Ultrasound Daily Digest Wed, 6 Jan 93 Volume 2 : Issue 5 Today's Topics: Curiosity about what low-level things GUS can do Get ready for this GUS NT Driver(s)? GUS questions and remarks GUS support for Standard Mode Windows GUS worked fine on my 386/40 Opti AMI hippy newts ear Is there MT-32 Emulation?? (2 msgs) New Windows Driver questions.. OXYD PatchMgr bug? Request for files to Digest File Server SBOS 1.23 SBOS 1.23 and digitized sound Software updates Some Questions.... Where are the 669 Files on EPAS? Windows and GUS/SBOS Wired for Sound Pro - Help Information about the UltraSound Daily Digest (such as mail addresses, request servers, ftp sites, etc., etc.) can be found at the end of the Digest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 16:01:20 GMT From: fisher@decwin.enet.dec.com () Message-Id: <1993Jan5.160120.21526@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> Subject: Curiosity about what low-level things GUS can do To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Some questions about how GUS works. If anyone can legally answer, I'd appreciate it. Does the GUS board have a programmable processor? I imagine it as a CPU that reads an "instruction stream" from GUS memory, where the instructions are stuff like "Play the following data at frequency x.", and "loop back to address y". But we know there are other things it can do like arithmetically mixing data streams. So what can it do? Related question: How much of what happens when you play a midi file is done by the driver, and how much by the GUS? For example, does the driver actually do the timing and interpreting of the MIDI file, choose the right patch, and just tell the GUS to play it? Someone said that the gus piano patch actually consisted of several samples at different frequencies. Does the GUS understand this itself and convert note commands into playing the correct samples, or is this all a driver function? Do samples have to be loaded into GUS memory to play, or can they be played directly somehow? Thanks for indulging my curiosity... Burns ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 22:00:51 EST From: dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion) Message-Id: <9301070300.AA04843@brise.ERE.UMontreal.CA> Subject: Get ready for this To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Beyond the ultraworld of Ultrasound: > From: "It's your hand, Buckaroo" > Subject: GUS & Winmod Pro in Stereo! > > Does anyone else notice that WinMod Pro playing stereo slows down Windows > (yeah, it's slow already, but...:-)?? Or is it just my setup? Extremely slow or dead... what's the diff? (Can't believe you said that...) > ------------------------------ > From: "Frank Pikelner" > Subject: GUS and higher bus speeds > >I have a 386/40 with the OPTI chipset, and run my GUS at 13.2MHz - no problems. I have a 386/33 with no chipset (full size with conventionnal chips) and run the 16 bit bus at 16 MHz, 1 wait state with no problem either. Been running at that speed since beginning of october. (I put it back at 8 MHz each time i had a problem, but it was not the bus speed, so it went back to 16. I now have a switch for that). > ------------------------------ > From: knepley@CS.ColoState.EDU (Ranseus (Jim Knepley)) > Subject: GUS CARD > > Yep, I'm running QEMM 6.02 with Stealth and high memory enabled, the GUS > does seem to conflict slightly with my mouse (occasional lockups of the > mouse) and I can't run Fastback 2.10 any more. I have no problem running: QEMM+STACKER+VGA_NTSC+SBOS+CDROM+MOUSE+SMARTDRIVE > ------------------------------ > From: ken@batman.austin.ibm.com (Ken Goach) > Subject: Hardware volume control > > Hi all, > > Well, I noticed another person wishing for a hardware volume control. > I run my GUS into a mixer, which solves this problem for me, but I > have a fix for others. Are there people running the GUS directly to speakers??? I hope not... A mixer or preamp is almost a must. Either that, or you have powered speakers (and so have volume control). I just plugged some speakers in the card (i was running it thru my mixer) and i can say that it is not very powerful... > I'd guess these things run for >$5.00. 99$ IS >$5.00 ... 8) > ------------------------------ > From: mtichy@sfu.ca > Subject: I U/L more 669s! > > I will be uploading another batch of .669 music files to Alright! Keep em coming! > ------------------------------ > From: babcock@osl.csc.ncsu.edu (Chris Babcock) > Subject: SBOS 1.23 > > While talking to Forte, I asked some questions about SBOS 1.23. Turns > out this version was never supposed to go public (not anywhere near > ready for release). They said to keep using SBOS 1.22 until another > version appears on the BBS (other than the current 1.23). I find that 1.23 is better than 1.22, so i dont see why it shouldnt be out. Wolf3D was unlistenable with 1.22 and before at normal levels because the doors would make so much noise thru my speakers that it was painful. Now it's balanced (of course not everybody is listening to their GUS thru 200 watts amps...) Now, if we could have 2 volume controls like -v: one for adlib sounds and one for digitised sounds. > ------------------------------ > From: GJames > Subject: Windows and GUS/SBOS > > Installation was pretty staright forward, but I have to use 8 bit > DMA : ( . I ran flidemo and mididemo to check the card and You have an opti chipset? > I then ran the > Gravutil program and it saya I have a conflict. Is this program > reliable? I have tried lots of IRQ, I/O and Dma combinations and This is for the joystick. You simply have a joyport already at 201h. > gravutil always reports a conflict. Should I ignore this ? Disable your joystick port on your multi i/o card. > I loaded the windows drivers as sugessted in the manual and copied > the files. (I was using the v1.22 disks that came with my card). > I then tried using MIDI Keyboard in windows and was dissapointed with > the amount of missing sounds. I tried Midi Drum and only 3 drums > worked (acoustic bass drum, cowbell and high bongo). I played for > hours learning about patches and key maps etc. but I could'nt get > anymore sounds. Because you didn't have the good disks version installed. > I then tried the disks I downloaded from EPAS (v 2.25 I think) and > reinstalled everything (including the windows drivers). I noticed the > appearance of a new file (ultrasnd.ini i think) where does this new > INI file go? The drumkit now produces the first 10 or 15 of the drum > sounds, the rest produce nothing. Because all the drums take 780K (general midi) or 1010K (all percs). So you need the ram upgrade. But then, a conventionnal drumkit is about 10 percussions, and you rarely use more than 6 in one song so 256K is enough if you choose wisely. > I tried loading SBOS, starting windows and configuring for SBlaster > operation but windows wont let me. This is normal. > My questions: > > 1) Is Gravutil reliable? Yes. (disable your old joyport) > 2) Can SBOS be used with Win 3.1? How do I set it up? No. > 3) How can I get all of the drum sounds with MIdi Drum? Upgrade your memory. > 4) What id the ultrasnd.ini file for? To assign patches to patch numbers when the GUS driver will load patches in windows. Leave it in \ultrasnd (you can check that the first line contains the good path for the patches. For ex: d:\ultrasnd\midi) > 5) How is the Default.cfg used by windows to set up my card. In no way. > ------------------------------ > From: TSWANSON@BPA.ARIZONA.EDU (QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES.) > Subject: Wired for Sound Pro - HELP > > Hi, > > Just got Wired for Sound Pro, but it doesn't recognize the Windows > Ultrasound Driver. Does anyone have this program working with their > Ultrasound? Howdya do it??? It must have a multimedia driver (it must not acces a SB directly). If it does it must work, or else WfSP is broken. Ciao, -- Francois Dion ' _ _ _ CISM (_) (_) _) FM Montreal , Canada Email: CISM@ERE.UMontreal.CA (_) / . _) 10000 Watts Telephone no: (514) 343-7511 _______________________________________________________________________________ Audio-C-DJ-Fractals-Future-Label-Multimedia-Music-Radio-Rave-Video-VR-Volvo-... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 15:11:08 -0800 From: Bob Beck Message-Id: <9301052311.AA14383@eng2.sequent.com> Subject: GUS NT Driver(s)? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Has anyone heard anything about NT support for the GUS? Just curious. I have an NT beta I've not yet loaded on my PC, but I intend to and it would be nice to take advantage of the GUS under NT ... - Bob (rbk@sequent.com) ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jan 93 10:14:14 GMT From: waardenb@cs.utwente.nl (Jerry van Waardenberg) Message-Id: <1993Jan5.111414@cs.utwente.nl> Subject: GUS questions and remarks To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Hi, I've tested the GUS out for a couple of weeks now. It seems a very good card. I do have some questions, though: (1) I can't get the GUS working with 16-bit DMA channels (5, 6, 7). I've tried it out with QEMM and EMM386, with different DMA buffer sizes and even with a 'clean' system (i.e. no drivers). I can use DMA 7 for the DAC but not for RAM, i.e. SET ULTRASND=220,1,7,11,5 works o.k., but SET ULTRASND=220,7,7,11,5 does not work o.k. The MIDI songs sound terribly! Any clues on how to solve this problem? (2) I have installed the new Windows drivers. I can record and playback .WAV samples, but I can't get the MIDI working. I've tried Media Player, Patch Manager and WinJammer. Patch Manager gives an empty list of patches, the other are playing, but I don't hear a sound! It worked o.k. with the v1.10 drivers. I've installed it as described in the readme-file and after that I've copied the midimap.cfg and ultrawin.cfg to the \windows\system directory. (3) Does anybody know the difference between the rev. 2.2 and rev. 2.4 board? And the difference between the v1.10 disks and v.1.21 disks? Some remarks: (1) I really like the 669 player! Sounds very good (and loud... ouch!) (2) SBOS 1.23 seems no real improvement over v1.22. The digitised sounds are too soft, where they were too loud in v1.22 :-(. Well, I've made some batch files, V10, V22, V23, that install the driver I want for a game. Different games, different drivers. For example: WOWII works best with v1.22, since v1.23 sounds way too soft. Programs with digitised speech should also use v1.22. IMHO games like galactix and Wolf3D sound better with v1.23. (3) I tried out three MOD players: MOD.EXE, GUSMOD.EXE (or was it MODGUS?) and MODULATR. The first is not working. I think it is not meant as a MOD player. The second sounds reasonbly well. There are a few (known) bugs and I hope they will be fixed soon. (I'm not a soundcard programmer, so I can't help you. Sorry). MODULATR is a complete MOD player/editor. It looks neat but doesn't play very well. Samples sound too short or in a wrong pitch or speed. Furthermore it locked up when I tried to load a .NST noisetracker file. I hope these problems are fixed soon, because the program looks good! Please programmers, keep up the good work! Greetz, Jerry *------------------------------------------------------------------------------* Jerry van Waardenberg _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Tele Informatics and Open Systems _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Department of Computer Science _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ E-mail: waardenb@cs.utwente.nl _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ ------------------------------ Date: 06 Jan 1993 00:32:22 +1000 From: Steven Junacko Message-Id: <01GT6GF2BHSM8Y4YLM@lust1.latrobe.edu.au> Subject: GUS support for Standard Mode Windows To: Ultrasound Daily Digest HI- Could somebody clarify if the new Windows drives support Standard Mode Windows. Some of us poor people can't afford the latest whizz-bang Intel CPU souped up thing that is not quite safe enough to sit on a desk. I've got a 286 and my GUS does absolutely nothing with Windows. If anybody has drivers or somehow has SBOS working with Standard Mode Windows it would be greatly appreciated if you could tell me how. Spanks, Stivens. - csc9242546g@lust.latrobe.edu.au ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 7:13:03 EST From: iam@stiatl.salestech.com (Ian Mercado) Message-Id: <9301050713.AA09338@stiatl.salestech.com> Subject: GUS worked fine on my 386/40 Opti AMI To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > I posted a message to yesterday's digest about my first experience with the > GUS and about some problems I had with using SBOS. Well, I just spent the > last 2 hours or so trying everything I possible could to get SBOS to work > with Wolfenstein 3D. As usual, no matter what I did, my computer wound > up crashing. (386/40, OPTi, AMI Bios dated 1990 something, Trident SVGA). > Sometimes, maybe 1/3 of the time, Wolf3d would load if i turned the turbo > switch off. When the game fires up, it seems to recognize a SB, but you still > have to manually set it to SB in the sound settings. Either way it bombs the > instant you fire the gun or open the door. > SBOS worked just fine on my sister's 386/40 with OPTi chipset and AMI Bios. It never did work on my OPTi 486/33, tho'. :-( Could someone please post if and when this new "lower-chip-count" card comes out and say if it magically becomes more compatible with older OPTi motherboards? Ian ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 10:03:22 GMT From: "James Andrews, User Support" Message-Id: <4739.9301051003@uk.ac.uel.sol1> Subject: hippy newts ear To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Someone was complaining that this list had too much stuff about stoopid games not working. Well you asked for it, Heres some top gus hints: [ i dont think ] 1) if you want mod files, get the .lzh compressed ones as the ezarc that comes with the gus will decompress them,eg from wuarchive.wustl.edu in mirrors4/amiga.physik.unizh.ch/amiga/mods 2) remove unwanted RAM from your trident card and stick it in your gus ( no I havent tried it yet, but the part numbers are correct ) 3) Dont unpack playsam.arj and then try and play the "beat" sample without reading the instructions if you value your hearing 4) To be almost able to understand what on earth this midi nonsense is all about get midi-intro.Z from ucsd.edu in midi/doc I'll post a load of questions tomorrow and maybe transcribe my phone call to the UK gravis agents next week. Wowie Zowie. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 08:18:40 +22306256 (CST) From: (Ronald S. Woan) Message-Id: <9301051418.AA18755@exeter.austin.ibm.com> Subject: Is there MT-32 Emulation?? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > Can the MIDI port of the GUS be used to hook a MT-32 synth? Will the > GUS recognise it and play the music like the SB does? The answer is yes specifically to your particular question; however, games that support the MT-32 generally (I know of no exceptions aside from Windows based applications) only support it through an MPU-401 compatible interface which the SB and GUS are not. So you can use the GUS or SB to play music, but DOS games won't support it. +-----All Views Expressed Are My Own And Are Not Necessarily Shared By------+ +------------------------------My Employer----------------------------------+ + Ronald S. Woan woan@cactus.org or woan@vnet.ibm.com + + other email addresses Prodigy: XTCR74A Compuserve: 73530,2537 + ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Jan 93 12:27:59 -0500 From: "It's your hand, Buckaroo" Message-Id: <9301051728.AA09179@magick.tay2.dec.com> Subject: Is there MT-32 Emulation?? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > When emulating the SB, does the GUS use it's own patches or does it > play soundblaster-like music in games like Xeen or WingCommander?? SBOS uses patches (you can see 'em in the /ULTRASND/SBOS directory) to create it's emulation, but they aren't the normal MIDI patches, they are specifically for SB emulation. > Can the MIDI port of the GUS be used to hook a MT-32 synth? Will the > GUS recognise it and play the music like the SB does? Yes, you can hook up the MIDI port of your GUS to any MIDI synth device, if you have the breakout box (either Gravis's soon to be released one or the SB one), but the software has to know how to drive the port (I think). Thus, it's unlikely that you can hook your GUS to an MT-32 and have games like XEEN drive the port... However, there have been persistent rumours that Gravis is working on an MT-32 emulator like SBOS. This wouldn't be THAT hard since both the GUS and the MT-32 are MIDI-based devices. Now converting the sysex messages could be a bitch... DDA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 01:57:21 -0800 (PST) From: I/We are Gaia Message-Id: Subject: New Windows Driver questions.. To: Ultrasound Daily Digest The Sound recorder still says 8-bit mono at 22.05khz.. Is this it's limit, or do the new drivers still not work at 44.1 and 16bit or whatever. If it is a limit of sound recorder, where is there a windows program that will record that high of a sampling rate.. Also is the .snd format that Uss8 records and plays a standard .snd format (whatever it may be) or is it yet another sound format, does anybody have a converter to .wav for such a beast?? I also have an error when running mem in dos to check drivers loaded into memory, if I have the new sbos tsr loaded, not until I load sbos manually will it work. Put me on the list of people who like the beta 1.22 better, but it is still not perfect. Have yet to get Star Control II.. Just waiting... Gaia@carson.u.washington.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Jan 93 15:08:36 EST From: timkwan@Athena.MIT.EDU Message-Id: <9301052008.AA16091@marinara> Subject: OXYD To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Does anyone know which settings to use for SBOS when playing OXYD. It's a really cool game. It looks and sounds great on the MAC (sigh). -Tim ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 07:51:15 PST From: bs@mda.ca (Bruce Sharpe) Message-Id: <9301051551.AA05550@ mda.ca> Subject: PatchMgr bug? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest >Why does launcing PatchMgr take so l-o-n-g? I thought this program >would be the way to load the proper midi patches for Cakewalk etc. >but it looks like using Media Player is going to be faster. It takes about 15 seconds to load on my system, because it reads the patch size and name information from each of the patch files on startup. If the *only* thing you want to do is load the patches for a single MIDI file, then Media Player is a reasonable alternative (takes about 5 seconds to load). >Finally, a bug, I think: >Every time I close the Help window (by double-clicking on the control >button at the top of the window -- I haven't tried other methods) the >PatchMgr puts up a message box that says the midi port is being used >by another program (or words to that effect), and PatchMgr exits! I couldn't reproduce this bug here. However, if you have any application running which uses the MIDI output device and then try to activate PatchMgr, it will give the message you got and exit. (The next version will handle this situation more gracefully. You will still get the message, but PatchMgr doesn't exit.) Bruce Sharpe ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 17:11:56 MST From: LDRAPER@GEMINI.SIM.ES.COM Message-Id: <930105171156.20604a9e@GEMINI.SIM.ES.COM> Subject: Request for files to Digest File Server To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Hey - Could some of you with FTP access e-mail some files to the digest? It seems like as a minimum the latest SBOS, Windows Drivers, and utilities (patch manager) should be there. Right now there are a few midi files and some text files. Nice but I would really like to try SBOS 1.23 ... Thanks, Lee ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 10:22:40 -0500 (EST) From: Morgan Stair Message-Id: Subject: SBOS 1.23 To: Ultrasound Daily Digest On Mon, 4 Jan 1993, Chris Babcock wrote: > While talking to Forte, I asked some questions about SBOS 1.23. Turns > out this version was never supposed to go public (not anywhere near > ready for release). They said to keep using SBOS 1.22 until another > version appears on the BBS (other than the current 1.23). > > Chris Babcock > VOR Technologies, Inc. Maybe it wasn't supposed to SHIP, but I'm sure glad to see things like 1.23 showing up on the BBS! At least they get feedback from us, and we have a choice of what to use (I'm using 1.22 :-) Morgan ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 10:25:37 -0500 (EST) From: Morgan Stair Message-Id: Subject: SBOS 1.23 and digitized sound To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > I noticed that the digitized sound is a lot softer in SBOS 1.23 than it was > in 1.22... I also remember (at least I think) someone posting either here > or on c.s.i.p.s, about changing the volume of the digitized part, while leaving > the adlib/sb FM-compat part alone. Could someone clue me in as to how this is > done, if its possible... > > I really like the fact that 1.23 gets rid of most of the scratching in Stunt > Island, but its too damn soft, so Im using 1.22 for it now... Could you let me know how to change one volume, but not both (if you find out). I too, am using 1.22 because of this ************************************************************************* * W. Morgan Stair Phone: (617) 552-8783 * * Boston College FAX: (617) 552-8778 * * Institute for Space Research Email: morgan@dl5000.bc.edu * * 4 Alfred Circle * * Bedford MA 01730 * ************************************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: 05 Jan 1993 15:43:03 -0400 (EDT) From: HOLLYK@SSCvax.CIS.McMaster.CA Message-Id: <01GT5XXIDX2A94E247@SSCVAX.CIS.MCMASTER.CA> Subject: Software updates To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I am hoping that someone could save me a lot of time and eye strain.... I have been receiving the digest since day one but over the last 4-6 weeks school has been WAY too busy for me to look at them in any detail. Could someone tell me if there are any updates to SBOS available (or any other updates for that matter) and how I'm supposed to get them? Also, I've been told that Maximum Overkill works in native mode. Is this true? Oh, one more thing, any recommendations for a replacement for USS 8 and where I can find it? Thanks bunches Kevin Holly McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario hollyk@sscvax.cis.mcmaster.ca ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 23:01:59 PST From: brian@ccnext.ucsf.edu (Brian Huddleston) Message-Id: <9301060701.AA00585@ ccnext.ucsf.edu > Subject: Some Questions.... To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Greetings all, I just wanted to find out from someone if they have received any thing back from GRAVIS when they sent in the registration card? Do they send you those 192 extra patches? or anything else. And the other question I had was: How do I find out that instruments are missing from a MID file? for example: Warning: couldn't find program 95 to put on channel 7 I mean things wouldn't sound right if I just assigned any instrument to that program. So how do I know what instruments It is looking for? And does any one know of a good midi program (creator) that is shareware/freeware/PD but is NOT for windoze. Sorry my system just doesn't fit it's demands. Thanks for any help....... brian@ccnext.ucsf.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Jan 93 10:01:44 EST From: warrenl@graphics.rent.com (Warren Lieuallen) Message-Id: Subject: Where are the 669 Files on EPAS? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I've gotten a few of the 669 file, and file them superior to most everything else -- really shows off the GUS to my lam-o non-Soundcard owning friends. However, I'm having problems finding the new .669 files on EPAS. They disappear from the /submit area within a day or two, and I can't find where they've gone! Anyone know? Thanks. ======================The Graphics BBS @ (908)469-0049===================== Dr. Warren G. Lieuallen R.W.Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute BitNet: LIEUALLEN@AM@ALLOY Raritan, NJ (908)704-4368 InterNet: warrenl@graphics.rent.com ===="Imagination is more important than knowledge." -- Albert Einstein ==== ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Jan 93 12:41:52 -0500 From: "It's your hand, Buckaroo" Message-Id: <9301051741.AA09214@magick.tay2.dec.com> Subject: Windows and GUS/SBOS To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > 1) Is Gravutil reliable? I assume you followed the directions and removed your GUS BEFORE you ran Gravutil? To be fair, I've never used this utility, but I did see in the instructions how you had to remove the GUS to use it... > 2) Can SBOS be used with Win 3.1? How do I set it up? You don't and you shouldn't. > 3) How can I get all of the drum sounds with MIdi Drum? Get the PATCHMGR.ZIP from archive.epas and play with it. It will clearly show you which melody and percussion patches are loaded as well as let you try 'em out... > 4) What id the ultrasnd.ini file for? It tells Windows the mapping between MIDI channels and patches. See a previous (last few days, I think) digest wherein this is explained quite well. > 5) How is the Default.cfg used by windows to set up my card. I believe this tells PLAYMIDI the patch mapping. Each MIDI song can have it's own .cfg file if it uses special mappings; the default.cfg is for General MIDI (or will be when the GM patches are shipped). Again, see a previous digest for a good explaination of all this... DDA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 11:07:04 MST From: LDRAPER@GEMINI.SIM.ES.COM Message-Id: <930105110704.206048a8@GEMINI.SIM.ES.COM> Subject: Wired for Sound Pro - Help To: Ultrasound Daily Digest >Just got Wired for Sound Pro, but it doesn't recognize the Windows >Ultrasound Driver. Does anyone have this program working with their >Ultrasound? Howdya do it??? I think I just used the Windows Multimedia driver from the menu where you choose from the PC Speaker, etc. (I don't have my computer here to check what the menu item is for sure) Make sure you MINIMIZE Wired for Sound when you exit - don't close it. When you bring up windows the next time you will notice it is already running minimized. I have tried both Wired for Sound and Whoop it Up and both work fine. Lee ------------------------------ End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #5 ******************************