Ultrasound Daily Digest Wed, 7 Apr 1993 Volume 3 : Issue 7 Today's Topics: [GUS] SBOS 2.04 & Games settings ACES of the Pacific add-to-list Chuck Yeager DIGEST ADMIN: Great googly moogly... Dolby -- another try Gravis peripherals GUS and Windows (problem?) MIDI controllers Problem with SBOS 2.04 and X-Wing Recording Session and GUS To Gus or not to Gus... Ultima 7 fixes on EPAS Ultrasound Daily Digest V3 #6 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: 6 Apr 1993 20:20:46 -0400 From: pmk@access.digex.com (Pete Kilcullen) Subject: [GUS] SBOS 2.04 & Games settings Message-ID: <1pt6ou$23o@access.digex.net> ReprintFrom: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard I've tried the new SBOS 2.04 with some games. Here's what I found: COMMANCHE : I got a message reading: "The NMI procedure cannot be changed on this P.C." So ,contrary to the instructions, I *disabled* memory parity checking in the CMOS, and the game/sounds work fine LINKS386: Again, contrary to the instructions, I loaded SBOS 2.04 using the "-x2" option in order to get sound. No "-x2" means no sound! IMHO, each SBOS revision is a da__ frustrating puzzle. Why doesn't Gravis give us a hardware solution instead of various releases that keep changing how games work! Pete ------------------------------ Date: 06 Apr 93 14:47:04 EDT From: Lester Kovac <70431.2447@CompuServe.COM> Subject: ACES of the Pacific Message-ID: <930406184704_70431.2447_DHM42-3@CompuServe.COM> Aces of the Pacific and new SBOS don't work well. The SBOS from GUS22 (ver 2.X). When throttling down below 8 on the keypad the engine noice gives a pitched wine, that is deafn'ing. Go back to a Ver. 1.4x there is no problem there. Also, did you know that the RAF (modem support for ACES) has been cancelled I was in shock, I is the ultimate Flight Sim, not just lock on and fire type of game this you need skill. Digital Recording...... use 220,7,7,11,5 in your autoexec. SOME game need the ultrainit.sys DOS6 OK exept that the memmaker doesn't modify the ULTRASND lines. Has anyone tried Digital recording with DOS6 DblSpc. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 13:21:35 -0700 From: mchen@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Mike J. Chen) Subject: add-to-list Message-ID: <9304062021.AA02938@cory.Berkeley.EDU> ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 03:05:44 MDT From: rappelj@cuugnet.cuug.ab.ca (John Rappel 275-7230) Subject: Chuck Yeager Message-ID: <9304060905.AA26788@sun> Someone was complaining that Gravis' list of games that would support the Ultrasound was overoptimistic, which is certainly true, but they were also asking if Chuck Yeager's Air Combat was also vapourware, which it is not. I just got my copy yesterday from Gravis. The music, what little of it there is, is good, but the sound effects are no better than what you can get from a Soundblaster, but are still quite good, as I always thought effects and such sounded good on my old SB, it was just the music that lacked quality. If anyone doesn't know, you can order the special Ultrasound version direct from Gravis, for $26 here in Canada. Oddly enough, I had forgotten I had even ordered the game, and thus I was jumping up and down in ecstasy, thinking that I had gotten the long-delayed new installation disks. I really want to play around with the sequencer programs that weren't uploaded to epas, but for now I'm happy enough that I at least have the new patches and SBOS. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 16:47:04 MDT From: ddebry@itchy (Dave DeBry) Subject: DIGEST ADMIN: Great googly moogly... Message-ID: <9304062247.AA16816@itchy> Well, surprise, surprise. The nightly uploading of the digest to archive.epas seems to actually be working now. The digest goes to the standard place: .../ultrasound/digest/vol-xx/yy xx is the volume number (always two characters), yy is the issue number (also always two characters). So this digest will be, er,... oh, you figure it out. You're all reasonably smart people. The digest archiving happens after all the digests are mailed out at night, which with current readership is at about 2:30am MST/MDT. There is only a minimal mail header on the archived digest; no mail hop information. I have also added another feature, where the digest will also uploaded to a file called: .../ultrasound/digest/todays-issue As you might imagine, this will get overwritten everyday with that day's digest. This is for those of you that requested it, so that you can write a cron job (or whatever it is on your system) to get the digest each day via FTP instead of having it mailed to you. Some people prefer this, especially those who are copying it off to other sites/people. It makes it easier than having to parse all your mail and figure out which letter is the daily digest. Enjoy! -- Dave ddebry@ debry@ \ DeBry dsd. peruvian. | "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick es. cs.utah. | ass, and I'm all out of bubblegum." com edu / ------------------------------ Date: 06 Apr 93 21:55 GMT From: ELSEWARE@AppleLink.Apple.COM (ElseWare Corp, B Bauermeister,PAS) Subject: Dolby -- another try Message-ID: <734134764.2704696@AppleLink.Apple.COM> Attn: ultrasound digest SentBy: Don Dolby -- another try Matthew Spewak writes: >>Here's something else to think about... In addition to all the >>talk about 3d sound and QSound, I was wondering why there was no >>discussion of Dolby Pro Logic Surround Sound. ...Does anyone know >>more about the subject? Here's a quick rundown of how Dolby Stereo (also known as Dolby Pro-Logic Surround) works: Dolby takes 4 separate sound channels (left front, center front, right front, surround or "rear") and mixes them into two channels using a special encoding (which I will explain below). There are five speakers in the typical home setup because the surround channel has two speakers to spread out the sound (in a movie theater, there are often ten or more surround channel speakers). On the playback end, the two channels are then processed to get back the original four channels, more or less. The system isn't totally perfect, and there's always some crosstalk between channels. Dolby decoders have special steering circuitry that minimizes the crosstalk effects. The only requirement for Dolby Surround is a stereo source. There is no reason why the GUS shouldn't be able to generate a Dolby-decodable signal. How it is encoded: The right and left front channels are recorded normally on the Right and Left channels of the stereo signal. The front channel is recorded at equal volume on Right and Left simultaneously. The Surround or "Rear" channel is recorded at equal volume on both Left and Right, but with the signal inverted on the Left channel. In summary: Dolby Channel Stereo Channel(s) ------------- ----------------- L Front L R Front R Center L+R Surround L+(inverted)R When I say inverted, I mean that the waveform is upside-down, which means that all the troughs on the right channel are peaks on the left channel. Clear as mud? An interesting side-effect is that if you mix the left and right channels of the stereo together to form a mono mix, you lose the surround channel completely, as the inverted waveforms cancel each other. How the GUS could produce Dolby Surround: In principle, (keep in mind I'm not that familiar with GUS internals), one could assign each patch to any one of the four channels. A patch for the center channel, left, or right is easy: use center pan, full left, or full right. Any pan settings in between will generally split the sound among the three front speakers in some fashion. A patch for the surround channel would need to play a sound out the left channel, and the inverse of that sound out the right. With the proper patch editor, (and assuming the GUS is capable of this), it would be a cinch. Alternately, you could play two patches simultaneously out the right and left that were inverted. Of course, you also need to posess a Dolby Pro-Logic decoder and run the GUS signal through it, but I think that goes without saying. :) Hope this helps! --Don Munsil elseware@applelink.apple.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 13:43:06 -0700 From: Eric N. Liao Subject: Gravis peripherals Message-ID: <199304062043.AA04644@aerospace.aero.org> Specifically, the 16-bit recording daughterboard, and CDROM interface(s)... Have these shipped yet? I'm more interested in the CDROM interface(s) at this moment. Also, has anyone bought a GUS RECENTLY? I want to know if the new boards are the lower-chip count models. Any word as to when we should receive the latest (2.0x) GUS software? I know it's already on EPAS, but I want to get my hands on the MIDI software that's bundled with the mail upgrade. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 17:44:12 GMT From: ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca (Phat H Tran) Subject: Re: GUS and Windows (problem?) Message-ID: ReprintFrom: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard In article <1plrsmINNec3@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU> tony@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU (Tony Molina) writes: > >I have just bought a Gravis Ultrasound card (and love it). Everything on it >works beyond my expectations when I first bought it. > >One small problem which I'm not sure is a fault of the card or its drivers is >when listening to MIDI files under Windows 3.1 > >Using the Windows 3.1 MIDI player I load the midi file, press play, begins to >play but sounds a little ordinary (volume is low and doesn't sound stereo), I >then press the pause icon then unpause it, begins to play again but this time >with higher volume (correct) and superb stereo sound. > >It's no big deal I guess, as long as I remember to pause/unpause all midi >files before settling down to listening to them it's fine, just a small >nuisance. You can use VMAP to make Roland .mids (which most .mids are) play louder on the GUS. Most .mid files assume that the volume response of the output device is linear (I believe) but the response of the GUS is logarithmic. VMAP does a log transform on the volumes in a MIDI file so that they sound linear on the GUS. This effectively increases the volumes of the instruments, with the quieter volumes increasing more than the louder volumes. At least one person feels that VMAP over-compensates. The next version will let the user adjust the overall volume of the transformed file. VMAP can be found on epas. I don't know the directory, but it's beneath /pub/pc/ultrasound. Phat. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Apr 93 22:20:10 GMT From: pawhite@okcins.okanagan.bc.ca (Phil White) Subject: MIDI controllers Message-ID: <0096AA17.6D9A5900.26995@okcins.okanagan.bc.ca> ReprintFrom: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard OK. Here are the MIDI controller definitions (not sure how current this is ;-)). 14-bit MSBs 1 Modulation These go from 0 to 31. The LSBs are in 32- 2 Breath 63. The ones not listed are undefined. I 4 Foot don't know which of these the Ultrasound 5 Portamento Time supports; I haven't tried them yet, but this 6 Data Entry should help you. Note that the values for 7 Main Volume each "byte" are from 0 - 127 (7 bits), so 8 Balance we have a 14-bit value when combined with 10 Pan the LSB. As an example, to set the Breath 11 Expression Controller to 131, we would set controller 16 General Purpose #1 #2 to 1, and controller #34 to 3. 17 General Purpose #2 18 General Purpose #3 19 General Purpose #4 7-bit 64 Hold, damper pedal 65 Portamento 66 Sostenuto 67 Soft Pedal 69 Hold 2 80 General Purpose #5 81 General Purpose #6 82 General Purpose #7 83 General Purpose #8 92 Tremelo Depth 93 Chorus Depth 94 Detune (Celeste) 95 Phaser Depth OK. That's all I know. Don't ask, I can't answer! -Phil White pawhite@okcins.okanagan.bc.ca ------------------------------ Date: 6 Apr 93 04:27:14 GMT From: seah@ee.rochester.edu (David Seah) Subject: Re: Problem with SBOS 2.04 and X-Wing Message-ID: <1993Apr6.042714.11371@ee.rochester.edu> ReprintFrom: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard In article <1993Apr5.201203.25685@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> ry01@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (ROBERT YUNG) writes: >Does this "slow-down" affect happen on kick-ass machines such as a 486-66?? Yes. X-Wing also jerks during digital sound playing when music is enabled on a local bus Gateway 4DX2-66. SBOS 2.04 is being used, BTW. Incidentally, I thought 2.04 was supposed to have a feature in which digitized sounds wouldn't be cut off, like shooting during a TIE Whoosh I guess. It appears to be accomplishing this by not playing a digitized sound if one is currently playing. I guess this technically is a "feature"... a big sarcastic hand for the programming wizards behind this one! :) (For example, during the opening animation, not all digitized snippets of speech are played. Some are skipped...pretty annoying. And Monkey Island II definitely has a slew of out of tune instruments. At least 2.04 doesn't prevent the game from running like 2.02 did. -- Dave Seah (seah@ee.rochester.edu, AFCDaveS@aol.com) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Apr 93 20:51:02 CDT From: David Ying-Wai Liu Subject: Recording Session and GUS Message-ID: <9304070151.AA22120@ccu.UManitoba.CA> Can I use Midisoft 's Recording Session with my GUS, the program runs but I didn't got any sound... Is it true that all windows applications (eg. Midisoft 's products and others utilities for sound utilities) will work with GUS if the GUS driver is installed? Thanks! David Liu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 12:02:22 +0200 From: rock@POOL.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE Subject: To Gus or not to Gus... Message-ID: <9304071002.AA27257@rama> Hi Folks! Ok, ok I have followed the digest since V1-07 and still haven't got my Gus yet... What will I do with my (future) soundcard? Mostly play games. And soundfiles (I'd love to hear those mid's..;-) ). But when you read the lts, you get the impression that SBOS is a piece of junk. (Of course only those who have pron...) So, who has compared SBOS with Soundblaster and is happy software-emulation? Thanx...Olli ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Apr 93 13:18:05 EDT From: tmcreek@eos.ncsu.edu Subject: Ultima 7 fixes on EPAS Message-ID: <9304061718.AA18014@c00313-11pa.eos.ncsu.edu> Just to clear things up... The fixes on EPAS are not from Origin. I took them from BC4000 because they apparently are some sort of semi-standard driver that Origin and other companies use for soundcards. I found that BC4000 worked with SBOS 2.04, but Serpent's Isle dumped me out to a 40 column screen. Thes .adv's fixed the problem. That's all the u7gus.zip file is for. I just didn't want anyone to think that Origin knew we existed. (I'm sorry too.) As for fixing the stuttering speech problem, I never had it, so I really don't know. -- tmcreek@eos.ncsu.edu \ These views respresent no one. / Now you creek-tm@aza.csc.ncsu.edu \ Even I won't claim them. / are here --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #include "std_funny_stuff.h" /* This is where I include some witty tripe */ ------------------------------ Date: 6 Apr 93 19:18:22 U From: "zz Paul Murgatroyd" Subject: Re: Ultrasound Daily Digest V3 #6 Message-ID: <9304060936.AA23236@kirk.bu.oz.au> >Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 08:33:06 EST >From: Matthew Spewak >Subject: GUS FUTURE RELEASE LIST - BS?? >Message-ID: <930405.083306.8512@walnut.prs.k12.nj.us> > > >And of the Chuck Yeager for GUS? This is listed as shipping. HAS ANYONE SEEN >THIS???? I'd like to know where this is shipping! (more BS???) > >-MS Matthew, The Chuck Yeager for GUS *DOES* exist. I have it, and it sounds great! To get an upgrade, send your original disks to Electronic Arts. The upgrade is free, and it is well worth it. The GUS version of Chuck Yeager will not produce sound on anything other than the GUS. This will only cause problems if you sell your GUS in the future. The solution: Keep a backup of the old version. Chuck Yeager with the GUS highlights the strength of the GUS, and I hope other games companies will take notice. The SoundBlaster is a piece of crap compared to the GUS, but what we need is plenty of evidence to prove it. ------------------------------ End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V3 #7 ************************************ Digest Address: ultrasound@dsd.es.com To post to tomorrow's digest Request Server Address: ultrasound-request@dsd.es.com To subscribe, unsubscribe, and request files Owner Address: ultrasound-owner@dsd.es.com To contact a human if the server has troubles FTP Sites: archive.epas.utoronto.ca pub/pc/ultrasound wuarchive.wustl.edu systems/msdos/ultrasound