOS4GW, but usually, it's no
more difficult than editing a batch file to load a game with "MEGAD4GW
GAME.EXE" instead of allowing the game to exec the DOS4GW that was shipped
with it.  I imagine it would be pretty simple to get a "MegaBAT" utility
working that did the same thing as UBAT does for SBOS.

Then there would be two MegaEm versions, one for real mode games, and
another for protected mode games.  Games like Privateer would still not be
helped, though, since Origin uses a proprietary in-house extender called
JEMM ("You may find it convenient to reboot your computer now" - this is
JEMM's version of the DOS4GW protection fault error :).  But most vendors
seem to use DOS4GW (and I know why - no distribution royalties! :).

--
Mike Batchelor      |
[e-mail]  |                  This space for rent
[e-mail]   |

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

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 11:58:58 +0100 (MET)
From: [e-mail] (Graphik-Gruppe)
Subject: Re: Orchid Soundwave beats GUS in PC Format

"For MIDI music creation, the Soundwave 32SE has eight megabits
  (that's 512K) of high-quality samples held in on-board ROM chips."

If this was quoted correctly they disqualified themselves. Lamers who
can't add 2 & 2 shouldn't write reviews on soundcards...

Eight megabits have always been and will be 1024K = 1M.


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

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 23:55:08 -0400 (AST)
From: Jurassic Mark <[e-mail]>
Subject: The G-List

GUS day people,

    For those without Usenet access, I am the author of the G-List
(formerly called The Gravis Ultrasound Compatibility List).  It deals
with everything, SBOS, MegaEM, Ultramid, GUS supporting games, GUS
supporting demos, games that don't work with the GUS, etc...
    It is much too big to post here on the digest so if you want a
copy, just write to me and request it.  You can also request it on IRC if
you can find me (I'm J-Mark).
    The list is also on epas under the filename GLIST.ZIP.

         Marc Y. Paulin - Jurassic Mark (Usenet) - J-Mark (IRC)
   - [e-mail] (Talk 'n Mail) - [phone] -
               APICS Programming Contest Winner of 1993
            -=* GUS won over SB by a score of 32 to 11 *=-

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

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 19:53:50 PST
From: Steve Peddle <[e-mail]>
Subject: What are the numbers on sound quality?

Just how good is the gus sound quality?  PC mag reviewed sound cards in
mar(?) 93 and did freq response, THD, and SNR for playback,
record/playback, and amplifier.  Alas the GUS missed this treatment
because it wasn't 16 bit record.  Anyone know any facts?

Subjectively, is the GUS as good as a real synth?

Also, does the 16 bit sampling daughtercard (or MAX) have DSP?  Which
chip?  Anyone have any idea on availability?

thanks
steve

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

End of GUS Daily Digest V9 #8
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