GUS Daily Digest Sun, 2 Jan 94 007 Volume 10: Issue 2 Today's Topics: Daughtercards, FS5, Doom cheat DOOM & GUS & set ultrasnd-enviroment variable... Gravis Ultrasound GUS-DIGEST SHITTINGS GUS Daily Digest V10 #1 (3 msgs) GUS RAM not comparable to synth ROM Iron Helix on the GUS Not really a GUS problem, BUT... Problems With New Windows Drivers Strange Hardware Problem 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, 2 Jan 94 05:23:00 BST From: f.graham@genie.geis.com Subject: Daughtercards, FS5, Doom cheat I got the faq back in September, has it been updated lately? To whoever asked about FS5 sounds a few days back, I don't have FS5 anymore, but with sbos 2.08 or 2.10b I had to select "synthesized" sounds, or it would hang. I think the FS5 readme mentioned some problems with the sound for some cards. Also the new sbos 3.7b2 claims to address the FS5 sound. Since some keep asking about CD-Roms and the legendary daughtercards, I'm posting these messages from the very active Gravis rep on Genie: --- (snip, snip) --------- Category 1, Topic 6 Message 151 Wed Dec 15, 1993 GRAVIS [Adv Gravis] at 01:46 EST With regards to CD Roms, it is very simple.... The GUS card can be hooked up to any CD ROM drive as long as there is an interface card. Most CD ROMS come with an interface card so it is unlikely there will be a problem. The only connection you have to make is an audio cable connection from the interface card to the GUS card. Thats it! Now, if for some reason there is no interface card, then there might be a problem. Because the current GUS card does not have an interface built onto the card itself, you do need some sort of interface card to connect the CD ROM drive. Gravis makes daughterboards (they fit piggyback on top of the GUS card and DO NOT take an additional slot). These daughter cards serve the same functions as the interface cards except they do not take up a slot in your system. We make daughter cards for the SONY, MITSUMI and LMSI CD ROM drives. SCSI is coming at the end of this month. If you have a current drive that came bundled with another sound card you may have a problem getting it hooked up because most likely the CD ROM drive you have originally hooked directly onto the other sound card (called a proprietary interface). In these cases, you would have to find an interface card to hook up the GUS card correctly. The current GUS card has been designed to work with any CD ROM drive as long as there is some sort of interface card to connect it. Future cards will have proprietary interfaces built in as well. Hope this helps! Bryan ------------ Category 1, Topic 6 Message 159 Fri Dec 17, 1993 GRAVIS [Adv Gravis] at 12:40 EST We have daughtercards for the SONY, MITSUMI and LMSI drives. We will be shipping the SCSI daughterboard and the 16 bit recording cards in January 1994. Bryan ------------- Category 1, Topic 6 Message 195 Sat Jan 01, 1994 GRAVIS [Adv Gravis] at 22:53 EST We will be incorporating SB FM into MegaEm early this year. I think what we will see is one program to do it all, which should autodetect what you want to use (ie. SB, SBDAC, MT-32, SC). Also, I will be at CES in Las Vegas starting Jan 03/94. I will return on Jan 11/94. We are announcing new products and some other news. Once I return, I will answer the mail and give ya'all a CES update. Bryan --- (snip, snip) --------- Finally, I know this isn't the Doom Digest, but here's a couple useful lines of bandwidth (hey, it's better than a cool sig ...); ID Software was nice enough to build cheats right into the game. During the game, type the following: (don't worry about case) IDDQD gives you God mode. IDKFA gives you ammo and armor. IDSPISPOPD no clipping mode (walk through walls) IDBEHOLD (followed by S,V,I,R,A, or L) does neat stuff. IDCLEV (followed by episode# and level#) warps to that episode and level. IDMYPOS gives your coordinates. IDCHOPPERS displays a cryptic message. IDDT -- type once while in map mode for full map (same as typing IDBEHOLDA), but type it again to show all the items in the area. ------------ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1993 23:47:00 GMT From: thomas@hammer.hacktic.nl (Thomas van Kuipers) Subject: DOOM & GUS & set ultrasnd-enviroment variable... Why must i do this, to get gus & doom to work ... (together with dmxgus.ini): @echo off set ultrasnd=220,7,7,7,5 doom.exe set ultrasnd=220,7,7,11,5 @echo on <--------------------------------------------------------------------> Thomas van Kuipers Email: thomas@hammer.hacktic.nl De Wadden 49 Examenyear of HighSchool (6 VWO) 3524 AG Utrecht Important: Computers, Math, Women and Music! Telephone: +31 30 884235 Netherlands (in Europe) <--------------------------------------------------------------------> ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1993 14:13:00 GMT From: thomas@hammer.hacktic.nl (Thomas van Kuipers) Subject: Re: Gravis Ultrasound ----------------------------- forwarded message ----------------------------- Hi, I just bought a Gravis UltraSound (sound) board for my PC, It is supposed to do SoundBlaster emulation, but I cannot get it configured correctly. At one point during installation, I got the following error message "SBOS vector not functional" I have two games "Castle Wolfenstein 3d" and "prince of persia" both of which should have SoundBlaster style sounds, but neither make any sound through the card. I tried running the "sbos" program using some of the options like "-o1" and "-o2" but neither made any difference. Anyone have any experience with this card, and specifically the SoundBlaster emulation stuff? Thanks, Brett P.S. Could you email the answer, this is for a Christmas present? (brett.harper@cimlinc.com) ----------------------------- end forwarded message -------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Dec 93 21:19:00 -0000 From: dick.verweij@hacom.wlink.nl (Dick Verweij) Subject: GUS-DIGEST SHITTINGS Hi bozos, Ceveral posts I have now seen with a negative attitude towards Forte, or Gravis in general. Bitchers, moaners, lamers, I do not see the reason for this on the DIGEST. I know you are upset about some problems BUT PLEASE be so kind to do your SHITTINGS elsewhere.. WHY? - You can not act normal if something goes wrong. (Having a computer means things CAN GO WRONG, there is NO such thing as a PERFECT MACHINE) No, bitch about the smallets problem, a little thingy whats wrong in the setup.. and blame everything on the soundcard or GRAVIS or FORTE. WAKE UP, YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY MAN ON EARTH! People make mistakes, and YOU are one of them. People also do not read manuals, documents.. I am so very sick of this constant NON constructive criticisme, so if you want to say something BAD about a company, who has IMHO done EVERYTHING and will do EVERTHING to please their customers. You constantly FORGET it is a SOUNDCARD for nearly 129 dollars or LESS. Or you WANT to forget, only to post on the DIGEST to bash the card. - MANY MANY PEOPLE ARE REALLY PLEASED WITH THE GUS, BECAUSE IT IS A D*** GOOD CARD. - You are NOT COOL if you have a BIG MOUTH! Look at me, I am the most UN- COOLEST person in the world because of my LARGE SPEAKINGDEVICE. :) AGUS! --- DickyDick . ONLY A DICK MAKES IT POSSIBLE ---- HACOM BBS, Amersfoort, The Netherlands. -31-33-803610/801882/806321. Gateway to Internet, Fidonet, Compuserve, AT&T, MCI, America Online, Bitnet, Delphi, GEnie and Prodigy. Support site for many software authors. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 01 Jan 1994 12:44:06 -0600 (CST) From: "WILL HATCHER, AKA SILIKON" Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V10 #1 >I've had my GUS since about March, but only recently got some memory to >upgrade to 1Mb (for Xmas). The problem is, I think I either got some >wonky memory, or I'm doing something wrong. The memory came from an old >286 motherboard, and seems to be the right kind: I had an interesting problem when I upgraded the RAM on my GUS. I already had 512K on it, but then I discovered that you could fill the banks one at a time, so I added an extra 256K to bank 3. The weird thing was, it suddenly wouldn't let me use IRQ 3 anymore for MIDI & SB. It would not work with that setting, but I changed it to IRQ 2 and it works fine now. Is it supposed to do this? Really weird. I do have a coexistent ATI SB compatible, but I don't see how the addition of 256K of RAM could make any difference. Will ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Jan 1994 11:42:42 -0800 (PST) From: Vincent Poy Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V10 #1 On Sat, 1 Jan 1994, GUS Server wrote: > ------------------------------ > > Date: Fri, 31 Dec 93 23:06:05 EST > From: ak016@freenet.carleton.ca (John Collins) > Subject: Static caused by DRAM? > > Hi: > > I've had my GUS since about March, but only recently got some memory to > upgrade to 1Mb (for Xmas). The problem is, I think I either got some > wonky memory, or I'm doing something wrong. The memory came from an old > 286 motherboard, and seems to be the right kind: > > AAAIM304P-08 > NMBS 9051 > > But, here's the problem. When I put all six chips in, some of it reported > as "bad" when I ran GUSDRAM. But, I could load 1Mb worth of patches in > Windows, and when I ran EMUSET, 1Mb loaded up. However, to be safe, I > tested the chips two at a time. So, I found the faulty chip, and thought > everything was okay. > > But, I just got XWing, and noticed a *lot* of static when I ran EMUSET > with GMIDI emulation with the 1MB in. With 256k it was fine (but only > running at 8 bit :( ). With 512k, it was still okay, no static, but still > 8 bit. With 768k (with GUSDRAM reporting all DRAM good), I got the static > back. So, I'm confused. I thought the static was owing to the bad chip, > but even with the bad chip not installed, I'm still getting static (loud > enought to preclude enjoying the game). > > I look upon this digest as the source of all GUS wisdom, and am sure there > are some wise and all-knowing sages out there who can tell me if the > static is, in fact, related to bad DRAM. (Oh, by the way, I get the same > kind of static in Return to Zork, so I don't think it's just the game.) > > Please respond to me directly at ak016@freenet.carleton.ca (John Collins). > Thanks. > The problem is really the NMBS brand itself, it is incompatible with the GUS because I have bought the same chips before of a quantity of 6 and they always failed the GUSDRAM test so I tested them in pairs and they were fine until I go pass the 768K bank and I switched the last bank, It always would have a error there so I exchanged all 6 of them and the same thing happened so then I exchanged and tried out the new ones and the same thing still happens so then later I just got other brands, Samsung, Hyundai all mixed together with the original NEC 80ns chips and everything was fine. The NMBS I had were the same part number as yours rated at 80ns. My dealer where I later turned to for the Samsung and Hyundai chips said the NMBS are not rated at the correct speed because 80ns maybe 120ns compared to other brands. I hope this helps. Have a Happy New Year! Cheers, Vince hippo@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu root@kingdom.com System Administrator/Owner Kingdom Communications Inc./California Unix Public Access Systems Inc. San Francisco, California USA \|/ (o o) _____________oOO__(_)__OOo_______________ | No warranty for my actions of any kind | ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Jan 1994 00:41:14 -0500 (EST) From: Phat H Tran Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V10 #1 > Date: Fri, 31 Dec 1993 19:38:04 PST > From: "Khong Win Leong" > Subject: HELP: Function of 36 pin connector and daughterboard > > Hi fellow Gussers, > > This is just a matter of interest, what is the use of the 36 pin > connector (labelled JP2) located next to ....surprisingly, JP1 the address > jumpers? The large jumper strips are for daughtercard expansion. > Also, is it possible to connect a CDI daughterboard and the 16 bit > recording daughterboard at the same time? Would it be possible to rig your > own CD interface daughterboard? First question: No. Second question: Yes, it's possible. > Date: Fri, 31 Dec 1993 13:39:30 -0500 > From: SHEMAVONIAN DEREK MICHAEL > Subject: MOD4WIN Problems > > I recently ftp'ed MOD4WIN.ZIP from the epas submit directory, and am quite > impressed by its looks and ease of use. > However, I cannot get it to play the mods in stereo. As soon as I go into For stereo, make sure that you're using playback rates of exactly 11025, 22050, or 44100 Hz. I haven't tried MOD4WIN, but those are the only rates at which the GUS driver does stereo WAV output. > Date: Fri, 31 Dec 93 23:06:05 EST > From: ak016@freenet.carleton.ca (John Collins) > Subject: Static caused by DRAM? > > Hi: > > I've had my GUS since about March, but only recently got some memory to > upgrade to 1Mb (for Xmas). The problem is, I think I either got some > wonky memory, or I'm doing something wrong. The memory came from an old > 286 motherboard, and seems to be the right kind: > > AAAIM304P-08 > NMBS 9051 These don't look like they are the correct type of chips. You should use 256k by 4 bit DRAMs. They have the sequence 4256 on them. Phat. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Dec 1993 01:36:00 GMT From: thomas@hammer.hacktic.nl (Thomas van Kuipers) Subject: Re: GUS RAM not comparable to synth ROM ----------------------------- forwarded message ----------------------------- Thanks to Phat for his description of the GUS and sysex. But on that basis it seems to me the discussion of the GUS versus alternatives that use samples in ROM has generally been based on false comparisons. The reason for this is that as I understand it, the GUS requires an uncompressed sample for each midi program number. But ROM based synths do not require this. It is difficult to know what the exact difference is because manufacturers do not, so far as I know, release this information. But a reasonable guesstimate is the following: ROM based synths use at least 2:1 compression. Since sound is very redundant, there may be better compression schemes available that have been implemented without sacrificing quality. Second, ROM based _synthesizers_ do not need a distinct sample for each midi instrument number. For example, they might get all 8 midi pianos out of two piano samples, only one of which is large. And they typically (judging from Roland and Korg listening) get all double reeds from a single sample. Same for solo strings. The difference between the instruments as heard is created by the synthesizer -- filters, modulation, amp envelopes. So how little sample do they use? My guess, based upon my Korgs (M1 and M3r) is that the General Midi set can be produced by under 50 samples. My M3r has about 90 samples, but many of those are single cycle or percussion. The samples used for the acoustic pitched instruments characteristic of the GM set are pretty few. Bottom line: a straight sample playback device would need 4 to 5 times as much RAM as the synth needs ROM to produce the same instrument set. This figure will be much higher if more effective compression schemes are used, or if you include effects. This is not a criticism, just a consideration needed for comparisons (after all, RAM is pretty cheap). Of course, ROM is pretty cheap too, and mamy ROM based synths have card slots for sticking in new samples. RAM is not the only way to get custom samples. Dave ----------------------------- end forwarded message -------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Jan 1994 17:55:36 -0800 (PST) From: haroldf@rcf.usc.edu (Jeff Lawson) Subject: Iron Helix on the GUS > Hi all, > I am just about to run my little body out to the software store and > spend some of that money I got for Christmas. I have heard rave reviews > on the game Iron Helix, but before I buy it I would like to hear from > anyone who has had some experience with this game. The burning question > is ---> Does it suport patch caching? (did I spell that right) <--- > Every Windows game I have purchased up to now does not. Anybody know? > I've played it with my GUS, and although it doesn't have any mention of GUS in the documentation, or on the label, I haven't had any problems with it. I didn't even have to preload anything into the GUS's memory. I think that reason for this is that it doesn't even touch the MIDI part of the GUS and outputs everything as digital data through a DAC channel. (I'm playing off CD-ROM, and I assume that's the only version available). Although the graphics aren't too spectacular because the game play window is small, the transitions are really smooth. It is essentially played like one of those SSI D&D games, except when you move from one location, the screen scrolls in first person perspective to the new location. All of these transitions are pre-rendered using something like 3D-Studio or POV-ray (I forget what they said they used; It's in the manual). Since all of these image frames must be stored on the CD, and since they were designing the game for good play time on the slower CD readers, they decided to shrink the game play window so not as much data would have to be read. Overall, the game play is quite simple and I think that once you've played it, all of the challenge is gone since it doesn't change much (if at all) during different instances of the game. Jeff -- -------------------------------------------------------------. | Jeff Lawson of JL Enterprises haroldf@rcf.usc.edu | | University of Southern California Phone: (213) 258-5604 | | Course Assistant for Computer Use (213) 258-4264 | `-------------------------------------------------------------' ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Jan 1994 21:42:37 -0800 From: blarren@uclink.berkeley.edu (Bart Adam Larrenaga) Subject: Not really a GUS problem, BUT... Yes, I know this is not really a GUS problem, but I hope that maybe someone has shared my problem. For Xmas, I got a Panasonic 562 CDROM. I've got it all hooked up, power, interface, everything. The driver and MSCDEX both load OK. I can switch to the drive. BUT, as soon as I try to do anything, i.e. take a directory listing, try to run a program, it says CDR101:Drive not ready, or something like that. From Windows, it says that it can't find the file. I can still play audio CD's on it, though. What gives? Any suggestions welcome. And now a GUS question...where can I get a cable to connect the drive to the CD line in on the GUS? --Bart Larrenaga ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Jan 94 12:25 GMT0 From: Christopher Heapy Subject: Problems With New Windows Drivers I tried installing the new GUS Windows drivers supplied with PMAK110.ZIP. I had no problem installing and using them, but I find that, by default, the line-in and mic inputs are enabled and I want them disabled. The setup dialog box for the driver no longer appears to offer the ability to change this (the old one did). Although the new Mixer app does have a save option this appears to have no effect (I checked in Ultramix.ini and the save option does write MUTE on the end of the relevant lines). The only alternative seems to be to load Mixer on starting Windows to turn off the inputs manually - which is a pain. Am I missing something? Chris. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Jan 94 18:09:49 GMT From: David Chapman Subject: Strange Hardware Problem I have a problem with my GUS and 486 66MHz VL computer. Some games work perfectly (Epic Pinball, F1GP (SBOS 1.20)), but some games crash after about 5 minutes (Doom, X-Wing, Terminator: Rampage demo). When they crash, the games freeze, the screen gets corrupted, and the soundcard just continuously dumps it's memory to the DAC. A friend has an identical computer (we bought them at the same time, only difference is in HD size) and everything worked perfectly in his machine when he borrowed my GUS. After swapping bits of hardware about, we finally diagnosed the problem as being the motherboard - swapping motherboards solved the problem. As far as I can tell, all jumpers on the two motherboards are identical. I also have problems accessing the FDD from linux - about 50% of the time it crashes the machine - it works fine in DOS. I am about to send my computer back for repair :-(, and would like to know if anyone has any idea what the problem with the motherboard could be. - David. ------------------------------ End of GUS Daily Digest V10 #2 ******************************