Ultrasound Daily Digest Sat, 13 Feb 93 Volume 2 : Issue 41 Today's Topics: GUS for 32-bit OSs Help! Grollier CD with GUS. Opti chipset problems Questions about memory & Starcon 2 (answer if you can!) SBTALKER and GUS Star Control II UltraMix Applet autoinstallation UltraSound Mixer and a bus mouse Winjammer/Cakewalk fiasco 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: 12 Feb 93 12:01:32 EDT From: Richard Wyckoff Message-Id: Subject: GUS for 32-bit OSs To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > From: roc@gasco.com (Ron Christian x1545) > Subject: A few questions > > The other question was prompted to a visit to a friend's house, where he > is working on getting Windows NT to talk to a Sun. My experience with the > NT beta code has convinced me that I want to dump 3.1 as soon as possible... > Is anyone working on an NT driver for the Gravis? and... > > From: DEATH BEFORE DISCO > Subject: Where are the OS/2 drivers??? > > What is the situation on these drivers?? I was told by people at Forte > (yes, Forte) that they were 'being worked on' back in December. The GUS does work under OS/2, so there's no stopping people from writing 32-bit GUS applications. Of course, there's no PM driver, no MMPM/2 driver, no virtual mode driver, but that doesn't mean apps can't be written before those drivers appear...I'm looking into using Renaissance's GUS info file and GCC for OS/2 to write some simple things (text mode). This summer, or maybe spring break, I'm going to look into writing a sample editor for Presentation Manager (inspired by Sound Designer II for the Mac, which, for all its problems, still blows away any shareware editor I've seen, and the few professional editors I've seen in stores look like junk, too, mainly because the waveform window is *LIMITED SIZE*...i.e. you can't scale it). As for Windows NT (giggle, chuckle) all I can say is, I'm not going to write for an OS that is still in beta and is going to require twice as much hard disk space and RAM as I have. If anyone else wants to, it's your time! ** Richard Wyckoff - Catullus - .Sig radio edit ** ** RWYCKOFF@CARDINAL.SC107.WESLEYAN.EDU -- RWYCKOFF@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU ** ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 22:07:28 CST From: Albert Foo Message-Id: <9302130408.AA05225@orca.es.com> Subject: Help! Grollier CD with GUS. To: Ultrasound Daily Digest My Grollier Encyclopedia CD won't play sound thru my GUS card using SBOS. Maybe I got my SBOS settings wrong. My current ULTRASOUND settings: SET ULTRASND = 210,3,3,11,5 SET BLASTER = A210 I5 D1 T1 How can I make use of "sbosdrv.sys" with the correct settings in the config.sys file? Also, Grollier Encyclopedia setup program installed a file "sndblk12.sys" in the config.sys file. Even with both of these drivers in, there is still no sound coming from my GUS card. Any comments? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 23:51 GMT From: Stephen Poston Message-Id: Subject: Opti chipset problems To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Hi there (new gravis owner), I looks like i'm one of those who has a (major) problem with trying to get the gravis card working. (I knew I may have a problem when i bought one). I've a 386 25Mhz+cache machine i've had a couple of years now. The DMA controller has the following number on it: F82C206 9043 (batch number, I think) other chips are Opti 82C381 33Mhz (9043EK732) and Opti 82C382 33Mhz (9047KVA36). I seem to have had no problems with other hardware i've added, (not like adding low cost ide + vga cards, which have incompatabilities). I've an WD ESDI controller (WD1007-SE2) and a GENOA 7900 VGA card + IBM serial cards. It seems strange that the GUS does no like the DMA controller on some Opti boards, when there are many other cards that use DMA transfer (SCSI, EDSI, High speed IO cards and the like) that work OK. So, can anyone from Gravis/Forte enlighten use on WHY a GUS does not work on some the Opti boards. Is it a problem with the Opti boards? or a problem with the design of the GUS???? It seems a real pitty that it does not work properly on opti boards, especially when the opti chip sets is one of the best around. I look forward to it working some day on my machine, but i'd like to stick with an opti chipset. Also, It's great that GUS somes with 512K now (even though they are 70ns and 80ns. Probable the distrubution people put the 80 or 70ns on the card). But where's the cable that connects the GUS to my Hifi?? It would be great if there was a 3.5mm to phono lead in the box that could plug into my hifi. I look forward to my GUS working someday, but at the moment :-( Steve ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 21:29:21 EST From: ebynum@server.cs.jhu.edu Message-Id: <9302130229.AA04024@orca.es.com> Subject: Questions about memory & Starcon 2 (answer if you can!) To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Hello folks, Well, I've some problems (yet again) with my GUS, and maybe you GUS genuises can help. As usual, E-mail any responses, or post to the digest if you think they are general enough for public display. First of all, when I play SC2 I get two different problems with the music. In the full game, there seems to be some overlaid static in the music, especially in hyperspace. It gets worse the longer I play the game. I am pretty sure the music files are OK - I ran SBOS (gasp!) and played the game, and it sounded as good as any SoundBlaster (snicker). Second, in SuperMelee, the sound effects seem to get swapped in the middle of the game. That is, the special sound for the Syreen, for example, sounds half like the Syreen sound and half like the Druuge scream, or when the Pkunk fire it sounds half like Pkunk and half like Earthling. I have several device drivers loaded high, so it's possible that memory is clogged up. I booted from a clean floppy but, even with no device drivers loaded, it sounds the same. Do I need to upgrade the memory on the card (currently it's 256K)? I've heard complaints from people with 1 meg GUSes, but I've also read that playing a 669 file before running the game seems to eliminate whatever problems were there. Any suggestions? Second topic - memory. OK, here's the deal. I have an ATI VGA Wonder XL with 1 meg of memory, but I hardly ever use the full 1024x768x256 mode. Thus, I can afford to remove half a meg of DRAM, which I'd like to put on the GUS. The ATI manual recommends the following chip types for upgrades: Texas Instrument TMS44C256-80 NEC UPD424256-70 or UPD424256-80 Toshiba TC514256-70 or TC514256-70 Are the chips on the VGA board I have compatible with the GUS? If so, is it possible to cannibalize half a meg from my VGA card and put it onto my GUS, giving me 768K on the GUS and 512K on the VGA card? In other words, can the GUS take 768K with these memory chips, or will it just not work (or will the incompatible chips fry the GUS)? Thanks in advance, Evan H. Bynum ebynum@cs.jhu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 13:33:06 EST From: beattybx@expert.cc.purdue.edu (Brian Beatty) Message-Id: <9302121833.AA20573@expert.cc.purdue.edu> Subject: SBTALKER and GUS To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Is it possible toget the sbtalker that comes with Sound Balster to work with Gravis or a program that will simulate the speech on programs like KQ6. thanks Brian Beatty ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1993 00:33:16 -0800 (PST) From: I/We are Gaia Message-Id: Subject: Star Control II To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I remember seeing a program to do this, but don't know where to get it. How do you get the mods out of the game so you can play them?? I would love to be able to do this, alot of the music is just awesome!! I also had problems with my 1 meg gus, but as discovered by many, 669 seems to get rid of the problems. I did try a 16 bit dma but that didn't help either.. Has accolade figured anything out yet?? Anyway, if a kind soul could direct me to a place where I could acquire this program for getting the music, I would appreciate it.. I saw the mod files up somewhere but I guess they were taken down on account of copyrights and all that.. Just as a side note, has anyone finished the game?? How far have you gotten. Got any secrets that I would like to have?? I was able to get the bomb and the dynarri. But can't figure anything else out.. Gaia@carson.u.washington.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1993 22:09:44 -0600 (CST) From: James Corbett Holcomb Message-Id: <199302130409.AA14497@essex.ecn.uoknor.edu> Subject: UltraMix Applet autoinstallation To: Ultrasound Daily Digest When listening to my GUS through headphones at night, I like to use the UltraMix applet to control the WAV and MIDI sound levels. How can I get Windows to autoload this applet and set the volume to a predefined level? James ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 10:01:51 EST From: nemo@vnet.ibm.com Message-Id: <9302121510.AA23311@orca.es.com> Subject: UltraSound Mixer and a bus mouse To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I was wondering if someone could offer me advice about how to get the volume control to work in this GUS Mixer applet for Windoze. I've tried, I believe, all the hardware things that people have mentioned here (8/16 bit DMA, differen t IRQs, all the Windows drivers stuff mentioned in the FAQ, memory parity stuff). Does anyone have any ideas? Secondly, I've had enormous troubles with my GUS and I think the root of my anguish seems to be a bus mouse as opposed to a serial mouse. My mouse is plugged into my ATI VGA Wonder 512K video card and takes up IRQ 5 when loaded. I've heard that serial mice take IRQ 4. Does anyone have a similar problem? I think my Windoze problems can be attributed to this bus mouse stuff, but I'd like to confirm that with anyone with a similar setup. BTW, I have a 486DX 33 non-OPTI chipset, with 2 local bus slots. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1993 11:12:57 -0600 From: ken@austin.ibm.com (Ken Goach) Message-Id: <9302121712.AA29318@daedalus.austin.ibm.com> Subject: Winjammer/Cakewalk fiasco To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > > If files play correctly under WinJammer, then they should play under I'll not comment on patch caching... >Cakewalk, which is a much better package (IMHO). Of course it's got more bells and whistles. It's also four times as expensive. >I refuse to use WinJammer >anyway due to the author's tendency to include those annoying time delays >in the demo versions. Granted, it's his right to include such things if he >wants to. It's also my right to refuse to use his products for that reason. It's also your right to register Winjammer. For a measly $50.00 you can register it, get rid of the delays, and get all future updates. Dan McKee will even customize it - look what he did for GUS support (but we've already been through that). Then again, if you're just looking for a player, go ahead and use the Cakewalk demo. But for me, $50.00 for Winjammer is much better than over $200 for Cakewalk Pro. I need a way to save MIDI files, and money talks. I'll live without some of the added function for a while. I'm sure as hell NOT going to wait til May for patch caching. Ken ------------------------------ End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #41 ******************************