GUS Daily Digest Mon, 13 Feb 95 9:37 PST Volume 19: Issue 13 Today's Topics: 3-D Audio 3D-audio games _SUMMARY: dropped MIDI notes in Windows AMD Interwave and MK2 Diamond video and GUS GUS and ST: A Final Unity GUS CD?? GUS Daily Digest V19 #10 GUS Daily Digest V19 #12 (3 msgs) How does Ultramid use GUS MENZOBERRANZAN CD MK2 More info on "The Ultrasound Experience" CD Sbos SBOS vector not functional Win95 and Standard Mode drivers... Win95 Probs 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: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 10:49:22 GMT From: Clarke Brunt Subject: Re: 3-D Audio > ................. They are being sued by Focal Point 3D Audio who are > also suing Forte Technologies Inc. > It appears that Gravis had a license to sell 3D audio sound > cards, but that license ran out in January. Gravis says that future > versions will not have this feature. Anyone got any idea what particular feature of the GUS cards we are talking about here?? I thought that the Focal Point 3D Audio stuff was software, which programmed the GUS to generate sounds which gave the impression of 3-D. I didn't think that there was any hardware on the card particularly dedicated to this. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Feb 95 09:16:13 EST From: jday@bank-banque-canada.ca (Jim Day) Subject: 3D-audio games Hi All, Anyone who wants to hear 3D audio in action should hunt for a shareware game called LINEWARS. It supports GUS with 3D audio. This is NOT an amazing game, but it uses the 3D audio. I don't know of any FTP sites, I only have Internet mail. Sorry. Jim ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Feb 95 08:19:53 -0600 From: "David Grayless" Subject: _SUMMARY: dropped MIDI notes in Windows A week ago, I asked for help with dropped MIDI notes in windows. I received several suggestions, as well as requests for the answer from others experiencing the same problem. I am not sure why, but the only thing that helped was when I changed the IRQ and DMA numbers in the GUS driver. This has reduced the number of dropped notes noticably. Other suggestions were to get more GUS memory (I already have 1 meg), and to increase the number of simultaneous voices in the GUS driver (this did not help and made the sound get distorted and scratchy). Thanks again to everyone who helped me. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 15:13:11 -0800 (PST) From: George Subject: AMD Interwave and MK2 The following is an excerpt I found this in one of the soundcard newsgroups posted by D6B@ECL.PSU.EDU (Dan E Babcock) on the AMD Interwave: And I quote: "AMD has a new sound chip, the 78C201 ("InterWave"), which is a compatible superset of the Ultrasound. It interfaces to the ISA bus and implements Plug-and-Play. Local memory is (maximum) 16MB RAM/ROM. The synth improves on the Ultrasound's GF1 by supporting 44.1Ks with all 32 voices operating and adds some gizmos (effects generation, frequency/volume modulation from RAM tables, u-law sample support, etc). The chip also includes an independent sample stream playback/record section with support for compressed samples. The DAC/ADC converters are 16-bits and built on the chip. Hooks are provided for an external DSP (for what it's worth)." Unquote... Sounds pretty good from the description. Especially like the sample playback at 44.1kHz in 32 voices, plug-n-play (whenever Chicago comes out), special effects, and ... 16 MEGS OF RAM. Confusing part is the 16MB of ROM?!?!?! -George ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 15:39:04 +0100 From: A.PAUW@elsevier.nl Subject: Diamond video and GUS As I want to upgrade my system a little bit I am considering upgrading the video card. I have a slow Trident 8900CL card. For the software I have now (WinJammer Pro 4.0, having a mixer panel!) the screen updates are too slow. I am thinking about the Diamond Stealth/Speedstar video card with ISA connector. Does anybody know about incompatibilities with the UltraSound (rev. 3.7)? Yeah, I don't have PCI or VLB busses, so it must be ISA. In other words, anyone who has the combination Diamond video card and UltraSound ran into any problems? Thanks in advance! Albert a.pauw@elsevier.nl ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 03:00:40 -0500 (EST) From: dodo@world.std.com (Dean ODonnell) Subject: GUS and ST: A Final Unity "Neil L. Sharp" <0006796954@mcimail.com> said: > Has anyone tried the new demo for Star Trek: A Final Unity (CD-ROM)? Yup. > Trying to > figure out how to get GUS to work with it. I have tried MegaEM, SBOS, no > drivers, and nothing works for sound. If I load no drivers, and select no sound > the game demo will play, but with no sound. Otherwise, my computer reboots > every time I start the program. Anyone heard of this or experienced it? Also, > does anyone know if the final version will have GUS native support. Would be a > shame, the game looks to be very good (graphics, etc.). I had the same problem. I can only commiserate with you. I couldn't get it to work either, BUT if you check out the stuff the setup program writes to your hard drive, you'll see that there are a couple of .WAV files there. Yes, that actually is a 2 Meg .WAV file! You can play them and hear the soundtrack with playfile. So, you can watch the demo w/o the sound, or play the sound w/o the video. Kinda sucks, but at least you get to hear the sound. Dean ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 00:51:48 +1100 (EST) From: Paul Conroy Subject: GUS CD?? Does anyone know what Gravis support CD's are available?? I have the "Ultrasnd Experience" CD which has some BBS-ready support files, though I'm looking for something that covers more support utils and files, plus mid's and mods etc.. Some of the GUS ftp Sites refer to a "GUS CD".. What does that mean? Can any of the sites supply mirror CD's like some sites do for BBS's wishing to mirror the bulk of a site's files? mucho obligo ----------------------------------+------------------------------------ * tetsuo@daemon.apana.org.au: Sysop at Interzone bbs, St.Kilda beach * ----------------------------------+------------------------------------ Cyberpunk, Future-Culture, Sci-Fi, Hacking, Phreaking, Taboo stuff Japanese anime & manga, Cult Films, E-Zines, Cracks, Cheats, Games Midi, Digital Sound, Gravis, PC Communications, tasteless, Comics. ----------------------------------+------------------------------------ Phone +61-3-5317846 * Fido 3:634/378 * Sound Board 15:4100/124 ----------------------------------+------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 09:33:35 -0500 From: iclnl!pvh@relay.NL.net (Pieter van Horssen) Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V19 #10 Jason wrote: > Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 17:18:00 -0500 > From: jason.wong@canrem.com (Jason Wong) > Subject: MIXER not working? > > I just downloaded GUS0045.ZIP which contains MIXER.EXE, the new > graphical DOS mixer. Isn't this program supposed to have sliders where > you can change the output level like the mixer in Windows? Well, when I > run Mixer, I can only change Line In On/Off, Mic In On/Off, or Mute > Output. No sliders to change the volume. What am I doing wrong? > Why is it that every time a so-called solution is available it does not work or is missing out facilities compared with a earlier version (DOS or Windows). I have seen the same problem with the DOS mixer. Is it because this update does not come from Gravis? Or is it just lacking of quality ? TIA, Pieter van Horssen ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 21:15:57 +0200 From: Samuli Niiranen Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V19 #12 > Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 12:53:58 CST > From: Senopati Pamungkas > Subject: Re: GUS + RAP-10 > > >Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 17:04:50 -0500 (EST) > >From: Scott D Hansma > > > I'm playing WC3 with SCC1 for music, and GUS for sfx. I have the SCC1 > output connected to GUS line-in. Just type "ULTRINIT -O -L" before > loading WC3. > How much better is the SCC1 wavetable compared to GUS's for example with WC3? I'm thinking of getting a roland aside my GUS. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 18:22:54 -0500 From: jhladun@io.org (John Hladun) Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V19 #12 > >Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 14:11:05 +1130 (???) >From: -=MHz/DMK=- >Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V19 #11 > >Hi All .. I have the 3.59 disk installed and with DO NOT work with win95 >build 324 ... I reinstalled them and still didn;t work .. Does anyone >know if thee are "standard mode" divers for windows (OLD !) ... I really >need the GUS in win95 ... when I boot I get a IOS error and says >protected mode failed or something like that ... please help .. >-=MHz/dMk=- > >------------------------------ I'm having precisely the same problem. Some people claim that they are getting their ultrasounds to work in win95. I'd like to know what the setup differences are between my machine and those that work. Any takers? I have tried all (most) possible combinations of hardware settings. I just ordered the Win95 Unauthorized tech reference from my book club. This book includes a whole bunch of nice snooping utilities. Maybe I can figure out what the specific conflict is. --->John. > John Hladun jhladun@io.org Toronto, Ontario, Canada **************************** Finger for PGP Key **************************** ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 07:19:45 -0600 From: riedl@cs.umn.edu (John Riedl) Subject: GUS Daily Digest V19 #12 > Has anybody had problems with the digital sound driver for under a > killing moon? The program detects my gus but the sound test is garbled. I > have tried heaps of different irq/dma combinations but all produce the > same result. It works fine in all other games, so i assume it is the game > that is stuffing up. Anyone know of a patch out there? Yes, I have had a sound problem with UaKM, but not quite that one. My problem is that when I enable MIDI music the performance of my CD-ROM *and* video card both drop by a factor of two (almost exactly!) as measured by UaKM. When I leave music off, the game plays fine. I've tried all sorts of IRQ/DMA combinations with no change. When I called UaKM, I talked their tech support guy into going to talk to their developer guys. They said the GUS was the hardest sound card to support, and they're not at all surprised by the performance hit. This statement confuses me, since I would have expected MIDI music to use very little CPU or bus time. Does anyone know what's going on? Thanks, John ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 15:30:56 +0000 (GMT) From: smarij@ismennt.is (Hordur Smari Johannesson) Subject: How does Ultramid use GUS Hey I was just wondering how Ultramid uses the GUS. Does it play samples like soundblaster (from system ram) or from the GUS DRAM chips. I've noticed that some games using Ultramid sound like my soundblaster card when I use GUS. Smari ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 10:06:13 +0200 From: ch92633@atlas.central.ntua.gr (stilpeanoy christian) Subject: MENZOBERRANZAN CD Has anyone got Menzo.. to work with the GUS? Strangely enough, the game ships with GUS drivers ! (gusmid32.dll and gusdig3ll -32 bit AIL drivers, I guess). Yet there is no option for GUS. Copying The g gus drivers over some other's card drivers gives nice MIDI music and sound and a nice lockup. ? I've tried editing the sound.ini with the same result. SBOS doesn't work. It's protected mode, also, so no MegaEM. The funniest thing is that when you run the sound setup program the first thing it does is loadpats. I've also got some problems (read lockups) with Xwing and Tie Fighter: Xwing: with Megaem the intro works just fine, but when I get to flight it locks up. Tie fighter: I get the message "Unknown DSP command 1C [...] please report to Advanced Gravis [...] system halted". Cute, eh? My settings are: address:220h MIDI IRQ:7 SB IRQ :5 DMA:1 I have an Ultrasound clone with 512k of RAM. It has the GF1 chip, but I'm not sure if it's a plain GUS or a MAX (anyway, compatible)(I would go for the real thing but that was impossible to find here in Greece so I was very happy to find at least a compatible) Why do I ask this ? There are signs of MAX in it, as: 1) it upgrades to 1meg with a 512k chip 2) I did some recording with Win's sound recorder and it came out 16bit it also has cd interfaces. Yet some programs won't let me record in 16bit. The question is - how do I find out if it's really a MAX? Well, that's enough wasted bandwidth...:) RJ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 15:16:04 -0800 (PST) From: George Subject: MK2 Oops, forgot to ask this question with the AMD Interwave info. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have brought upon you GUS folks. Anyways, I read in the comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action newsgroup that Mortal Kombat 2 is now out. Anyone here played the game and comment on the Gravis UltraSound support? How well does it sound compared to the arcade? -George ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 00:38:51 -0800 (PST) From: Loren Kling (that's me) Subject: More info on "The Ultrasound Experience" CD I bought my copy of the CD at Software Etc. in San Diego, California for $4.99 U.S. I'm sure that you can get the CD elsewhere, but I wouldn't know where else. There is a rebate offer of $10.00 U.S. if you buy the CD and a GUS but I don't know if the rebate is still good or expired. Here is what appears on the back of the CD package: OVER 100 MB OF ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE INCLUDING: * The Ultrasound Experience - An interactive multimedia presentation on sound cards. * Games and Game Updates - Including Doom (Episode one), Jazz Jack rabbit, Hocus Pocus, Tetris Pro, Epic Pinball [the same board that appears on the 3.59 software bonus disks], Zone66, One Must Fall, and Wacky Wheels. * Playable Game demos - The Horde, Terminator Rampage, Pinall Fantasies, and Nascar Racing [one track, 3 laps at the most before you run out of gas, I can't get the music to work, and only in VGA. I guess you need the actual game to get SVGA graphics]. * Working software demos - Including Cakewalk Pro 3.0 and Cakewalk Home Studio. * "Euro Demos" - A sampling of the world's best demos, including Second Reality, Unreal, Crystal Dreams 2, Epic, Verses, and Heart Quake. UltraSound installation disks, updates, patches, and utilites. * MIDI, MOD, and Ultratracker music files. * And much more. Here is a short rundown of the directories on the CD. BBSFILES: Contains files that should/probably/etc. appear on the ftp sites. I don't know if there are extra files on the CD. There is a listing within this directory of most of the files on the CD. It is a large text file so I won't stick it into the digest unless billions/millions/tens of people want to read it. DEMOS: More demos than you could ever watch in one or two sittings. Future Crew, Virtual Visions, Asm'94 winners and runner ups, Party III winners and runnerups, and more (These are "demo" get-togethers where people can show off their demos. They are quite amazing! DOOM: The shareware version in all of its glory! GUS357: The version 3.57 GUS software. MIDS: Midi files (about a dozen or so). MODS: .mod files (spend a quiet night cuddled up with someone special and the .mod file: PETSHOPB.MOD (hee hee)! ULTRAEXP: This is an "in-store" display kind of self-running program hypes the GUS. It compares various features with that of other "lowly" sound cards. Note: The CD contains all of the GUS sounds, music examples, etc. This is so the software store running the does not have to worry about using an actual GUS. (but why not?) UTILS: Utilites and such -- *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* | Loren Kling | * lkling@ucssun1.sdsu.edu * | SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY | *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 05:05:55 MET From: Tord_Nilsson@lector.kth.se Subject: Sbos Hello everybody. I have both a Gus and a Soundblaster soundcard. Now i am wondering if there is a soundblaster daily digest anywhare on internet? I know that this subject not belong here but i would be wery grateful i anyone could give my that e-mail adress in that case. Thanks in advance /t ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 21:04:43 -0800 (PST) From: TRUONG NGUYEN Subject: SBOS vector not functional I recently bought yet another GUS for my a new computer. They're great sound cards. Anyways, I bought this one used of the net. All the dma, irqs and addresses check out through the diagnostics. But the card still does not work. It says: SBOS vector not functional My guess is that the previous owner had configured the card in some way to work with a soundblaster. If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix this problem, it would be greatly appreciated. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Truong Nguyen | Electrical Engineering & Computer Science | csa-mu@po.eecs.berkeley.edu | University of California, Berkeley | vtruong@uclink2.berkeley.edu |---------------------------------------------| vince1@freenet.fsu.edu | "It is by will alone I set my mind in | av142@yfn2.ysu.edu | motion" - Dune Mentat | =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 09:36 -0500 From: DANTONIO@PROCESS.COM (Momentary Language, Sexual Situations) Subject: Win95 and Standard Mode drivers... >Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 14:11:05 +1130 (???) >From: -=MHz/DMK=- >Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V19 #11 >Hi All .. I have the 3.59 disk installed and with DO NOT work with win95 >build 324 ... I reinstalled them and still didn;t work .. Does anyone >know if thee are "standard mode" divers for windows (OLD !) ... I really >need the GUS in win95 ... when I boot I get a IOS error and says >protected mode failed or something like that ... please help .. Ha! Hahahahahahahahahah! Thanks, I just had to get that out...:-) There have never been standard mode drivers for the GUS, something that OS/2 folks have been asking for for quite some time. How ironic that the Windows 96 folks have now been trashed out as well! Hey, Gravis, where is the protected mode MegaEm and (non-alpha) OS/2 drivers? DDA ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 14:23:59 -0600 From: bbaskin@mail.utexas.edu (Bryan K. Baskin) Subject: Win95 Probs Hey Y'all, I don't have a version of Win95, but the current GUS drivers for Win31 are VxD's (reason they don't work in OS/2) and since they directly relate to the hardware, MS is trying to phase people away from wirtting these kinds of device drivers. Most likely, you will have to wait for a more normal 16bit driver or a Win95 specific driver. Some of this may be off the mark, but i believe this is the case, correct me if i'm wrong. Baskin -) The University of Texas at Austin Team OS/2 ------------------------------ End of GUS Daily Digest V19 #13 *******************************