GUS Daily Digest Sat, 11 Mar 95 9:37 PST Volume 20: Issue 11 Today's Topics: Dark Forces Question GUS and SB16 together GUS Daily Digest V20 #10 How to decompress ADPCM ? Kings Quest VII New Standards, Existing Standards... Selling my GUS solution to GUS-recording problems (perhaps) Ultrsound ACE Warning!!! NMI Disabled boards, Don't buy from TC Where to get Digest back issues? 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: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 17:59:38 -0800 (PST) From: h0mi Subject: Dark Forces Question I read the comments about the Gus in Dark forces. I was wondering if anyone has had any luck with the _demoi_ version? It wont run on my system, regardless of how I've set the GUS or the settings. If I set the demo for no sound at all, it still does not run. So the full version works with the GUS naitively? Any clue if they will make patches to do the same with tie fighter or their other games (without emulating cards)? "I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. homi@netcom.com Constantly on the lookout for more additions to my Kill file. Anyone else tempted to add /*.aol.com/a:j to your kill file? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 15:44:51 -0400 From: j5oa@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Craig Galbraith) Subject: GUS and SB16 together I tried the SBGUS16FAQ but it's not quite what I'm looking for. I simply want to be able to have both cards in my Ambra 486-DX2 66, initialize them SEPARATELY with multiple config and autoexec, and play games and run programs using one or the other. Right now, I have them both in at: GUS 240,7,7,11,7 SB16 220 i5 d1 h5 t6 I can get Windows to work with them each separately by copying in the appropriate system.ini file for each card at boot-up. Works great. Now, whenever I go to play a game with either card...nothing. Either it locks up or I can get no sound. I use to be able to get Heretic to work when I only had my GUS. Now I can't get it to work with the GUS Or the SB16. Other games I can't get to work now are Strike Commander and Wing Commander II. Can somebody help me? What jumpers where? What settings? Help! Craig Galbraith ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |~ | | (~ |_| _ _ _ _ ____ Craig Galbraith | |_/ _) | | | | | | | \| | | ) j5oa@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca | |_| | | |\ | | SAINT JOHN 3rd Year Biology \___/ |_| |_| |____) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 21:07:40 -0300 From: "Jurassic Mark" Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V20 #10 >Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1995 16:19:36 -0500 (EST) >From: Buddy >Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V20 #9 > >> From: Paul Conroy > > ....... The same day I bought my GUS 3 years ago i ripped the > ^^^^^^^^^^^ > >Not likely, the GUS wasn't out three years ago! > >;-) Correct. Octobre 1992, if my memory serves me right. I got one of the very firsts. Jurassic Mark (Marc Y. Paulin) Mail: markus@nbnet.nb.ca - IRC: J-Mark or Markus (In #GUS or #OS/2) /WARPing\ "Microsoft gave us Beta-testing: NautNews |--and--| Windows, IBM gave Intertia Player \GUSsing/ us the whole house" Original father of the G-List * Press any key to continue... Yeah, but I can't find the "any key"!!! * - Survivor of the APICS '93 programming competition controversy - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 18:17:50 -0500 From: fta@wbb.com Subject: Re: How to decompress ADPCM ? > Do you want to just play the files, or to convert them into an > uncompressed file? Get the file ADPCMEXE.ZIP to compress and decompress the file (without hearing it). You can find it on the GUS sites. Actually hearing the compressed sound is another matter, in my experience... > For just playing them, sound drivers which do this (CODECs) come > with MicroSoft CD products, such as Encarta and Dangerous Creatures. > Possibly these drivers might be available on ftp.microsoft.com - they > sound like the sort of thing you wouldn't be expected to pay for. I believe MS Video for Windows includes these drivers--but I can't get them to work! Try as I might, I can't play a compressed file under Windows with MSVideo installed (version 1.1?). Any suggestions? I've been agonizing about this too! --------------------------------------- | Call me "FRED" | | | Toronto, Canada | | --------------------------------------- - Standard Disclaimer Applies - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 22:49:39 +0100 (MET) From: ralam@cs.vu.nl (Lam RA) Subject: Kings Quest VII I can remember this being asked before (or something else about KQ7) But I don't get any music with KQ7. Does anyone know if it's possible to get music, or should I just live with the fact that I will only hear sound effects. Remco Lam ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Mar 95 16:00:55 EST From: Bryan Maher Subject: New Standards, Existing Standards... Richard et al.: >Instead, they should offer hardware assisted multichannel sample mixing, >nothing more. These new cards should most definitely not include patchsets of >their own, especially not the General MIDI set. I agree that General MIDI is quite limiting by today's standards but there is a considerable wealth of pre-arranged music out there that requires GM compatibility. It seems that everyone wants to look at sound cards as being game enhancing devices only when they have just as much application in media industries. It becomes difficult to integrate PC sound with external MIDI devices when GM is tossed to the wind. I personally have an extensive library of GM MIDI files either personally authored or from archives. It would be remiss not to support the industry standard in electronic music authoring. How would a musician integrate the future mix-only GUS with his MIDI synths? >such as the 8-bit, 4-channel (in its earlier incarnations, anyway) Amiga to >16-bit single-channel DAC+General MIDI. Yes, a new standard of multi-channel hardware assisted mixing would be nice but in general, most people who try to change standards fail. The Amiga, like the Mac's, use Motorola CPU's which have integrated DSP capabilities. It is natural for them to use this functionality for their sound output. Even today, Pentiums can not do signal processing as well as a 68040 let alone a PowerPC. Also, if you download the GUS SDK and read the specs on IBM's AIL drivers, you will notice that it provides 16 channel realtime digital mixing with integrated MIDI event synching. This sounds fairly impressive to me... it is just an API for which different hardware manufacturers can write drivers. If the hardware has special features which would enhance the efficiency of the API (vis GUS ) then all the better. Since I have been out of the game market for a while, I am not sure how many of these games actually adhere to a standard API. It seems to me that the first step in the right direction would be to get everyone to agree to use the standards that already exist, but for some unknown reason, they just choose to ignore. BTW: For those of you who are into realtime audio applications, I recently picked up a demo of Software Audio Workshop. It supports the realtime playback of up to 4 16-bit STEREO channels at 44.1khz. It will also play and record simultaneously with true track synching. It is a real multitrack recorder for Windows. The next version due out sometime in the next quarter will support upto 8 stereo tracks! There are also add on modules for digital effects like echo, reverb, compression, limiting, cross pan and fade... SAW will also do SMPTE and MTC send and receive. You can have upto 40 files open at once and piece individual tracks together (upto 999 segments in a song) from different segments of your available recordings. (i.e. Track one consists of 1 minute of a vocals then 30 seconds of guitar lead followed by another minute of vocals all from 3 separate files). You can contact Innovative Quality Software at 702 435-9077 for a free demo. They offer lifetime free software upgrades! My humble opinion, Bryan Maher P.S. I have no vested interest in SAW, I am just really happy to finally find a real professional audio package for the PC. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 15:33:19 GMT From: ct91@cityscape.co.uk (Damian Scully) Subject: Selling my GUS Hi everyone, I think the GUS is brilliant when it works, but because it is so fiddly I might sell it. Has anyone heard of the Aztech Waverider? If you have, maybe you could let me know how it compare's to the Ultrasound. How much do you think I could get for my 256k GUS, about =A380. Well I must go, and even if= I do sell my GUS I won't buy an AWE32, just to stay faithfull to all my fellow GUS users.=20 ||||||| ( o o ) | \_/ Damian Scully ct91@cityscape.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 10:31:17 +0200 (EET) From: Tuomas E Aaltio Subject: solution to GUS-recording problems (perhaps) Message-ID: Some one complained about noisy sound digitizing/recording. These are basics, but by experience, you can get these wrong anyway. 1. DO NOT connect CD's line out to GUS's mic in. It definitely ruins the sound and perhaps GUS too. There really is difference betveen mic and line-in. Same thing than don't connect line out to amplifiers AUX IN. 2. MAKE SURE that in ultrasoun mixer (windows program) you have GAIN adjusted to zero(or was -50dB : that's off). it ruins sound too. Adjust LINE IN to -0 dB (that's full volume). put MUTE off on LINE IN. 3. check your CABLE. those mini-plugs are surprisingly lousy. I had two (2) suffering from random contact problems. 4. IF everything is in order soundquality should be GOOD. To me it's not easy to tell difference between 44Kh 16bit WAV and original CD sound, and it's not because of lousy speakers. Tuomas Aaltio ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 10:21:05 -0800 From: blarren@uclink.berkeley.edu (Bart Adam Larrenaga) Subject: Ultrsound ACE Could someone either send me specs/info about the ACE or point me to where I could find this info? A friend of mine is considering buying one, and would like more info on it. All I could tell him was the it was Ultrasound compatible and supposedly desgined to work well with other sound cards. --Bart Larrenaga blarren@uclink.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 11:05:17 -0600 (CST) From: Reginald Atkins Subject: Warning!!! NMI Disabled boards, Don't buy from TC Message-ID: I bought a board from treasure chest undre the assumption, since I was told this by the "experts", that the NMI was "configurable" and the bios was Award...in their words as good as AMI. The result the Motherboard has NMI disabled and cannot be changed after multiple calls to TC and the BIOS is so poorly written that (in terms of the size of the bios in ram) that my video board is being forced into the UMB effectively eating all of it up except 38k (11k if I didn't use the HIGHSCAN option on EMM386). so now I barely hit 600k of base ram using mouse cloaking on my Logitech mouse and my cdrom drivers are eating up tons of space.. and ultramid is impossible to run and still play any games that need it because there is no more upper memory to put itself in....so my base ram takes a 59k hit. I just thought I would warn any other GUS users out there . 1st don't buy from TC computers if they tell you the NMI is enabled it is probably a lie to sell components. 2nd don't get Award BIOS it is total shit! fortunately I have friend back home who rebuilds PC's and I think I can get a trade for free....not everyone has this option though so I thought I would warn the world before someone else bought from TC. Reg. someone who believes that TC sould not have won the Best Motherboard upgrade award from Computer Shopper. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 15:48:54 -0500 (EST) From: Tommy Lee Subject: Where to get Digest back issues? Could someone tell me where to get back issues of this digest? In particular, I'm looking for the site with the alternate protected-mode runtime thingy. I think someone's keeping a web site out there with old digests on it... Thanks, Tommy. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 20:44:57 GMT From: ct91@cityscape.co.uk (Damian Scully) Hi, Could anyone please tell me wether there will ever be a way of getting the GUS to work with DOS4GW games. I can't get sound out of more than 50% of my games, even ones that support the card such as Ecstatica and Descent just crash my computer, although this may be because I only have 256k. I'm even considering selling my card and buying an AWE32! Anyone want to buy a GUS? Damian :( ------------------------------ End of GUS Daily Digest V20 #11 *******************************