GUS Daily Digest Thu, 14 Apr 94 9:37 PST Volume 12: Issue 14 Today's Topics: Alone in the Dark 2 CWG GUS 32bit Sierra Drivers GUS Daily Digest V12 #13 Gus questions... Mega-EM Mega-Em and QEMM More on DOOM GUS caching optifix ORST PQ4 SFX/MUSIC in Windows Raptor sounds are aweful Seawolf (3 msgs) Sound Galaxy MIDI cable joystick extension(s)? Superunknown and various stuff Ultima 8 Upgrade 8 bits to 16 bits sampling 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: Thu, 14 Apr 94 17:08:45 MDT From: SGreenwo@MHS.Novell.COM (Scott Greenwood) Subject: Alone in the Dark 2 Does anyone know of any problems with Alone in the Dark 2, I caanot test it with my GUS for a couple of weeks untill I go home but if anyone has any ideas on the setup of MegaEm or SBOS etc please let me know. Thanks Scott ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 18:07:27 +1000 (EST) From: s9407312@minyos.xx.rmit.EDU.AU (Simon Charles Murphy) Subject: CWG Can anyone tell me what CWG is and if it is a magazine where I can get it from, and where it is possible to get past issues from. Thanks in Advance Simon (s9407312@minyos.xx.rmit.EDU.AU) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 12:27:26 -0300 (ADT) From: Jurassic Mark Subject: GUS 32bit Sierra Drivers GUS day people, I received a nice letter through snail-mail from Bryan Salois, technical support representative at Sierra On-Line today. Here's what the part I was looking for said: "Unfortunately, I have no information regarding the current status of any Gravis Ultrasound drivers for our newer games. There are no projected releases dates, nor is there any definite confirmation of any such drivers being created at this point that has been offered to us in Technical Support". I got the same reply from Sierra on America On-Line. There is still Greg on Compuserve that is supposed to get back to me in a few days, but that was 2 weeks ago. He never replied back to my letters since. I don't know, but it doesn't look good. I have this idea that Sierra dropped the project. All the letters I received said the same thing. But the letters I received were never clear. They is no confirmation that such driver is being created, etc... So, when you look at it the other way, those drivers can be created. I'll write again. But I invite everyone to write a nice letter to Sierra On-Line asking them to release the drivers. Don't ask them about the latest news about the drivers or you'll receive the same replies as me. Tell them that AG finished the drivers at the end of Febuary and that they sent them to Sierra. That'll make them search a little deeper for their information. Also, it is better to use snail-mail or FAX to the Sierra head-quarter in Coarsegold, CA. Marc Y. Paulin - Jurassic Mark (Usenet) - J-Mark (IRC) Graduating CS student in search of a job... - markus@clement.info.umoncton.ca (Talk 'n Mail) - (506)856-9518 - Inertia Player Beta Tester - Author of the G-List for Ultrasound owners ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 19:40:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Rath Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V12 #13 Sorry if this is a FAQ, but : Where may i find DMAUD.EXE for the monty python sounds for doom? I've gotten the sound zip already, now all it says that I need is the DMAUD. thanks! Rath ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 21:15:00 -0700 (PDT) From: Shane Conder Subject: Gus questions... Phat Tran: Thanks for the info. I decided to get the older card. The changes seem minimal, and won't affect me. Besides that, I got a 1meg cheaper than a new 256k card, so I think it will do for a while. I've had a PAS16 for 16 months now, and have liked it, but want to move on, so I'm switching. From what I've been hearing, it's a fairly good decision. Besides that, the GUS should be easier to program for, and I know it has better demo support. There's only one demo I've seen support the PAS16, and now most demos are supporting the GUS. Thanks again, Shane [saconder@sq.olympus.net] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Apr 94 19:57:23 EST From: jpoet@einet.com Subject: Mega-EM Does anyone know how I can get in touch with Jayeson Lee-Steere? I have been off the internet since September and just got back on. I registered Mega-Em with him last summer, and I would like to know what the current state of this great software is. Thanks, John ____________________ John Patrick Poet \ jpoet@einet.com \ Home: (505) 292 6197 \ Work: (505) 292 6961 \ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 11:51:55 -0500 (EST) From: V_IOURT@PAVO.CONCORDIA.CA Subject: Mega-Em and QEMM Hello, everyone! I'm having hard times getting Mega-Em to work. I use QEMM 7.03, and whenever I try to load Mega-Em, I get ERROR: EMM incompatibility problem: Resident code failing to respond. I have 16Mb of RAM and an Adaptec SCSI controller ( I use the -p switch). I tried to mail Gravis twice, but received no replies. Also, the card currently has the NEC D424256C-70 chips. Could I use 70ns xx24256x chips with it, or should they be the ones mentioned in the FAQ? Thanks in advance Vitaly Iourtchenko Concordia University ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Apr 94 22:43:07 +0300 From: Yossi Oren Subject: More on DOOM GUS caching I gather DOOM works like this: The first time an effect is played, it's loaded from the WAD into memory. Not GUS memory, system memory. That's why gameplay is a bit smoother if you let the demo run for a few seconds. For every time the effect is played, the Cygnus code DMAs the waveform over to the GUS, then fires it. If it has to mix 2 effects, it DMAs them seperately and fires them together. This means speed will be better than SB, but if you use bad code (like Term:Ramp's poking method) or are forced to use a low IRQ (damn that DOS/4GW!) you might not get peak performance. Still, if you have 3 sarges yelling and shooting at the same time, the GUS will polka when the SB will limp. Yossi. PS Hank Leukart, a.k.a. "Mr. FAQ" sez Commercial DOOM will use a MASI-like digital sound system, which should further slow it down on SB and further speed it up on GUS! Now my concern is that we'll be stuck with 4-channel compositions again... sniff... +---+---+---+---------------------------------------------------+---+---+ | = | E |_|/| Signature 1.31 | V | ^ | +---+---+---+---------------------------------------------------+---+---+ |Yossi Oren, Al-Daf Techno-Mercenaries, Rishon Le-Zion, Israel. Help | |TInternet EMail:LIOREN1@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL TT The people are T| ||Bitnet EMail:LIOREN1@WEIZMANN || with the Golan || ||Drag yer damn objects around. I've got work to do.|| Heights! || +====================================================++================++ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 14:26:17 -0700 From: dross@ultrix4.cs.csubak.edu (Dean Ross-Smith) Subject: optifix I've only been able to play raptor twice on my 'puter... Does anyone have optifix for Opti motherboards? Raptor keeps locking on me before I even get to the title screen. Could a kind soul please upload it to epas? Thanks in advance Dean Ross-Smith ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 94 10:10:26 MDT From: SGreenwo@MHS.Novell.COM (Scott Greenwood) Subject: ORST Just a quick question about archive.orst.edu, every time I try to log on as anonymous it replys user anonymous access denied.. login failed. ?? am I missing somthing? ( yes I did spell anonymous correctly). Thanks Scott. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 23:34:40 -0700 (PDT) From: swoo@netcom.com (Sky Woo) Subject: PQ4 SFX/MUSIC in Windows > > because I'm getting nothing from the GUS Windows drivers. If > anyone > > knows why it craps out on me when I'm in Windows... Please tell me. > > Or should I just wait until the Sierra GUS drivers arrive. But who > > knows > > when that'll be. > > If you like playing slow games run it under Winslows3.1. > Or just forget about it. (I'd choose the last one.) > > Viktor > Tell you what... You go out and buy a $40 game and find out that it doesn't work with the GUS... Than I'll tell you tough. Just don't play it. Gee, what now... you just wasted $40!!! Well... you can tinker it until it finally works which according to other people it has worked under Windows. And hoorrah!!! I finally have it working with all the music and sound effects under Windows. I just reinstalled it. The game is so much better and realistic with sound effects and music. Not sure what was wrong before. But it doesn't matter now. The game is not "slow" under Windows at least on my system. It runs at a very acceptable frame rate and does not drag. But that's just my system. What kind of system do I have which allows me such smooth play? 486/66 VLB 16MB of memory. Only bad thing about it is that it crashes quite often and completely pisses me off. But oh well... save often! I do that all time in Windows anyways. This will keep me held up until Sierra finally releases the DOS drivers. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 17:32:38 +0930 (CST) From: Gavin Scarman Subject: Raptor sounds are aweful Why does Raptor sound so bad? ie. the quality of the instruments is really poor. The stupid distortion guitar sound is even worse than in Doom and the reast of the music sounds really tinny, the only saving grace is the explosions are OK. I know Doom used Gravis/Forte's synth driver code and thus used the Forte GUS patches but Raptor doesn't seem to or else it's corrupting them. (BTW, Raptor is just too small - 1hr for 8 levels- to bother registering, IMHO.) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 15:38 MST From: Bryan Brown Subject: Seawolf Well, I don't know about the CD-ROM version of SeaWolf but the floppy disk version uses Ultramid to make noises for you. It sounds great, and the game is great fun. I have found one problem and haven't had the patience to determine if it's an Ultrasound problem or a programing problem. Every once in a while (usually when a lot of things are happening at once) the program terminates and gives a Kernel divide overflow (I think that's the precice wording). Sigh. At least that has only happend once or twice, the game overall is tremendous. ****************************************** * Ah, it seems he intends to kill us." * Bryan Brown * -The Doctor * Bryan@gse.utah.edu ****************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 14:48:39 +1000 (EST) From: Andrew See Subject: SeaWolf To That guy asking how to run Seawolf other than with SBOS, it has Native mode GUS support, and sounds tremedous. The game is filled with overlaid 16 bit samples, and a brilliant MIDI score, written by The Fatman. (7th Guest). All you have to do is run ultramid, loaded low, with no switches the game supports patch caching. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 01:03:00 -0400 (EDT) From: Drivers run for the nutrious taste of Renault Subject: SeaWolf OK, it supports sounds through AIL. Quite nice....BUT, there's this little problem with memory and the mouse driver, and well, you've heard it all before. OK, so the easy solution, like with Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space, is to use OS/2. BUT, it seems like OS/2 has trouble- no music at all. Only the digital, so a change. Any ideas?? Jeff ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 15:08:32 MST From: "Dean C. Johnson" Subject: Sound Galaxy MIDI cable joystick extension(s)? I've seen people post about using the less expensive Sound Galaxy MIDI cable ( no MIDI THROUGH ) instead of the Gravis MIDI box. I know it has atleast one jostick extension. Can anyone tell me if it supports two joysticks (when connected to the GUS)? -Thanks, Dean ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 13:25:10 -0400 From: Fok Leslie Li Sze Subject: Superunknown and various stuff OK, since I am using the unwieldy vi to do my messages and stuff, I am cramming everything into this one post. Well, I was seriously thinking about selling the GUS and get a Audiotrix instead. Then I ftped a few demos from wasp including Five, and the Some's Superunknown (which won The Gathering compo). Well, my heart was racing when I unarj the files as I saw the .pats. Sure enough, when I run the demo, no mods, (Ultramid was loaded), and there are some really nice "electric piano" sound. All in all I was very imparessed that they took advantage of the GUS DRAM and it is quite refreshing o watch a demo with midi instead of mods. Then I saw the other demos, and they were quite nice also. When I got to Timeless, I couldn't believe what I was hearing!!! It sounded simply AWESOME!! I kept telling myself that I am only listening to a 159 bucks soundcard, but my ears kept telling me otherwise. So, my point is, no way in hell am I going to sell my GUS. (and grab those demos!) Oh yeah, whoever says interpreting midi eats up cpu time should be shot! Superunknown ran superfast (almost too fast). To the guy with the Seawolf CD: I haven't seen this CD, but in the disk version Seawolf comes with Ultramid and use Miles Drivers, so I don't see that they'd change so radically from the two versions. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 15:55:40 GMT From: Mathew Taylor Subject: Ultima 8 Has anyone got any ideas on how to get GUS sound out of this game? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 15:14:58 +0200 From: z75@nikhef.nl (Jorritjan Niessink) Subject: Upgrade 8 bits to 16 bits sampling Sorry to bother you, but I've got a question about 16 bits sampling with the GUS. I've read about a kind of plug-in module to upgrade the 8 bits sampling GUS to 16 bits sampling. My local shop has also heard of it, but wonders if it is already available, as he hasn't seen one yet. So this is what I would like to ask: Do this plug-in module exist and if yes, where to get it. Can you also give a price-indication. Please email me directly, as I have not not much time to download the daily digest, and I'm not subscribed to the list. Please also email me before april 28th, because after that date, I've no access to email anymore. Thanks in advance ------------------------------------------------------- If I listen real close | I can even hear the dark side | Jorritjan Niessink of the moon | z75@nikhef.nl -- Melissa Etheridge | ------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of GUS Daily Digest V12 #14 *******************************