Ultrasound Daily Digest Mon, 30 Aug 93 Volume 5: Issue 29 Today's Topics: GUS/Dune2 quite pissed off XWING with the SBOS V2.0B10 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: Sun, 29 Aug 93 11:48:47 -0400 From: davej@ferry.polymer.uakron.edu (Dave Jiang) Subject: GUS/Dune2 Message-ID: <9308291548.AA15198@ferry.polymer.uakron.edu> I used this little utility and patched the miles driver in Dune2 for GUS. I ran the game, it sounded great, but after a few minutes into the game, everything just freeze. I get dots all over the screen, and sometimes the computer just kept repeating one of it's verbal speech command. Like keep on saying "Yes Sir! Yes Sir! Yes Sir!......" Did I do something wrong somewhere? David Jiang ------------------------------------------------------------------ email : davej@eby.polymer.uakron.edu phone: (513) 435-6227 usmail: 207 Carters Grove Rd. FAX : (513) 435-6227 Centerville, OH 45459 U.S.A. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 13:06:46 +0800 (WST) From: Nasir David Subject: quite pissed off Message-ID: He is a write up for the GUS in a Popular Australian Computing Magazine called 'PC User'. It's in the current September issue.I was actually quite surprised at some of the information contained in it. Well.... this is what they think! .Please dont flame me for speeling mistakes or grammmarr mistakes, I hope you get the jist of the article!!! :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MULTIMEDIA Ultrasound. List Price: (Aus) $369 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Aug 93 22:57:04 EDT From: lcheung@mosaic.uncc.edu (Leung Cheung) Subject: XWING with the SBOS V2.0B10 Message-ID: <9308300257.AA26244@mosaic.uncc.edu> The sbos v2.0b10 is not work properly with Xwing. Only the digital sounds work. But not the music. Any Body Any Idea? ------------------------------ Date: (null) From: (null) This is a new entry into the soundcard field from Canadian company Gravis, best know for its high-performace joysticks. Unlike most other cards, it does not use frequency modulation (FM) systhesis m but samples of real instrument sounds to give much more realistic music. To achive this , it has 32 digital audio channels. Two of these are generally reserved for standard digital playback of digital voices and sound effects, while the remaining channels to sample playback via musical intrument digital interface (MIDI) . This means the MIDI synth on the UltraSound is a true sample player. Yet, The UltrSound also manages SoundBlaster complatibility, even though it is not an FM card. It achives this by a TSR driver called Sound Board Operatiing System (SBOS) which, which when loaded before a game, gives music and digital effects as promised, sounding like any of the FM cards. This may not work on all games, however. Spear of Destiny had no problem playing MIDI and digital sound effects but DUNE II , However, would only play music and no digital voices. If you are used to an 8bit/FM soundcard, then the UltrSound is a step up. But , for those not technically minded, it can be a bit of a minefield -- espically if you plan to use it for multimedia of MIDI recording. The UltraSound uses sampled instruments which are stored on disk and must be loaded into the card DRAM before it will do anything. Although there is absolutely no mention of it in the manual, there is a Windows Patch manager supplied, and you mush use this to select which intrument sounds (patches) are to be loaded into the card before you can play anything (SBOS games aside). This is very fiddly. Those with less experience could become quite lost. Applications are evenly spread across DOS and Windows, with even a few simply play and record utilities, including a wave editor (Sound Studio 8) under DOS, and Patch Manager, Mixer and driver for Windows. The number of patches you can load into the card at any one time is restricted t by the amount of onboard RAM. The UltraSound ships with 256Kb, which allows you to load on average of five to ten patches only. There are over 200 patches on disk providing all the instruments and drums sounds for a General MIDI synth. It is impossible, therefore , to load the complete set at one time. For games using the SBOS driver, this does not pose a problem, but for multimedia and MIDI music, it is a severe limitation. The UltraSound is a different kind of soundcard, and should not be judged on the same terms as others. It cannot be called Multimedia PC-compatable, as it does not allow full General MIDI support. The UltraSound is the first soundcard to achive true musical sampling , and it opens up all sorts of possibilites both for musicains and software developers. But while the card can playback samples at up to 44kHz in 16 bit stereo (CD quality) , you can only record in 8 bit. For musical applications, this is inadequate. If you want to make the most of the UltraSound's sampling for MIDI playback, you need a patch editor that can save in the .PAT format, a 16 bit upgrade in the form of daughterboard and more RAM. This will allow you to record your own sounds and use them on the card. The 16 bit upgrade is available for an extra (AUS)$99. A patch editor exits, but is primitive as it is - but unfortunalty hovever, it is not available to the general public. There is however,a shareware windows program call WAV2PAT that serves perfectly when uses with in conjunction with any Windows WAV editor, and more utililies like this are certain to appear. The quality of the 8-bit digital recording is okay. Sixteen-bit playback quality is also not as clean as other 16-bit cards. Gravis have chosen to initially release the UltraSound in a basic configuration to keep costs down. A CD-ROM interface and MIDI breakout box can also be bought as optional daugherboards. So while the Ultrasound is an excellent soundcard for the price, the limitations posed on it make it difficult for the developers and MIDI musicians to get the most from it. It should have come standard with 1Mb RAM and 16-bit recording. By Philip Moore. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Well there you have it people!! Quite a 'scathing' article dont you think?? Please, send us what you think about this article (either email or post of the digest) because I'm gonna put in a letter to this magazine, and tell them about the bits they 'missed' out , like the cards emulation of MT-32 ect ect (it could start flaming...but whats the point here??) This Mag read magazine by many here in Australia. I reckon because of this THEY BETTER GET THE FACTS RIGHT!! Nasir. P.S I reackon that the Magazine is sided towords Creative Labs (or PRO soundblaster ...get it?) thats why it was a crap article!!!! P.S.S Oh yea.....Has anyone got Syndicate to work with sbos v2.08 ?? * "What America's Cup??" | "My mistress eyes are Nothing Like the Sun" * * _+-_|\ | William Shakespear * * / \ | Nasir David at the... * * Perth , W.A ----> \_.--._/ | University Of Western Australia. * ------------------------------ End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V5 #29 *************************************