Ultrasound Daily Digest Tue, 23 Feb 93 Volume 2 : Issue 51 Today's Topics: Doppler effect (2 msgs) Fun with SBOS GUS and Adaptec Controllers My GUS died, 2-3 weeks to repair... Registration cards replies to misc. postings... SBOS Digitized Voice too soft. Any fix? SBOS v1.37B Support? In the PC industry? Really? UltraSound 3D Windows Parity Errors 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. *** HEY!!! *** Before you ask a question, *** READ THE FAQ ***. It's available on the request server and the ftp sites, or check the newsgroup archives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 14:53:37 -0500 From: "It's your hand, Buckaroo" Message-Id: <9302221953.AA15127@magick.tay2.dec.com> Subject: Doppler effect To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > About the 3d sound in the GUS support I believe no one yet has mentioned the > doppler effect which explanes many of the situations which the GUS would > be reprodusing these are very simple formulas for the doppler effect and > if the GUS using the Qsound technology can use then to reproduce the > quadrophonic sounds . The GUS 3D doesn't use Qsound technology. DDA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 14:08:58 -0600 (CST) From: Pawlo P Prawdiuk Message-Id: Subject: Doppler effect To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I did say if it did// the effect that the GUS will be producing is very similar to qsound.. q sound I ment to say in a quadrophonic sound effect rather than the exact qsound type technology. - Paul-> prawdiuk@mermaid.micro.umn.edu -| - Ans Machine @ (612) 222-2083 -| A signiture in cyberspace - -| what is that? - There is an art in living life, But -| _O_ - as of yet I have not found it. -Who- -| ( | ) - -Me maybe?- -| / \ paul?! On Mon, 22 Feb 1993, It's your hand, Buckaroo wrote: > > > About the 3d sound in the GUS support I believe no one yet has mentioned the > > doppler effect which explanes many of the situations which the GUS would > > be reprodusing these are very simple formulas for the doppler effect and > > if the GUS using the Qsound technology can use then to reproduce the > > quadrophonic sounds . > > The GUS 3D doesn't use Qsound technology. > > DDA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 13:55:18 -0500 (EST) From: Greg K Chung Message-Id: Subject: Fun with SBOS To: Ultrasound Daily Digest SBOS continues to be a great source of (ha!) amusement for me. I hae versions 1.20 (original) and the 1.22/1.23 versions I found off the ftp sites. Usually one or the other will work with most things. However, I'm pretty disappointed with the SBOS inability to truly emulate SIMPLE FM sounds -- notably the Ad Lib music .ROL files... It has been said that SBOS will play FM sounds and in some cases "better than the FM cards themselves" or something to that effect. Ha! I ran my trusty .ROL player and what I get is junk. Some voices are almost completely distorted. Some sound all right. Volumes of each voice are totally hosed (some are very faint, some are very loud) and some voices get tossed only in the left, or only in the right... Weird stuff. Anyway -- I'm pretty disappointed with the inability to play FM music. There's a lot of potential for the card, I am sure, to play this music, but It's really bad at this point. (Note: Why keep .ROLs if I have a GUS? Cuz I bought an original Ad Lib long ago and have a ton of .ROLs -- and they're very small.) Also -- I can get SBOS to run correctly with the Unreal demo, but oddly enough, NOT with the Panic demo (which was released after Unreal!) As a side note -- where can I find some documentation on programming the GUS? Greg Chung : Asking all kinds of questions, to stiletto@cmu.edu : myself, but never finding the answers. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 14:54:58 -0500 From: "It's your hand, Buckaroo" Message-Id: <9302221955.AA15143@magick.tay2.dec.com> Subject: GUS and Adaptec Controllers To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > I'm a proud new owner of a GUS v2.2 and I'm having problems getting it > to work with my Adaptec 1542B and an IDE drive. If I take the 1542B out > of the system the card works (and nicely). I have seen a message from > someone else with a 1522 having problems. I have checked everything and can > find no conflicts. Has anyone else gotten this combination to work ? Help ! I have the same configuration, only it's a 1540B, not a 1542B. I had to move the GUS to hex addr 240, GF1 IRQ 15 to avoid conflicts with the 1540B (which is at all it's defaults). What's your GUS and Adaptec set at? DDA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 17:41:42 -0500 From: "Frank Pikelner" Message-Id: <9302222241.AA15039@cs.yorku.ca> Subject: My GUS died, 2-3 weeks to repair... To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Hello, Wierd, I just replaced my motherboard 386/40 with a 486/50. Now my GUS has decided to stop working. I spent about 2 days fidling with it, full reinstall, etc. I gave up and called GRAVIS, the nice man on the other line told me I don't really know what I'm doing and should try booting from floppy (I told him I did this several times). Oh, well I'll amuze them. Anyways I asked how long to get my card repaired when I send it in and was told it would be 2-3 weeks (I guess they're repairing more than just my card). BTW to all that have bought your cards, keep the proof of purchase as you will need it for warranty repairs. I'm optimistic and hope all will be resolved soon, but sometimes I just feel I could have saved gobs of money on those long distance calls and bought myself some new CDs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- --- Frank Pikelner /~\ \ \ \ Technical Assistant, Department of Computer Science \- \-- York University (Toronto, Canada) '\^/; \ \ Internet: frank@cs.yorku.ca _{!}_ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 04:14:46 EST From: timkwan@Athena.MIT.EDU Message-Id: <9302220914.AA16097@marinara> Subject: Registration cards To: Ultrasound Daily Digest How do we know if our registration cards have been received by Gravis and our names are in their members' mailing list? I never got any kind of acknowledgement letter from them that they received it.... So when exactly will the General MIDI patches and the free (?) MidiSoft Recording Session and PowerChords be sent out??? -Tim ------------------------------ Date: 22 Feb 93 12:26:02 +0100 From: Bjorn Havard Kleven Message-Id: Subject: replies to misc. postings... To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > > Ah hah! You got me on the daughter board pricing Bjorn but > I've got you here. Unless, Gravis has changed their plans, the > MidiSoft Recording Session and PowerChords costs an extra $10 > US or $15 Canadian. It was $14 but that was a mistake. You > must be a registered user to get it for this price. However I > imagine that when the new UltraSound packages start shipping > with the complete stuff those will be included. > Well, I believe they might have changed their plans! I talked to Alan Alvarez at Gravis the other day, and I got the impression that they perhaps (granted - only perhaps) were going to ship the mentioned pieces of software as well. But naturally, including even more software and manuals (in addition to the 6 x 1.44MB disks that is the GM MIDI set), will increase the costs even more. So, they are thinking about it. I guess the offer in the bulletin at Gravis BBS was put there in case they weren't going to ship the programs with the GM set after all. The price they're charging for it would also suggest this, as it would barely cover shipping & handling. This would be incorporated into the S&H of the GM set if shipped with them. Well, remember that this is the impression I got from Alan - I could have got him wrong over the phone. While I'm at it, I think I'll also share with you the current situation of the Software Development Kit (also in response to a somewhat annoyed gentleman's posting previously in this Digest...) . - The current low-level version will be re-released, with manuals, better documentation and much improved tools (e.g. the patch-editor) as well as 3D-routines. This SDK will be available WITHOUT the developer having to sign any non-disclosure agreement. It is said to be out in 2-3 weeks. - The source code for the library-files of this SDK will also be available to some developers, requiring them to sign an extensive and much more specific non-disclosure agreement than the current one. -=* Bjorn :: bjornhk@dhhalden.no ACCESS DATA :: TEL: (+47)-9-17 50 48/61-97 311 FAX: 61-97 312 BBS: 61-97 945 300-14400 bps, 24 hrs ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 15:02:05 MST From: Apollo Shau-Yang Wong Message-Id: <9302221500.AA09345@orca.es.com> Subject: SBOS Digitized Voice too soft. Any fix? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Has anyone noticed that the digitized voice come out from the GUS is too soft when using SBOS? I have compared the result to a real SoundBlaster and the effect on the SB is much louder. Is there any parameter in SBOS setting to increase the digitized voice volume only? -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Apollo WONG S.Y. | Fourth Year Electrical Engineering, | | Internet : Apollo@EE.Ualberta.CA | University of Alberta, Canada. | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 23:48:16 PST From: "Johnny Y. Ow" Message-Id: <930221.074816z.831963.owjohn@edison.seas.ucla.edu> Subject: SBOS v1.37B To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I just got a hold of this version of SBOS and have tested it out with a few games. My feelings are mixed on this one. This version is designed to be loaded during boot up and is supposed to work just about everything. So far, I've tried it on the XWing demo, Ultima Underworld I, and a few other softs. Most of the instrument sounds seem to have a bit more bass, but some of the music still sounds garbled. In Underworld, you don't have to listen to the buzzing when you're in the water! it actually splashes now! With the XWing demo, I couldn't get the digitized speech to work (although my memory says that it worked under SBOS v1.22). Most other softs seem to work well, although the music sometimes sound a lot different than with v1.22; sometimes it sounds better, but not always. All the instrument files are not packed into one 400K library, and .EXE version of SBOS takes up 19.2K loaded up high. I couldn't get the .SYS version to load properly. Final version of SBOS as well as the new diskettes are supposed to be ready next week. There is also a 3D demo game called Virtual Turkey; the 3D effect is pretty good (not as great as I had hoped it to be, but it may be due to the software), but the sounds they use in the game are mediocre at best. I don't know if it's available for public consumption yet. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 8:41:51 CST From: ibmpa!hartmann.austin.ibm.com!lance@ibminet.awdpa.ibm.com (Lance Hartmann) Message-Id: <9302221441.AA13440@hartmann.austin.ibm.com> Subject: Support? In the PC industry? Really? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Another subscriber wrote: > > Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 13:18:54 -0500 (EST) > From: treason@gnu.ai.mit.edu > Message-Id: <9302211819.AA03370@spiff.gnu.ai.mit.edu> > Subject: Reply on registration cards > To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > > Well, Id like to say, I bought my card in early september of 1992, and received > it in the beginning of October. My card came with version 1.1 of the Gravis > disks and has almost nothing mentioned on epas or otherwise(I got all this > myself). I turned my registration card in the minute I received the card > and have yet to hear word 1 on wether they received it, if I am going to get > any upgrade information or equipment, what they need from me for information, orif they even care. This kind of aggrevates me, because every other company > I have ever sent a registration card to has at LEAST replied to me in a form Well, sir, I have to admit that I'm quite envious of you. I write this withOUT any sarcasm. I'm fairly new to the PC market (I've been involved with UNIX, workstations for many years). I bought a 486 last March and quickly started buying various software packages. I own absolutely NO pirated software whatsoever. However, I'm a little more than just miffed at the response I've gotten from ALL the vendors I've patronized -- ZERO!!!! NONE!!!! ZILCH!!!! That's right. I'll list some names. I've bought hardware from Intel, Gravis, and Diamond. I've paid some big bucks for software from Microsoft, Lotus, DCA, and an array of smaller companies. Virtually every single one of these companies has developed OFFICIAL patches, upgrades, etc. since I acquired and REGISTERED their products; not ONE single company has ever written me! I have noted, though, that somehow my name/address has "mysteriously" appeared on various mailing lists (mostly computer magazines) which have deluged me with requests for my patronage. Hmmmm....I wonder where they got my name? And while I'm on my soapbox, let me add that when I've had the need to get support from any of these companies, it has usually involved not one, but MANY expensive long-distance calls to finally reach someone competent to get decent help. So here I sit -- a bonofide registered hardware/software owner -- and reflect on some of the comments made by pirates.... Sorry to introduce such a wild tangent, but feeling a bit better for airing my grievances, Lance Hartmann (lance%hartmann.austin.ibm.com@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com) Yes, that IS a '%' (percent sign) in my network address. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ All statements, comments, opinions, etc. herein reflect those of the author and shall NOT be misconstrued as those of IBM or anyone else for that matter. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 13:15:34 PST From: yuzik@sfu.ca Message-Id: <9302222115.AA12189@fraser.sfu.ca> Subject: UltraSound 3D To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Hi Everyone, I have read several messages discussing UltraSound 3D and how it works etc. I would like to put one rumor to rest forever: UltraSound(tm) 3D does NOT use QSound(tm)!!!!! In the press release for UltraSound 3D, we clearly stated that we have licenced the 3D Technology from FOCAL POINT 3D AUDIO(tm). The 3D technology uses code that was built into the GF1 chip on all Gravis UltraSound cards. UltraSound 3D is capable of positioning sound on the X, Y, and Z axis. This means that you can hear sound above, below, behind, infront, and of course, left and right of you. QSound cannot, at this point in time, do this. I should also mention that UltraSound 3D doesn's require any special hardware. It will work with "regular" speakers or headphones. QSound, by the way, will not work with headphones - according to QSound. I hope this clears up some confusion on UltraSound 3d. Chris Yuzik Account Executive Advanced Gravis Computer Technology Ltd. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 16:48:40 -0800 From: kejohnso@flute.calpoly.edu Message-Id: <9302230048.AA39480@flute.calpoly.edu> Subject: Windows Parity Errors To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Could someone tell me how to get rid of parity errors in Windows? There was lots of talk about it when the cards first started shipping last year. The reason is that my cousin just bought a Video Blaster and is getting parity erros in Windows. I went through his CMOS, but didn't see anything that looked right. I remember something about adding/chaning a line in the win.ini file. Could someone please tell me what to look for in the CMOS and what to do with the win.ini file to disable the parity checking? I think this should be added to the FAQ. Thanks for any replies, =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = kejohnso@oboe.calpoly.edu = I'm a recovering SoundBlaster owner = = kjohnson@polyslo.calpoly.edu = -Happy GRAVIS ULTRASOUND owner = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ------------------------------ End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #51 ******************************