GUS Daily Digest Wed, 27 Apr 94 9:37 PST Volume 12: Issue 27 Today's Topics: audio accelerator Frequency Generator G-list GUS Daily Digest V12 #26 GUSTALKR Help w/ gus0041 how to create and use a RAM disk for USS8 inertia player where? Linux and GUS .. for smthomas@ubc.ca NHL Hockey No sound in OS/2 Rev 3.7 vs. rev 2.4 - MIDI clicks Soundcard Survey....1st summary Ultrinit,games,output,Gus+SB16+Win,U8, Sierra, MY QUESTION!! unsubscribe 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, 26 Apr 1994 15:26:06 -0400 (EDT) From: gt0074b@prism.gatech.edu (P.Chen) Subject: audio accelerator With the sound card industry going through what the video card industry went through years ago trying to establish standard software and hardware, Gravis should push the GUS as an audio accelerator board. It has all the characterisitics of an accelerator: it takes the load off the CPU through hardware mixing, it has its own memory which it can process, and.. uh... it sounds good. Sound bastard, on the other hand, requires heavy CPU time to process multi-channel audio. Someone posted information about a PC mag review of soundcards (sorry I forgot who it was) in which the reviewer griped about the Ultrasound using RAM instead of storing its samples in ROM. That's utterly moronic. It's like saying that back in 1985 the computers with BASIC in ROM were better than the ones that needed to load it in RAM. As unbelievable as it is, the GUS seems too far ahead of its time for the majority of people as short-sighted as these reviewers. Gravis is also to blame for lack of advertisement. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 94 23:48:58 MESZ From: Jochen_Quante Subject: Frequency Generator Hi there.... someone asked if there is a frequency generator for the GUS a few days ago. Well, now there is one. You can find it on Epas and its mirrors, filename is FREQGEN.ZIP Jochen -- ============================================================================= | Jochen Quante | E-Mail S_Quante@ira.uka.de | | Computer Science Student | or ukr8@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de | | University of Karlsruhe, Germany | IRC Jeckel on #Metal #GUS | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | DeepPurple J.M.Jarre LynyrdSkynyrd EricBurdon MontyPython GUS PCDemos | | Movies Fractals Raytracing Programming IRC Keyboard DouglasAdams Doom | ============================================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Apr 94 12:52:06 +0200 From: dv3perli@ida.his.se (Per Lindqvist) Subject: G-list Some people talk about a G-list. Is it a list how to get the GUS work with games who doesn't have GUS support or what? Where can I get it? From any ftp-sites? _________________________________________________ Per Lindqvist / \ Computer Science | /_\ /_\ | University of Skovde |_|_o|o_|_| E-Mail : dv3perli@ida.his.se / (_) \ \_________/ \_~_/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 01:02:59 -0400 (EDT) From: Phat H Tran Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V12 #26 > Date: Tue, 26 Apr 94 08:50:04 -0500 > From: Matt Carswell > Subject: DRAM failure? > > Ok, i just bought 6 256*4 60ns DRAM chips from CompUSA ($44) and upgraded my > 256K GUS to 1 meg. But under the advanced diagnostics section of setup ver 3.1 > i get a DRAM failure when I run the DRAM check, even though it recognises and > seems to check all 1025K. This would be a problem but everything else runs fine. FCs second reality and Tran's Hell demos work great. and those huge KLF mtm files play wonderfully under Inertia Player, which also recognises the upgrade. > what's going on? should I return the DRAM even though it works? should I care > about this error message? any helpful replies will be greatly appreciated. The diagnostics in setgus/setup will sometimes give false errors. A more reliable, but slower, DRAM tester is gusdram, which can be found on the GUS archive mirrors in ../util/dos. If you don't hear staticky noises in MIDs and MODs, then chances are your DRAMs are fine. > Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 16:20:08 -0230 > From: Daniel William Greenland > Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V12 #24 > > Just a quick question: > > My UltraSound card is initialized in both my config.sys and autoexec.bat > files. Is this really necessary? If not, which should I leave it in? The ultrinit.sys line in your config.sys isn't really necessary and can be gotten rid of. > Date: Mon, 25 Apr 94 19:29:35 MDT > From: Jeff S Shelman > Subject: GUS Games > [...] > Also can anyone recommend any good Demos? > Already have: Unreal 1.1, > 2ndReality, And > Elements Hell has excellent GUS audio. The recently released Show has high production value, and a decent MOD score. Crystal Dream 2 is one of those power-house demos, and has good GUS support. SuperUnknown is one of the few demos that use MIDI instead of MOD, and sounds good on the GUS but doesn't run for some people. > Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 06:13:45 -0500 (CDT) > From: ST4FX@Jetson.UH.EDU > Subject: GUS output? > > I was wondering why I can connect my speakers to the GUS amplified out, and > and instead of using either line in jacks, I can use the supposedly audio line > out jack to hook up my SB? Should I plug my SB into the Audio line in or can > I just leave it where it is and not fry my GUS 3.4? It's not normally healthy feeding power into an output jack. You might fry the DAC on the GUS. I'd suggest you use one of the inputs instead. > Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 16:24:13 -0230 > From: Daniel William Greenland > Subject: Monopoly Deluxe > > Being an avif Monopoly fan, I purchased the Deluxe edition from a nearby > Computer Software store. After installing it, I was disappointed that > the GUS was not supported. So, I picked up the trusty G-list to see what > the best configuration for the game was. In the G-list, it tells you to > replace a line in the monopoly.bat file so that you can use the support > of the UltraSound card. The problem is that, I copied the 2 .adv files > necessary into the directory and ran monopoly, but no sound! I tried > uninstalling SBOS from memory and just having Ultramid there...no go. > Any suggestions as to what I am doing wrong? Did you read the instructions on how to install the AIL drivers into a game? You normally can't just copy the drivers into the game's directory and expect them to be used. You have to copy them over existing drivers or add their names to a configuration file or else they won't even be loaded. > Date: Tue, 26 Apr 94 18:02:58 IDT > From: Doron Shikmoni > Subject: SB Emulation for input?!? > > I'm not sure whether this is a stupid question or not, so here: > I assume the current hi-tech SB emulators (SBOS, MEGAEM) all do > it for output (that is, for software to play SB-like sound over > the GUS). What if I have some software that expects an SB-connected > microphone input? Any chance for the GUS-connected mike to cheat > it into thinking it sees an SB mike? SBOS, amazingly enough, also emulates the SB's ADC so you can actually record with it. > Date: Mon, 25 Apr 94 18:09:34 -0400 > From: davej@ferry.polymer.uakron.edu (Dave Jiang) > Subject: Ultima VIII & GUS > > Is there a sound patch that plays Sound FX and Music for GUS for Ultima 8? > The music is not bad, but it would be better with some SFX... thx No GUS SFX drivers seem likely in the near (or distant) future as the game uses custom internal drivers for its digital sounds. > Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 11:35:15 GMT+1 > From: "F. Viktor" > Subject: Voyetra under Windoze > > Does somebody tried to use Voyetra on GUS too? > (Voetra Audio Station) > Why can't I get any midi sound from Voyetra but other > midi app.s are still working well? > Any ideas? Does Voyetra support patch caching? If not, that's your problem. Phat. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 94 17:40:37 CDT From: cardona@rwasic23.aud.alcatel.com (Gabe Cardona) Subject: GUSTALKR Hello GUSers... Has anyone had any experience with GUSTALKR text-to-speech utility?? When I try to run it using SBOS or MegaEm it locks up the machine. This is the only program that does this, and I'm wondering if anyone has gotten it to work, and if so, with what IRQ, DMA settings. Regards, Gabe Cardona ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 94 21:05:21 EDT From: Jeffrey D Keip Subject: Help w/ gus0041 I wanted to upgrade my software from v2.06a to the most recent, 3.1 (gus0041a/b). UNZIP succeded, with a warning for each file (I forget which), but I continued. I deleted the SBOS stuff and ULTRASND.INI and installed from unlabelled floppy. Everything seems to work fine from DOS, but upon entering Windows, I get a... "An error occurred in the grvsultr.386 driver that prevents the Ultrasound driver from being enabled. Please consult the users guide for troubleshooting information." Before installation, I had also removed the drivers from Windows, and rem'd out the GUS statements in AUTOEXEC and CONFIG (and rebooted). Did I just get a bad(ly uncompressed) driver or was there an intermediate upgrade to do? Thanks, Jeff jkeip@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 94 22:14:44 EDT From: "NEMO G DE FURIA" Subject: how to create and use a RAM disk for USS8 Hello all, The subject pretty much says it all. I've been using USS8 to try to create sound effects from different audio CDs. Problem is that I get random pops and clicks and noise. Now I use Stacker, a disk caching program from Central Point PCTools, and a memory manager. All these things probably play a factor in the noise that I'm experience, but I don't want to undo everything just to use USS8, so I thought that a RAM disk should do the trick. A long time ago, I had a very basic PC setup without the above stuff, but I still remember getting random noise, and I thought it might have been interference from my video card. I also got a pretty fast hard drive (11 ms I believe). Any help would be muchly appreciated! - Nemo. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 13:45:38 MET-1 From: "Juhasz Norbert" Subject: inertia player where? The subject tells everything. Where could I download it from? (preferably an ORST dir needed) Norbert Juhasz ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 09:43:50 -0500 From: marek@austin.ibm.com (Marek R. Telgarsky) Subject: Linux and GUS .. for smthomas@ubc.ca smthomas@ubc.ca Your mailing address bounced so I am "posting" here. You wrote: > Hi, I saw your posting in the UDD about the GUS and Linux. I am > considering installing Linux, but GUS support was one area of concern for > me. Can you give me some information as to what version of Linux is > needed, as well as any additional sound drivers? Any help is much > appreciated! > Thanks in advance, > Shawn. As far as Linux and Gus goes, you will still probably rely on your DOS software to play the various mod, med, s3m, 699, and midi files due to the fact that the players under linux are not all that great. Linux does support the gravis ultrasound, and the latest Kernel is 1.1.9, and you will have to get the latest sound driver as well, version 2.5. Linux is not an easy one task operating system like DOS. If you have had no prior UNIX experience, I would strongly suggest playing around a lot on machines other then your own first. There are plenty of SUN's and HP's and RISC6000 around to be a normal user on, before you take on administration of your home system. I am thinking about developing some sound players for linux, and I will release them under the General Public License. You will probably be seeing better sound support in the future, as well as other stuff since Linux users are almost as defensive about their OS as Amiga'ers are about their hardware. Here's the good news, Linux is a very good operating system, with a very stable base, and a list of free software that is difficult to match. Much of the linux distribution is GNU software developed by the Free Software Foundation. The Slackware 1.2.0.2 distribution comes with pretty much everything you will ever need on your system. Another added bonus to Linux is that all of the source code is obtainable if not included in the distribution. Linux of course will run any programs created for other UNIX machines. So while the sound may be crappy now, there are a lot of programmers out there creating new applications for linux. So there is hope. Another thing I like about linux, is the fact that it is free; and that I do not have to pirate software in order to have a good set of applications on my system. Hope this helped, have a good one. Marek ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 03:48:48 -0300 (ADT) From: "ALLAN P. BIRD " Subject: NHL Hockey Can someone tell me what the newest version of SBOS is ?? I recentely downloaded a version which was supposed to have solved the speech problem with NHL Hockey, however, it leaves much to be desired. I have found that installing megaem provides a far better effect then to that of SBOS for the digitized stuff but you don't get the music. Any suggestions ?? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 00:24:05 -0400 (EDT) From: rjm@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca Subject: Re: No sound in OS/2 Jurassic Mark wrote: > I just installed OS/2 2.1 this weekend and grab the OS/2 GUS > drivers. Don't know which one it is, but the zip file starts with ULTRA. > How can I enable the line-in? The OS/2 Cd Player plays the CD, > but nothing comes out? If I run Inertia Player in a DOS box, then I hear > the CD audio. But as soon as I close it, no go. GSET (from Francois > Dion) and ULTRINIT l o doesn't leave it on although it works for DOS. If you have a rev 3.7 card, you must start a DOS session and type "ultrinit -l -o" to put the mixer on the board into transparent mode. It will be handled by the driver in the next release (after taxes :(). Robert. -- # Robert J. Manley, rjm@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca # # NTT Systems Inc., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA # # OS/2:OSs :: 92,93 Blue Jays:MLB :: Canada:World # ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 08:17:23 -0400 (EDT) From: mikebat@netcom.com (Mike Batchelor) Subject: Rev 3.7 vs. rev 2.4 - MIDI clicks I have several new rev 3.7 boards at work, and my own rev 2.4 board at home. First thing I noticed with the new boards is clicking at the start of some notes on several different MIDI files, including the ones that were bundled with the GUS. Well, I've had a chance to compare against the rev 2.4 board I have had for more than a year, and I cannot get it to click like that at all. Not on my home PC, and not on my work PC where I first heard the clicking with the rev 3.7 board. To top it all off, I put in a rev 3.7 board in my home PC, and the clicking is here, too. It happens with both the old Playmidi, the new Playmidi, and Media Player under Windows. On my work PC, I seem to have removed most of the clicks by going to 220,1,3,7,7, but they still are heard in some MIDI songs. I haven't yet gotten rid of them on my home PC, at the same settings, and also at my usual 220,7,1,7,5. Has anyone else heard this clicking at the start of notes? What is the solution? If you care to, I have put easy.zip on netcom2.netcom.com in /pub/mikebat, and if I play this one on a rev 3.7 GUS, it always clicks somewhere, no matter what I do. Easy.mid is an MT32 MIDI with CFG file mt32pat.cfg, and uses log volume. Playing it with linear volume has no effect on the clicking. Dumping the easy.cfg makes them go away, but the patches are not the same: fretless becomes xylophone or something like it. And not every song that uses fretless has clicking problems. -- Mike Batchelor | UseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinux mikebat@netcom.com | xuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesU ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Plug 'N' Play: A specification invented by Microsoft and Intel which enables a computer and its operating system to create hardware conflicts without user intervention. No more jumpers to misplace! The computer will misplace them for you. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Apr 94 15:35:34 +1000 From: s2102949@cse.unsw.edu.au (David Khoury) Subject: Soundcard Survey....1st summary To all those people that do not read the newsgroup comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard, here is a preliminary summary on results so far...... (taken word for word from the news article!!) Note, I am just forwarding this article from the news group, I am NOT running this survey. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: survey@star3.ph.utexas.edu (Soundcard Survey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard Subject: Soundcard Survey: For all soundcard owners (1st summary) Date: 25 Apr 1994 15:32:24 GMT Organization: University of Texas Physics Dept. Lines: 54 Message-ID: <2pgnq8$e0e@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: star3.ph.utexas.edu As you may know, a survey was started last week to determine the relative numbers of owners of various sound cards (of the population which reads this newsgroup). After approximately four days of running, I have some (very) preliminary numbers for you. Before you explode upon reading the numbers, read the comments which follow. Card # of Respondants GUS 418 SoundBlaster 62 WaveBlaster 12 ProAudio Spectrum 45 Turtle Beach Cards 16 Roland Synths 27 The comments: 1) The GUS owners had about a two-day lead on responding. Assuming a constant daily response rate (a bad assumption, actually, because most people respond within the first day), this translates into about 40% extra GUS responses. I don't believe that there are more GUS owners than SB owners on the net; they just might be more vocal (surprise!) 2) The possibility of adding categories still exists. So far I have received suggestions of adding the Logitech Soundman, the IBM mWave series of cards, and cards based on the Aria chipset. However, I have received only *one* suggestion for each of the aforementioned cards, so I am not inclined to add them yet. If you own one of those cards, respond to this note telling me so...At about 5 responses, I'll add the card to the survey and send out an announcement. Survey catagories are: sb : Any SoundBlaster product wb : The WaveBlaster add-on card for the SB16 line pas : Any card in the ProAudio Studio/Spectrum line turtle : Any card from Turtle Beach roland : Any card from Roland gus : The Gravis Ultrasound and GUS Max 3) Following this note, I will send out summaries for each card, including names of all respondants. All surveys have had their entries run through 'sort' and 'uniq,' so the order is purely that of an alphabetical sort. I ran' uniq' to cut down on the number of multiple responses...This probably wasn't the perfect thing to do, but I felt it was the best option available. 4) If you included any text or questions in notes sent in response to individual surveys, you won't get an answer. This is not because I am rude, but because I don't read the incoming mail. Incoming mail is automagically processed by the computer; I never see it. I read only the mail which is sent to this account (survey@star3.ph.utexas.edu). ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well guys, I really think that we've routed the sceptics well and truely. The GUS is taking on the best of them, and winning!!! Long live the GUS!! (Well, until the next major advancement in soundcard technology anyway!!) Happy GUSing.... David Khoury. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 20:27:57 -0400 (EDT) From: Mark Firoozfar Subject: Re: Ultrinit,games,output,Gus+SB16+Win,U8, Sierra, MY QUESTION!! On Tue, 26 Apr -1, GUS Server wrote: > From: Daniel William Greenland > Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V12 #24 > > Just a quick question: > > My UltraSound card is initialized in both my config.sys and autoexec.bat > files. Is this really necessary? If not, which should I leave it in? > > Danny Greenland > Nope, you only need it in one place. I have mine in my autoexec.bat. > >--------------------------------------- > Date: Mon, 25 Apr 94 19:29:35 MDT > From: Jeff S Shelman > Subject: GUS Games > > Hi Fellow GUSers, > I'm looking to buy a new game for my computer, but am not sure > what to get. > In the opinion of all those that read this digest, what is the > best game out with native or reliable GUS support. (By best game > I mean overall Sound, Graphics and Playability.) > What type of game are you looking for? Some good ones with good GUS sounds are: DOOM, RAPTOR, Simcity 2000, Syndicate, Ultima 8 (you only get music if you don't have a SB in your PC), Xwing(+add-ons), etc... I hope I've covered most of the areas of gaming. > Also can anyone recommend any good Demos? > Already have: Unreal 1.1, > 2ndReality, And > Elements > Don't know too much about demos other than what you wrote, but I also have TIMELESS and SuperUnknown which are pretty good. (I get a devide by zero in SuperUnknown though, anyone know hot to fix this?) > ------------------------------ > > Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 06:13:45 -0500 (CDT) > From: ST4FX@Jetson.UH.EDU > Subject: GUS output? > > I was wondering why I can connect my speakers to the GUS amplified out, and > and instead of using either line in jacks, I can use the supposedly audio line > out jack to hook up my SB? Should I plug my SB into the Audio line in or can > I just leave it where it is and not fry my GUS 3.4? > Huh? You want to get a input signal through an output port??? I am assuming that you are feeding your SB's line-out into your GUS and then sending both to speakers right? So why would you stick the SB output into the GUS output, you can kill one or both cards. This is what I did, Connected SB line-out to GUS low-level line-in and GUS low-level line-out to amped speakers and GUS amped line-out to a set of headphones. This works great. Give it a shot. > ------------------------------ > > Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 08:41:26 -0400 > From: Martin H Rogers > Subject: Multiple sound cards config in Windows? > > The reason I'm asking is that I've lost the ability to access the GUS > mixer in Windows. Is there a way to best set up the wav, aux, and midi > drivers to use the GUS as midi, SB16 as wav, and whatever works best for > the other two? > > Thanks, > -Martin > I just did this last night with a new SBPRO. There is a guide on how to set up an SB with your GUS on the epas mirror sites in ultrasound/info directory called SBGUSFAQ.ZIP. This file basically takes you through the entire coexistance process including HW, DOS, and WIN. I did not follow the windows section like the FAQ but I did get results and my GUS mixer works. The multimedia extentions for windows adds a new sound configuration applet to your control panel. Using this I changed the WAV device from the GUS to SBPRO and it all seems to work flawlessly. Except of course, the SB mixer doesn't work. But I seemed to be able to set my CD volume through the CD program that comes with the SB. Also, during installation, it asked if it could write over two files in windows and I assumed these were GUS files and so I didn't over write them. Hope this helps. > ------------------------------ > > Date: Mon, 25 Apr 94 18:09:34 -0400 > From: davej@ferry.polymer.uakron.edu (Dave Jiang) > Subject: Ultima VIII & GUS > > Is there a sound patch that plays Sound FX and Music for GUS for Ultima 8? > The music is not bad, but it would be better with some SFX... thx > > David Jiang Sure, there is a hardware patch that you can get from your.local.computer.store , it is called SB.zip:). No, unfortunately there is no patch that will do that. This is because the hacked ail drivers by Origin are not public and Gravis, the maker of the wonderful music patch, has no way how to make a patch for SFX. So you have 3 options, 1: Do without the SFX. 2: Write Origin, give them hell, and hope they make GUS patches, and ofcourse you have to wait till they're done. and 3: Do what I did, succumb to the sensless forces of free market and go and buy a SB. > > Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 13:41:15 +0500 > From: gt7985c@prism.gatech.edu (Gary Robert Veduccio) > > All I want to know is if Sierra already made the 32-bit drivers 3 weeks ago, > what are they waiting for. I have been waiting for the drivers for PQ4, > Gabriel Knights, etc. I just wish they would give us GUS users some thought. > They are making sure that you and I Mr GUS users out here will not bitch that the drivers don't work once we get them. They are doing quality assurance tests right now. Hang on, I am waiting for them too(Windows is definitely not made for running GKCD), I just prefer working drivers when I get them. ********************************* Now my own question!! How do you set the volume on SBPRO? Is there a way to do it in software? I know the mixer can do this but it seems like you have to load in two drivers in config.sys before it works and they take up too much memory space. I did look through the SB manual but I saw lots of cartoons and pretty pictures but not much useful tech info on this, and oh, did I mention the wonderful illustration which depicts the proper technique to take-out a screw? Geeze! Anyway, when ever I have to load up a minimal boot-up configuration for those nasty games that always require boot disks(like the voodoo crap in ultima7), the SB output becomes too low. Thanks. Mark. mfirooz@wam.umd.edu ------------------------------ End of GUS Daily Digest V12 #27 *******************************