GUS Daily Digest Mon, 20 Mar 95 9:37 PST Volume 20: Issue 20 Today's Topics: 16-bit DB vs. Max AOD11GUS.ZIP required (2 msgs) DOOM GUS Daily Digest V20 #12 GUS Daily Digest V20 #18 GUS Daily Digest V20 #19 GUS MAX w/ROTT Mega-EM 3.03b Mode on PMODE MegaEm... New Mega-Em? New Megaem observations and problems No music with Hardbal IV. Pmode MegaEm PMode Megaem 3.03b(beta) SB prob! Protected mega-em report Protected Mode MegaEM Talk of the month:The new MegaEM The new "PMODE" MEGA-EM and Price of Interwave? YES!!!!!!!!! Pmode Megaem!!!!!!!! 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, 20 Mar 1995 16:32:04 +0200 (EET) From: Tamski Markku Subject: 16-bit DB vs. Max Sorry to bring this up once again, but I haven't seen an aswer to all my questions. OK, a need for 16-bit recording has suddenly become an actual problem, since I've been able to get my "gus-studio" up to some sort of acceptable level. I use my computer+gus mainly to create midi, sample it and mix it with guitar + vocal parts (guitar parts played by Me, vocals - hopefully, sung by someone else) after editing. Now, I was thinking about selling my original rev 2.4 and buying a MAX, but a 16-bit DB would be a whole lot cheaper, and I need all the extra money I can get to buy a SAW 4-track. Besides, I don't need the cd-connectors. So, 1. What are the differences of Gus+DB and MAX besides the cd-rom part. (SbosMax, mixers etc.) ? 2. SAW + DB vs. SAW + MAX ? 3. Does the DB require additional DMA:s and/or IRQ:s (or anything else)? 4. (Sorry about this one) Is DB in a separate slot or on top of the orig. card? 5. Anything else that would come to mind ? I've had my Gus for about 1.75 years now, so no need to spare the tech side. Actually, the more technical you're answers the better. Markku Tamski t118550@cs.tut.fi ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Mar 95 16:49:38 GMT From: c@peacdr0.nottingham.ac.uk Subject: AOD11GUS.ZIP required Hi I'm trying to get hold of AOD11GUS.ZIP. This is a file giving instructions on how to get the GUS working with AOD, written by Gravis Tech. Can anyone with GRAVIS BBS access post this file? Cheers, Mark Mark Blagdon (c@peacdr0.nottingham.ac.uk) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Mar 95 16:51:41 GMT From: c@peacdr0.nottingham.ac.uk Subject: AOD11GUS.ZIP required Hi I'm trying to get hold of AOD11GUS.ZIP. This is a file giving instructions on how to get the GUS working with AOD, written by Gravis Tech. Can anyone with GRAVIS BBS access post this file? Cheers, Mark Mark Blagdon (c@peacdr0.nottingham.ac.uk) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 21:03:42 GMT From: ct91@cityscape.co.uk (Damian Scully) Subject: DOOM I have a 486dlc40, and my dad recently brought a 486dx4-100 with two network cards. Although this is'nt the right group to ask in, could anyone tell me how to play network Doom (Doom is great with the GUS so I did'nt think anyone would mind me asking this question). I can get the two computers to start together, but then an error message comes up saying something about not being able to get 35Hz or something. Can anyone help me? Damian Scully. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 15:41:54 -0800 (PST) From: h0mi Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V20 #12 > Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 19:54:36 +0000 (GMT) > From: Sam > Subject: ADPCM sound, ACE again, recording quality, Pmode megaem, NNITO > > > 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)? > > Shouldn't think so. I don't have tie fighter but X-Wing works fine with > megaem, sounds really good - much better than an sb anyway, I guess not > as good as a roland - so I don't know what you're complaining about :) I want native sound. I dont want to mess with Megaem or any other emulations. Thats what I want. :) > As far as I remember music worked on the tie fighter demo as well. I'm not saying the music _sucked_ but rahter, I want to see native support of these games. Why emulate the MT-32? I'd rather just use my card "normally". ------------------------------ Date: 20 Mar 1995 09:42:57 +0100 From: "Stefan van Hattum" Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V20 #18 Date: 17 Mar 95 13:08:00 -0600 From: Daryl_Welu-CDW006@email.mot.com Subject: NMI Error on Pentium Motherboard > Can anyone tell me how I can tell if I have parity ram or not. I have > 2-72pin 8 meg simms. They have 8 chips on each side of the simm for a > total of 16 chips per simm. I remember 30 pin simms w/parity had 9 > chips and non-parity had 8 chips. Is this true for 72 pin simms as > well? Yes, this is this is true as well for the 72 pins. > The simms are made by Texas Instruments, 60 nanoseconds and have > something like _ _ _ _ 4400 _ _ on them. The " _ " means I don't > remember what the letters are. Any help is greatly appreciated as I > have been trying to solve my NMI problem for some time. I have a AMI Pentium 60MHz board and i am using non parity 72 Pin simms, without any problems. In the past (with my 386sx) i had 30 pins simms without parity and had to switch of the parity check in the BIOS setup, but with the new AMI BIOS it automaticly checks if there is parity or not. I don't know what other BIOS'es do, so maybe you have to look for the parity check and disable it. > Thanks, Daryl > CDW006@email.mot.com Regards, stefan_van_hattum@acghil.nl ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 14:24:49 -0500 (EST) From: Buddy Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V20 #19 > Subject: PMODE MEGA-EM > > Here is the text file that accompanies the beta version of PMODE MEGA-EM > at the EPAS archives. > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Chopped up readme follows: > ...stuff deleted...... I don't know if any of you have read the FULL readme file yet but when I did, my fears were confirmed. Roland emulation will NOT work with MOST games if you have a 2.xx version GUS. I suppose it was inevitable but it's too bad that a card that is only 2 years old is already obsolete. For sound cards that's a pretty short life span. Oh well, I'll just have to wait for the new card with the Interwave chip. (fingers crossed) Kevin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Mar 95 11:24:05 EST From: iler1@server.uwindsor.ca (Ryan Iler) Subject: GUS MAX w/ROTT For a reason which I can not figure out the sound effects for the game Rise of the Triad do not work for me. Even when I set it up for sound effects only I get nothing but wierd clicks and pops. It worked when I first got the demo version but it won't work now. Any help would be appreciated. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Mar 95 11:39:19 MET From: Herman Dullink Subject: Mega-EM 3.03b > Mega-Em effectively combines all previous UltraSound TSR programs - SBOS, > UltraMID and older versions (2.xx) of Mega-Em. Really? > Mega-Em currently requires the following to function correctly: > > * A 386 or better AT class personal computer. > * A hard drive. > * A Gravis UltraSound/MAX/ACE card. > * An Expanded Memory Manager, such as EMM386, QEMM386 or 386MAX. Ah, I thought so, it combines, BUT NOT replaces SBOS & UltraMID. There _are_ programs that don't like running on a PC/XT simulator. > * Approximately 128k of free Expanded Memory (EMS). > * DOS 3.3 or later (EMM386 must be from DOS 5.0 or later). ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 15:40:47 -0500 From: cdmckill@sail.uwaterloo.ca (Chris McKillop) Subject: Mode on PMODE MegaEm... Hey all... I have just been playing with the PMODE megaem.... WarCraft: Sounds as good as the HMI drivers, and the digital sound is the right levels, which the HMI drivers don't seem to get right. Xwing: I no longer have to change my ultrsnd.ini file to include the new xwing patches, and everything sounds better overall. Epic Pinball: Even though this has native support, I thought I would try it out, and it sounds GREAT!!!! just as a side note, I have a MAX and evidently, MegaEm now uses the CODEC chip on it to do Digital playback!!!! I don't know how well it works with a normal GUS, but the repsonce with the MAX is amazing!!! It is also really cool that you don't need to unload it or reinstall it after using a game/app that has native GUS support! TTYL. Chris *********************A Budding Computer Engineer, 'Neting @ Home ******************** cdmckill@sail.uwaterloo.ca Chris McKillop "If you read my .sig I'll tax that too...." - Apologies to the Beatles ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 95 14:29:42 EST From: ping@cais.dsm.sp-agency.ca (Ka-Ping Yee) Subject: New Mega-Em? a vesnaver wrote: > VERSION 3.03b (Beta) > > * First release of the all-new, rewritten Mega-Em. Emulates Roland > Sound Canvas/General MIDI/MT-32, Sound Blaster and UltraMID. Improvements > over older (2.xx) versions of Mega-Em include compatibility with most > protected mode software, interactive setup, single executable, better > sounding patch set, faster loading time, allows UltraSound software to > run at the same time as Mega-Em, automatic reloading of patch set when > necessary, automatically unloads when Windows is run and automatically > takes advantage of extra hardware (the 16 bit record/playback CODEC) on > the UltraSound MAX. Sound Blaster music (FM) support is not included. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Huh? Taking advantage of extra hardware is great, but i don't see how a 16-bit CoDec can benefit Mega-Em. It would be really nice if there were SB-16 emulation (at least until more people support the Max's CoDec), but he said a little earlier in that README file that this Mega-Em would only emulate the "Sound Blaster (not Sound Blaster Pro)." What's up with this? Ping (Ka-Ping Yee): Computing and Intelligent Systems, Canadian Space Agency kryee@csclub.uwaterloo.ca, ping@cais.dsm.sp-agency.ca | Brossard 514 6725852 CWSF 89, 90, 92; LIYSF 90, 91; Shad Valley 92; DOE 93; IMO 91, 93; ACMIPC 94 Belldandy ! Amano Ai ! Skuld ! Hayakawa Moemi ! Hiyama Hikaru ! Tendou Akane ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Mar 95 17:33:51 -0800 From: drkszk@ocf.Berkeley.EDU Subject: New Megaem observations and problems Mostly seems to work fine, but... I tried using it to replace Ultramid with Star Trail. I can play the game for about thirty seconds before it freezes. Anyone know specifically why it warns that Roland emulation probably won't work on my card because it is pre-3.0? As far as I knew the mixer was the only functional difference between the early and recent Ultrasounds. Derek drkszk@ocf.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: 20 Mar 1995 09:51:52 +0100 From: "Stefan van Hattum" Subject: No music with Hardbal IV. Hi gussers, I have a question regarding HardBall 4. Before starting the game i have to startup Loadpats. After the patches have been loaded, the game can start but there is no music. Looking in the options menu both sound fx and music are enabled. The sound fx works fine, but you don't need loading patches for this do you ? Aren't the patches needed for the music also ? Well where is the music ? I've tried to install it on another pc with gus, but i still have no music. Can anyone help me ? Greetings, stefan_van_hattum@acghil.nl ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 19:45:18 -0500 (EST) From: Mike Batchelor Subject: Re: Pmode MegaEm Not the GUS Server once wrote... > > Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 14:18:34 +0930 (CST) > From: a vesnaver > Subject: PMODE MEGA-EM > > The new version of mega-em is located in the submit directory at EPAS and > is called "mega303b.zip". > > I haven't tried it yet, but I'm a little dissapointed that it still > requires emm386 to run. Most protected mode programs will not run on a PC > with 4mb ram which is also running emm386. I hope Gravis fixes this in > the final version. Not likely. If it is re-written so that it doesn't require a memory manager, then it would have to do exactly that thing that the memory manager does in order for the current version to operate: trap I/O port access. In order to do that, it would have to take over the machine in exactly the same way that the memory manager takes it over, and that is what certain protected mode games do not like. In other words, if MegaEm could work without a memory manager, then it would have to do the same thing that the memory manager does that prevents those games from running, which is to place the machine in virtual 8086 mode. I/O port trapping is only possible when the CPU is in protected or virtual 8086 mode. Something has to do it in order for the emulation to work. -- \\\ Mike Batchelor /// mikebat@clark.net \\\ M.Batchelor@babylon4.clark.net /// "The avalanche has already begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote." ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 17:52:20 -0800 (PST) From: "The Nimble Giant, Overfiend" Subject: PMode Megaem 3.03b(beta) SB prob! The Sound Bastard emulation on the new Megaem is bad. Most of the time, when a sound effect is played, it crashes my system. This happened on two games : Colonization + Quest for Glory 1 ( I only tried it on two games) The patch mapping is good and bad... The congo drums in Colonization(Indian songs) and the snares in Quest for Glory were replaced with toms(yuck!). But the fiddle(violin replacement)sound for Colon was excellent. The use of only one file(MEGAEM.EXE) to emu was a great idea. I'm just looking for a way to have my own configs for patches... the ones that MEGAEM gets wrong. OH, what I meant with 'most of the time' is that out of 10 times of trying to play with SB effects, 9 would crash my machine. tngo@netcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 14:12:23 -0500 From: Frank Wang Subject: Protected mega-em report For the most part, it works well. These following protected mode programs work with megaem & general midi. Simcity 2000 Masters of Magic [Haven't tried MOO yet, I assume it'd work if MOM does] Doom Heretic System Shock [Yes, those 3 support GUS, the imporant thing this is, they work with megaem too] What does NOT work: Full Throttle/Dark Forces Demo Sam & max hit the road CD If anyone can get either of the above to work, greatly appreciate knowing how. This megaem still misses something that would be -very-, VERY useful. A patch recording. I.e. 1st time, load general 1024 set. Afterwards, only use the patches that were used last time. This would -greatly- help work around the 1 meg limit, fairly easily. (hell, all it requires is a 256 bit array, and a 'test to see if that patch is 1/0'. - Frank ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 14:20:05 +0800 From: "Christopher Bolin" Subject: Protected Mode MegaEM I grabbed MegaEM 3.03beta in anticipation of finally having sound in several Pmode games... forget it. Magic Carpet locks hard as do several other games when I select General Midi. I tweaked with it for hours to no avail. This is really alpha level code. Pathetic that they don't shake the Expandedd memory requirement. It is easier to interface to, but requires an EMM manager to be in memory, doubling the points of failure and gobbling ram. Come on Gravis. You have a Great product (when it works). Put some money in R&D. The faithful are weary. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 23:29:09 -0300 From: "Jurassic Mark" Subject: Talk of the month:The new MegaEM GUS day all, Anyone tried that one? I don't have my games right now 'cause my brother has all my disks a few dozen kilometers away. But I have the earliest version of the GUS and MegaEM said that it won't work for most of the protected mode softwares. Can anyone elaborate on what exactly is "most of them"? Will it still work like before for the other type of games? Damn! Maybe I should think about upgrading... I hate that... Anyways, what kind of difference between the original GUS and the newset one (not the Max or Ace) would make MegaEM not work with my board, but on the other one? Dammit! :) 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: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 16:14:16 +0000 From: Samuel Audet Subject: The new "PMODE" MEGA-EM and Price of Interwave? Oh yeah... well, in the readme file of Mega-Em it doesn't say (and it doesn't say anywhere unless you run it on the following) that IT DOESNT WORK ON GUS 2.X... Hum, do don't lose you time GUS 2.X guys, nothing is really better than in Mega-EM 2 :) Anyone has a price for AMD Interwave? I'm thinking about upgrading to this when it will be out, but I'll make my choice between GUS Max and Interwave when I will know its price. Thanks, Bye! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 12:42:21 -0500 From: cdmckill@sail.uwaterloo.ca (Chris McKillop) Subject: YES!!!!!!!!! Pmode Megaem!!!!!!!! Its out, my god, its out!!! The "beta" release of a Pmode megaem is now on epas!!!! YES!!!! I am just getting the file now so i have no idea how good it is. It is still missing the "FM" emulation, but working in Pmode will be AMAZING!!! Just finished the D/L, TTYL. Chris *********************A Budding Computer Engineer, 'Neting @ Home ******************** cdmckill@sail.uwaterloo.ca Chris McKillop "If you read my .sig I'll tax that too...." - Apologies to the Beatles ------------------------------ End of GUS Daily Digest V20 #20 *******************************