GUS Daily Digest Wed, 15 Dec 93 0:07 Volume 9: Issue 15 Today's Topics: 16-bit DMAs ? 2.06 disks... 32 bit AIL click prevention Deleting MIDI patches DOOM GUS Daily Digest V9 #11 GUS Daily Digest V9 #14 (2 msgs) GUS For Sale MEGAEM REVIEW IN PC-FORMAT Need Syndicate SBOS parameters Net DOOM New SFX for Epic Pinball and others NMI Problems Repeat request to the techs at Gravis 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: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 13:03:53 -0200 (GMT-2:00) From: sn@phoenix.oulu.fi (Sami Nieminen) Subject: 16-bit DMAs ? Hello Sailors! Following thing caught my attention when browsing through the Ultrasound README-file. When they told about those faulty OPTI chipsets, they said that DMAs 0-3 are 8-bit, the rest are 16-bit. Ofcourse I checked whether my motherboard was faulty. No errors, I could notice no difference of any kind between 8-/16-bit DMAs. This baffled me. What's the difference ? They implied that using 8-bit DMA is something you can barely live with, but actually the default DMA for GUS is 8-bit. So I'd be curious to know if there's any use to set your GUS to use other than the default DMA, and what that use could be. ---sn@phoenix.oulu.fi / Sami Nieminen --- May you live --- // at --- in interesting times --- /// Dept. of Electrical /// Engineering // University of Oulu, / I K Finland ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 15:24:07 -0700 (MST) From: BRUECKD@yvax.byu.edu Subject: 2.06 disks... Howdy GUSers! Awhile back I got a new hard drive and when I went to reinstall my GUS software, a few of the disks were unreadable. So, I just snagged 2.06L off the net and installed that, but I was wondering if someone could get me the files from the 2.06 disks that aren't in 2.06L... Seems like there were a couple of Windows programs or something. I guess if all else fails I could write Gravis and work it out with them, but why waste their/my time & shipping $$ when somebody could just send them to me or post them somewhere or something. (Would there be a legal problem with this? If you need proof I own a GUS and all that, my name is on that list of GUS owners on epas.) Thanks for any help! Dave Brueck brueckd@yvax.byu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 11:40:13 -0800 (PST) From: "George A. Montemayor" Subject: Re: 32 bit AIL > First off, with regards to Gabriel Knights you are right. Sierra chose to > use the 32 bit protected mode AIL drivers. The bad news is that we can't get > it to run with. The good news is that we will have new 32 bit drivers > completed in about 3-4 weeks. This should alleviate a heck of a lot of > problems with most 32 bit protected mode games (like Strike Commander) GUS will have 32 bit AIL drivers?! Hurrah! I hope this will solve all/most of the GUS problems. Will GUS come out will AIL DLLs? > > Also, we will be announcing and showing some new products at CES in the > first week of January! Stay tuned for more info! I can't wait. Try announcing this over ON COMPUTERS, the syndicated computer radio show that Advanced Gravis sponsors. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 11:50:53 -0800 From: fredh@hpcvusd.cv.hp.com Subject: click prevention >> snap crackle and pop > >Pops and clicks can also be due to poor samples, poor loop points, or poor >voice handling routines. Sometimes, they can be caused by bad DRAM, in >which case the pops get worse the longer a sample stays in GUS memory. > >Phat. Is there a tool available to check the DRAM on the GUS ? I've been having some clicks that I can hear when wearing headphones. They hurt my ear. It is only in the left channel. Does this indicate anything? Since I'm using the patches that came with the GUS I assume they were done with good samples, good loop points and good voice handling routines. I like the GUS a lot but the clicks I'm getting are terrible. I'm using Power Chords to produce the music that has the clicks. Fred Handloser ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 13:06:46 -0200 (GMT-2:00) From: sn@phoenix.oulu.fi (Sami Nieminen) Subject: Deleting MIDI patches Hello Sailors! I'm pretty tight on disk space. I've have even been considering deleting (shudder) some of my Ultrasound files. I'm wondering whether I could delete some (not all) of those MIDI patches that hog up 5.6 megs of my precious hard drive. The only occusion when I need them is when using Megaem, and I feel that even Megaem wouldn't need all of them. I'm not quite sure, though. Actually, I'd like to know the names of the patches which Megaem wouldn't need (or would need very rarely), so I don't delete any often-used patches. ---sn@phoenix.oulu.fi / Sami Nieminen --- May you live --- // at --- in interesting times --- /// Dept. of Electrical /// Engineering // University of Oulu, / I K Finland ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 11:45:34 -0500 (EST) From: Phat H Tran Subject: DOOM > Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 11:25:33 -0800 (PST) > From: godfrel@sfu.ca > Subject: Doom DOES work for me! > > Well, how come everybody keeps saying that DOOM will not work with a > GF1 IRQ >9? I have mine set to 11 and it STILL WORKS. The game is ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > wild. It still needs some polishing though. The MUSIC AND SFX > definitely need to be improved. SFX drop off and on all the time. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SFX problems are why people are told to use IRQs less than 9. > Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 11:47:44 -0600 (CST) > From: mjs7529@tamuts.tamu.edu (Michael J Stumpf) > Subject: what i had to do for doom. this is different. > > Some people have expressed that you SHOULD NOT run ultramid. > > I have to run ultramid, or doom does not function... I get chirps and > crap. > > Just thought I'd let some of you with the same symptoms as me know that > it's just fine to do that. Don't load Ultramid. For one thing, it's not required, so why let it consume 50k of memory? It may also conflict with the GUS routines in DOOM leading to sporadic problems later on. Just do what GUS owners are told to do (i.e. copy dmxgus.ini into /doom and set the GF1 IRQ to < 9 and != MIDI/SB IRQ) and the game should run fine without Ultramid. Phat. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 20:28:14 -0800 From: jakub@eskimo.com (Jake Cholewczynski) Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V9 #11 DOOM? Personally I tried it and GUS sounds like a SB or SBOS ver. 1.2 the sound is not clean must have been recorded at really poor quality, the game looks great slow on a 386 but cool but sound is not anything like SCII or Epic's Pinball or Zone 66.. Not only there is no 3-d support the sound sucks, I only have one thing to say to that, ID why support a sound card if you are not going to use the sound card's great sound ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 02:54:58 -1000 (GMT-10:00) From: Paul Murgatroyd Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V9 #14 On Tue, 14 Dec 1993, GUS Server wrote: > Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 14:31:33 +0000 > From: Stefan > Subject: bugs in new Gravis Ultrasound windows driver(beta)!! > > I've recently installed a new s3 video card into my 386dx-40, and yesterday > installed the Microsoft Mouse v2.0. > I use a shareware program called Backmenu as my shell, and since I installed > the s3 drivers, its startup screen has been garbled. I originally to a fault > in the graphics drivers. If you are referring to the text in the box being unreadable, then rest assured, this is quite normal, especially if you are running in 1024x768 mode. I have an S3 video card (2Mb VRAM), and I run it in 1024x768 mode. The Backmenu box that appears during startup is not readable for the most part (it is on my friends machine, but he doesn't have an S3 video card). I can never recall having any problems with the GUS drivers, but I have not tried the new ones yet, as I lent my GUS to a friend for the Christmas vacation (and because I have not had time to get it to co-exist with my PAS16). I will try everything out after vacation, but I do not suspect that Backmenu is at fault. My S3 drivers have caused one or two programs to crash, but otherwise they have been pretty stable for the year I have been using them. As for the mouse drivers.....I use a Logitech MouseMan Cordless, which is much better than anything Microsoft produces in terms of mice. The Logitech drivers have not given me any problems at all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ____ ___ ____ / \ / / \ / \ Paul Murgatroyd (s1114@kowande.Bond.edu.au) / / / / Student of Computing Science \----\ / / \----\ School of Information & Computing Science / / / / B O N D U N I V E R S I T Y \____/ / \___/ \____/ Gold Coast, Queensland, AUSTRALIA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 09:10:13 -0800 (PST) From: jde@ciaran.ucr.edu (Jeff Ellis) Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V9 #14 Writes godfrel@sfu.ca > Well, how come everybody keeps saying that DOOM will not work with a > GF1 IRQ >9? I have mine set to 11 and it STILL WORKS. The game is > wild. It still needs some polishing though. The MUSIC AND SFX > definitely need to be improved. SFX drop off and on all the time. > Godfrey. I also had problems with the SFX dropping in and out as well as sometimes the wrong sound played. But if you do switch the IRQ from 11 to something like 3 or 5 it will all work great! -- Jeff Ellis Internet: jde@ciaran.ucr.edu Manager of Computing Services University of California, Riverside College of Engineering ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 10:52:13 +0000 From: martin%wyvern.bri.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com Subject: Re: GUS For Sale I have a Future Domain SCSI controller and a GUS card, and they work fine in the same box. I'm not sure which Future Domain card it is, but it has the FD controller, and the external port is a 25-pin port (not the small SCSI one). I boot from an external SCSI disk, and it works great. My GUS works fine in games like X-Wing (using sbos) and Epics pinball (Native GUS support). If you need it, I'll look up the dma/irq settings for you, but don't give up hope, FD and GUS can live together! |\/| -- +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | |\/|artin |/\|ard | martin@wyvern.bri.hp.com Martin WARD/HP8005 | | | CServe: 100023,3204 Tel: +44 272 228 142 | +---------martin%wyvern.bri.hp.com%hplb.hpl.hp.com%uucp-gw-1.pa.dec.com-------+ | Support Systems Europe, Filton Road, Stoke Gifford, Bristol, AVON, BS12 6QZ.| +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 13:42:43 GMT From: Ben Leamy Subject: MEGAEM REVIEW IN PC-FORMAT The december issue of PC-FORMAT (UK) has a review for Megaem in its shareware section. They quite rave about it and even suggest that it sounds better than the Roland (I think they meant the SB :) ). However, their review copy was old (ie. pre megaem23b) and they said that it required regestiring and had a 10minute limit. Their fax number is; (england) 0225 446019 (FOA: PC-FORMAT EDITORIAL STAFF) Perhaps someone (GRAVIS :) ) would like to inform them about the new version (in case they don't already know) and other news about GUS. (Maybe a little slagging down of they review of the Soundwave 32 ;) ) _____________________________________________________ Ben INTERNET = LEAMY%uel.ac.uk@earn-relay JANET (UK) = LEAMY@UK.AC.UEL ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 16:52:16 -0500 From: Subject: Need Syndicate SBOS parameters I, and four others at our company, have recently purchased GUS'. One game that I've been playing using my SBPro but can't get to work with my GUS is Syndicate. If anyone's had any success, please post the parameters. Thanks, Ken --- Ken Walker, Software Engineer, Object Technology International Inc. Email: ken@oti.on.ca Phone: (613) 820-1200, Fax: (613) 820-1202 Land: 2670 Queensview Drive, Suite 1, Ottawa Ontario Canada. [self contents apply: Disclaimers standard] fork. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 17:34:23 CST From: Bryan Larsen Subject: Net DOOM You don't even need WfWG or Novell to run DOOM in net mode, just grab wsdos1.exe and wsdrv2.exe from ftp.novel.com: /pub/netwire/novfiles/client.kit/doswin/files and install. Bryan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 12:27:37 +1030 (CST) From: Gavin Subject: New SFX for Epic Pinball and others Being bored one night I decided to play around with Pinball's sound effects. It's quite easy to modify. The files SFX?.PIN contain all the SFX in a (mostly) RAW format. The easiest way to modify them is to load the full file into something like Cooledit or Goldwave as a 8bit/11025kHz RAW file. You can then select sections of the waveform for playing. To add your own, just paste over the top of the original waveform but make sure the SFX you're pasting over is of similar duration as the new one. I found Cooledit the best for this. You can also create patches from the individual samples, for example I have created patches from XWING for the lasers and other sfx for use with Ultramid. (I cannot upload to epas but if someone would like these and could upload them for me I will send them to you uuencoded). To summarize, many games that have Sblaster digital sfx store these concatenated in a single file which may also have other info for the game. All you need ot do is work out what format the data is stored in ,usually 8bit/11025kHz, the main change is whether it's signed or not, load it as a RAW data file and just select the bits you want. As with all things make backups of your original files before you play around with them. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 12:45:22 +0000 (GMT) From: mj_smith@chef.uwe-bristol.ac.uk ([Pyrite]) Subject: NMI Problems I've just upgraded my machine to a 486sx33 by changing the motherboard, and all of a sudden SBOS doesn't work anymore :( It gives me a message saying that the NMI on my machine has been disabled!! , and then when I try to remove SBOS from memory it says that it can't cause the keyboard has been hooked! whats going on ? What is the NMI ? How can I enable it ? How do I get SBOS to remove itself from memory ? If I can't what can I do to get my GUS and SB working together again ? Help would be gratefully received. Mark. mj_smith@csd.uwe.ac.uk ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 09:15 EDT From: EVIL GM Subject: Repeat request to the techs at Gravis I asked a while ago if the techies at Gravis could clear up the rumors about the Gus Max. I haven't gotten a reply, so I'm reposting the request. _Please_! Pretty please! If you folks at Gravis can give us more info on the Gus Max, I'd really appreciate it very much. there's a pretty good chance I'll be buying one over Holiday Break, but in order to decide, I'll need to have more info about it than I do now! I'd prefer to get that info from you guys than from the retailers where I am, because you guys really know! Thanks very much for all the hard work, guys! -Chris Hedberg ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 14:15:42 -0500 From: decvax!cg-atla.agfa.com!pasky@uucp-gw-2.pa.dec.com (Robert Pasky) To: dsd.es.com!gus-general Subject: Lock L/R not working? --text follows this line-- I've got an annoying problem with the new GUS0035.ZIP that I haven't seen anyone mention yet: The "Lock L/R" checkbox in the Driver Setup dialog doesn't "stick." I can check the box, close the dialog and re-open it immediately and the box is cleared. I've tried variations, like restarting Windows, but still the box is cleared. This, of course, affects the Mixer app. and the annoying thing is that the right Midi slider always comes up at minimum volume when Windows starts up! Is there an .INI file for these settings? I didn't see anything in any of the \WINDOWS\*ULT*.INI files that looked like they controlled the driver setup or the mixer app. Any suggestions? -- Bob ------------------------------ End of GUS Daily Digest V9 #15 ******************************