From gus-general-request@gaia.ucs.orst.eduWed Apr 5 17:02:13 1995 Date: Wed Apr 5 09:37:04 PDT 1995 From: GUS Server Reply to: GUS Daily Digest Subject: GUS Daily Digest V21 #5 GUS Daily Digest Wed, 5 Apr 95 9:37 PST Volume 21: Issue 5 Today's Topics: Atari Action Pack (me too!) Audio CD's under DOS with GUS Max + Panasonic CD-ROM Full Throttle GUS and Asus mb and Pentium ... GUS Daily Digest V21 #4 (4 msgs) GUS under Win95 ... Help: CD-out from GUS + Reveal SC-400 Magic Carpet & Gus SBPro sounds better than GUS in many games? Sierra Games... Someone please upload XCOM patch? subscribe What board version? 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, 4 Apr 95 15:37:13 PDT From: sharon@netlabs.com (Sharon Hopkins) Subject: Re: Atari Action Pack (me too!) > Date: Mon, 3 Apr 1995 19:01:33 -0400 (EDT) > From: Tommy Lee > Subject: Atari Action Pack > > Has anyone managed to get the sounds working properly with this thing? > What I get are digital sounds that sometimes get cut off, or don't play > at all. I think the program is also supposed to mix multiple fx > channels, but this doesn't work either. > > Tommy. Likewise! A few games give digital effects of some sort (not too far off old Atari noises), but others, like Pitfall, have no sound whatsoever. The package does specify SoundBlaster or compatible, but should that make a difference running under windows? I've considered just giving up and buying a cheap SB (sigh!) to see if I can get more sounds out of my old favorites. Pathetic, ain't it? :-) --Sharon (long live the GUS anyways!) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Apr 95 10:23:08 BST From: asalvidge@VNET.IBM.COM Subject: Audio CD's under DOS with GUS Max + Panasonic CD-ROM I am unable to play audio CD's correctly under DOS through the Max and my Panasonic CR-562 drive. I have enabled the cd output on the ultrinit line and when I load up a cd player I ONLY get sound out of the left speaker. My soundcard is connected to my stereo - and everything else works correctly (Windows, games, etc). Can anyone help? - BTW, I am using version 3.47 of the Gravis drivers and I have tried a few DOS based cd programs and get the same result from each of them. I do have a windows based one that works but I want to be able to control the CD player when I am not in windows. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 15:57:05 -0400 (EDT) From: Will Dormann Subject: Re: Full Throttle I would assume that Full Throttle will support the GUS. The demo for Dark Forces does not have GUS support GUS, but the real game does. Full Throttle will probably be the same. I like the game, too. I can get fair sound with SBOS and horrible sound with Mega-em. (It might be because I have a 2.2 board) Oh yeah, what's this about Dark Forces having "weird" GUS support? I get beautiful sound on my system. Will Dormann wdorman@sprite.gremlan.org ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 17:41:25 -0700 From: Ferdinand Mataragnon Subject: GUS and Asus mb and Pentium ... > Date: Thu, 30 Mar 95 12:24:11 EST > From: bbaskin@mail.utexas.edu (Bryan K. Baskin) > Subject: Pentium/GUS/OS/2 Questions... > > Hello, Ferdinand, > > I don't have either of the boards you mentioned, but i DO use another > ASUS board, the PVI486SP3 w/ Award BIOS, etc. My board has NMI enabled > so SBOS works fine. There have been no probs with the BIOS or with > OS/2. ASUS makes good boards and i've heard very good things about > them. If you get a Triton chipset, make sure you get the high-dollar > synch. cache. From what i hear much of the speed boost is from this > stuff. > > The onboard EIDE should be very good. Mine gets 2.85MB/s from an > Maxtor 540 under OS/2. The P5 board also supports mode 4 so yours > should be higher. > > Oh, yeah. I reccommend using Manley's drivers if you expect to run any > DOS sound software, mod-players, games, etc. Its VDD is very good. > With gravis' drivers you have to set the DOS GUS to different settings > than the setting used by OS/2. And it also kinda goofs sometimes when > switching from DOS sound to OS/2 sound. For me the DOS support is more > than worth the loss of native midi synth in OS/2. > > Baskin > UT Austin > Team OS/2 > Hello fellow Teamer! =) I'll be getting the Asus P54TP4 motherboard now. It uses the Triton chipset and seems to be quite stable. This will be my first Asus mb. I've heard lots of good things about them. Price is a bit higher but I think well worth it. It will come with the pipelined burst cache. The DOS benchmarks in the spec sheet indicate that there's about a 40-50% improvement with the pipelined burst cache combined with regular fast page mode dram (simms). What did you use to get the transfer rate for your hd under OS/2? About the GUS compatibility ... thanks for confirming that the GUS will work with the Asus. That decided it. I should get the new board in about a week. I'll post how the GUS works with it a few days later. BTW, are you able to turn NMI on/off from the BIOS? Ferdinand BCIT, Canada Team OS/2 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 16:26:27 -0400 (EDT) From: Lance Kalzus Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V21 #4 On Tue, 4 Apr -1, Carl wrote: > I have a Gravis Ultrasound MAX and an SB-PRO in my 486dx2/66 > computer... > Yesterday I was messing around with a few of my games to see how each > card sounded. I was expecting to laugh at the SB-PRO and get a warm, > fuzzy > feeling from my far superior GUS. NOPE. > > These are the games I've tried and the results. I am referring to the > digital effects on both cards, not music. > > Dark Forces SB-PRO Runs FASTER, sounds about the same or > better. > Doom v1.666 Same as above try Doom v1.7 or above. id software's FX programmer for 1.666 did not utilize the GUS properly, and did software mixing. I'm not surprised to see this, frankly. Until software developers learn, (or decide that the sound effects are just as important as the music), we'll see SNAFUs like this for a while. > Doom II v1.666 Same as above > Heretic SB-PRO Runs FASTER, sounds MUCH better than GUS. > Doom v1.2 GUS runs FASTER, and sounds better. > Gee what an upgrade DOOM v1.666 is eh? BTW: What sounds better on the SB-Pro than the GUS, the sound effects, the music, or both? If you _seriously_ think the FM music sounds better than the sampled instruments, then... > doing the second method, not only would it sound better than SB, it > would be MUCH faster. Doom v1.2 demonstrates this. > > I set all these games to use GUS as MIDI and Sound Blaster for the > digital effects. So basically what I'm getting out of the GUS for > games Are you seriously saying you loaded SBOS/MEGAEM3.0b/MAXSBOS, set the music for Doom/DoomII/Heretic to GUS, then set the sound effects for _Sound_Blaster_?? I doubt you did this... .But if you did, you shouldn't be wondering why the sound effects were terrible. > If it wasn't for the awesome trackers out there that support the GUS, > I would SCRAP this card in a second, and get an AWE32 or something. ;) Over-reacting a little, aren't we? "Invisible airwaves crackle with life Bright antenna, bristle with the energy Emotional feedback on a timeless wavelength Bearing a gift beyond price that's almost free" -- Rush ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 16:30:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Lance Kalzus Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V21 #4 On Tue, 4 Apr -1, Gary Schumacher wrote: > I have just installed a Toshiba 5302B CD-ROM in my PC and have cabled the audio > out from the CD-ROM to JP7 on my GUS. I can now play audio CDs while I am in DOS! > > The CD-ROM/GUS combination works fine for all of the Windows multimedia programs > that I have tried. The only question that I have is how can I play audio CDs > when I am in Windows? I have tried to use A-B-CD but it doesn't see the CD-ROM. > Also what do I have to do to the GUS for the audio pass through while in windows? I have that happen every time the first time I start windows. Simply tell A-B-CD to Album|Open. It will read, then everything should work. If that doesn't do it, make sure the [MCI] CD Audio driver is installed (you'd be surprised how many people miss this one ;) "Invisible airwaves crackle with life Bright antenna, bristle with the energy Emotional feedback on a timeless wavelength Bearing a gift beyond price that's almost free" -- Rush ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 16:37:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Lance Kalzus Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V21 #4 On Tue, 4 Apr -1, Craig Galbraith wrote: > Now, I tried to hook up my Roland PC-200mkII MIDI controller keyboard after > having put it away for a while to get other things set up right. I thought > for sure that it wouldn't give me any problems. BUT...when in Windows, > simply touching a key while the keyboard is on and plugged in the GUS locks > up Windows but good! I can't reboot. I have to turn the whole thing right > off. I can use the keyboard in DOS though. It's just Windows that gives me > the problems. > > Maybe I did something in one of my .INI files? I dunno. I have the cards > set as: > SB16 220(address)5(IRQ) 1(lowDMA) 5(highDMA) 300(MIDIport) t6 > GUS 210(address) 7(playDMA) 7(recordDMA) 11(GF1IRQ) 7(MIDI/SB IRQ) Remember that the GUS uses more ports than just 2x0-2xf. It also utilizes 3x0-3xf. I don't know if port conflicts will lock a machine, but... Check to see what _all_ the ports used on the SB16 are. (Also, keep in mind that the Ad-Lib ports conflict on both the GUS and the SB16, as they're hardwired at 388-389). Also, check your CODEC (if you have the daughterboard or a Max) base port, and keep it out of the way of the SB16. ..Try and see if there's a way to disable the SB16's MIDI capabilities (assuming there is one, I don't know, don't own one.). > What could the problem be? > INIs? > Hardware setups? Conflicts? > Software setups? Conflicts? > Moon misaligned with Jupiter? This _can_ cause havoc once in a while ;) > Any help would be absolutely, gratefully, positively, enormously, spam, > truly, most extraordinarily appreciated. "Invisible airwaves crackle with life Bright antenna, bristle with the energy Emotional feedback on a timeless wavelength Bearing a gift beyond price that's almost free" -- Rush ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 19:14:13 -0300 From: "Jurassic Mark" Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V21 #4 > These are the games I've tried and the results. I am referring to the > digital effects on both cards, not music. > > Dark Forces SB-PRO Runs FASTER, sounds about the same or > better. > Doom v1.666 Same as above > Doom II v1.666 Same as above > Heretic SB-PRO Runs FASTER, sounds MUCH better than GUS. > Doom v1.2 GUS runs FASTER, and sounds better. > Gee what an upgrade DOOM v1.666 is eh? S'cuuuuuse me?!? But were you using SBOS with Doom or Heretic? The GUS has been blowing away all cards since the first GUS supporting Doom version. I have Doom II 1.666 and it rocks just as Heretic does or ROTT or Wing Commander III. > Umm, as you might have guessed, I am extremely disappointed. The > conclusion is of course, the GUS is NOT being supported correctly. > Instead of taking advantage of the unique abilities of the GUS, > it is basically being treated as a Sound Blaster! No way! How come the Doom install asks you how many digital channels you want to use? And I don't think SB PRO support is as stereo as GUS support is in Doom. You're obviously missing something here... > The samples > are being mixed via software, and fed to the GUS, instead of > preloading > the samples in the GUS RAM, and just triggering them. Say what?!? I swear I thought I saw Doom loading the patches before the game starts.... Damn... You mean all those months with Doom and Doom 2 music were not with GUS patches? Get real. > ------------------------------ > > Date: Mon, 3 Apr 95 19:12:48 EDT > From: Ryan Andrew Schutt > Subject: GUS MAX and OS/2 WARP > > I am a happy GUS MAX (1 meg) owner, and I am considering > installing OS/2 WARP on my system. How well does warp run with > the gus max? Will I be able to use scream tracker 3.21 under > os/2 without any problems? Do windows 3.11 midi programs work > under warp+gus max? BTW I have a Zeos Pantera/90. Please > reply at rschutt@pen.k12.va.us If you want to play tracker files under Warp, I suggest you grab UltiMOD 1.0. It only supports MOD4,6 and 8 for now, but it's only a start. And Sander will implement his device driver into the Manley's GUS-OS/2 drivers and will code the MIDI support under Warp. For now, if you want to listen to S3M files under Warp, get Cubic Player (0.96 is the latest, I beleive). It does crash on a few S3M files for me, but about 95% of my S3Ms work with it. I cannot say about ScreamTracker 3.21, though. I never tried it. 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: Tue, 04 Apr 95 09:41:03 -0700 From: cliff@trifid.astro.ucla.edu Subject: Re: GUS under Win95 ... >I've noticed this problem *ONLY* when ULTRAINT.EXE was installed from >autoexec.bat - when I deleted this line it does'nt "hang". I noticed this line during the Win95 startup. I wasn't sure whether this autoexec.bat was the same one I use on my C: partition. I have to look around for the one Win95 uses, should be on my D: partition. >So basically a nice little tip would be to copy all the information from >"\ultrasnd\windows" to a floppy as when it asks for a manufactures disk insert >the disk yuou copied the files to. Is there anything else you'll need apart >from that directory ? Actually, you can tell Win95 to look in the \ultrasnd\windows directory directly. This is a good ideal, but you will still need to set the ultrasnd environment varible so that the patch files can be located. (I don't think the windows drivers have built-in searching for patch files.) I have noticed that Win95 still says that it doesn't have a sound card eventhough I'm using my GUSMax for .wav and .mid file playback. I also used it with Encarta abit. I think its playing *.avi files but haven't checked it to be certain. I have noticed that I don't seemed to be able to use the Win95 volumn control for the GUSMax. It might be something that the window's drivers need to add access to. I'll try to find an .avi file for that test tonight. cliff ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Apr 95 18:45:16 -0600 From: alien@boi.hp.com Subject: Help: CD-out from GUS + Reveal SC-400 After studying the FAQ, casting a certain number of spells and standing on my head, I have GUS and the Reveal SC-400 (a SB-16? clone) more or less co-existing in my 486. Since I don't use it for game-audio, the only task that seems left for the FM card is providing an interface for the CD-ROM. This issue became more interesting to me after I hooked up a set of decent speakers. The software I have for playing an audio CD is "Audiostation" (Voyetra's AUDIOSTA.EXE) bundled with the Reveal hardware, running under Windows 3.1. When I hooked things up: GUS line out -> SC-400 line in SC-400 spkr out -> speaker amp line in with mixer=CS31BA11.DRV in SYSTEM.INI, I got nice CD sound out of the speakers. However, the MIDI stuff sounded FM-ish, instead of the GUS wave-table I'm used to. I switched it to: SC-400 spkr out -> GUS line in GUS line out -> speaker amp line in and mixer=ultrasnd.drv in SYSTEM.INI Now the MIDI synth sounds good, but I get NOTHING from playing a CD. The SC-400 has a jumper to change its single output line from "speaker" (amplified, as it is now) to "line". I haven't tried switching that yet.... My question is: does it make sense that switching this jumper would make the difference between CD output and *NO* CD output? Seems like there ought to be *something* coming out... (All adjustable sound levels in hardware and software were twiddled, and I've been through and resolved all IRQ and DMA issues, AFAIK.) Thanks for any help you can give. _____________ Tom von Alten email: alien@boi.hp.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Apr 1995 16:23:46 +0100 (BST) From: gould@cs.bris.ac.uk Subject: Magic Carpet & Gus The MegaEm 3.03 beta (MEGA303B.ZIP@archive.epas.utoronto.ca) provides MIDI support for Magic Carpet, but not Sound Blaster FX (yet). ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 16:22:05 -0400 (EDT) From: hcpiv@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca Subject: Re: SBPro sounds better than GUS in many games? To the poster who said that the SBPRo sounds better than a GUS in Doom, Heretic, Dark Forces, etc. Did you mean the FX sound better or the FM music sounds better than wavetable? If the latter then I think you need your ears checked. The wavetable music sounds so much better than FM that there is no contest. Now, the FX are another matter. With the SBPro I guess you get stereo so it might be better. I prefer a slightly slower game with stereo on the GUS to 8-bit mono sound on my old 8-bit SB. There are games now which ask if you have a Max or a regular GUS. So, there are some differences now. Several of the latest emulators also use the CODEC. Harry <:-{} hpulley@uoguelph.ca | This message released to the PUBLIC DOMAIN \ Harry C. Pulley, IV | Mind/Matter=Communication/Transportation --------------------------------+-------------------------------------------- Real programmers don't drink Zima|Read Melissa Scott's Trouble_And_Her_Friends ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Apr 95 11:39:29 EDT From: bbaskin@mail.utexas.edu (Bryan K. Baskin) Subject: Sierra Games... To the guy with Buggy Sierra Games in Win95, Sorry, I really can't fix your problem. I have heard from LOTS of people that all recent and not too recent Sierra games basically SUCK in terms of programming and stability. So you are not the only one with problems. Also blame MircoSoft for not writting an OS that won't lock up when a game does. I don't know if the game coused it or if Gravis's VxD, but somethings' amiss. In fact now that i think about it, i'm not sorry Sierra will not be supporting OS/2.... Later Baskin UT Austin Team OS/2 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 17:48:07 -0700 (PDT) From: "Peter C. Chien Jr." Subject: Someone please upload XCOM patch? Can someone please upload to epas the XCOM patch that supports the GUS natively? It was supposed to be at ftp.cdrom.com, but I don't think it's there anymore. Thanks. -Peter ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 12:08:51 -0700 (PDT) From: Matthew Berger Subject: subscribe subscribe ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Apr 1995 10:28:13 +0100 From: david.jarlestedt@datamedia.se Subject: What board version? How do I know what hardware version of the GUS I have? It_s an original GUS and I_ve heard of some problems with the early versions. Thanx. /David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Apr 95 12:50 EDT From: pech-iv@fpedas.utc.sk >From pech-iv Wed Apr 5 12:52:06 +0100 1995 remote from fpedas.utc.sk Received: from fpedas.utc.sk by uvt.utc.sk; Wed, 5 Apr 1995 12:50 EDT Received: by fpedas.utc.sk (5.57/Ultrix3.0-C) id AA10815; Wed, 5 Apr 95 12:52:08 +0100 From: pech-iv@fpedas.utc.sk (Pechacek Ivan) Message-Id: <9504051152.AA10815@fpedas.utc.sk > Subject: subscribe To: gus-general@gaia.ucs.orst.edu Date: Wed, 5 Apr 1995 12:52:06 +0100 (WET DST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL6] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1 ------------------------------ End of GUS Daily Digest V21 #5 ****************************** To post to tomorrow's digest: To (un)subscribe or get help: To contact a human (last resort): FTP Sites Archive Directories --------- ------------------- Main N.American Site: ftp.orst.edu pub/packages/gravis wuarchive.wustl.edu systems/ibmpc/ultrasound Main Asian Site: nctuccca.edu.tw PC/ultrasound Main European Site: src.doc.ic.ac.uk packages/ultrasound Main Australian Site: ftp.mpx.com.au /ultrasound/general /ultrasound/submit South African Site: ftp.sun.ac.za /pub/packages/ultrasound Submissions: archive.epas.utoronto.ca pub/pc/ultrasound/submit Newly Validated Files: archive.epas.utoronto.ca pub/pc/ultrasound Mirrors: garbo.uwasa.fi mirror/ultrasound ftp.st.nepean.uws.edu.au pc/ultrasound ftp.luth.se pub/msdos/ultrasound Gopher Sites Menu directory ------------ -------------- Main Site: src.doc.ic.ac.uk packages/ultrasound WWW Pages --------- Main Site: http://www.xmission.com/~grue/gus.html Main European Site: http://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/ultrasound/ Main Australian Site: http://ftp.mpx.com.au/archive/ultrasound/general/ http://ftp.mpx.com.au/archive/ultrasound/submit/ http://ftp.mpx.com.au/gravis.html Mirrors: http://www.st.nepean.uws.edu.au/pub/pc/ultrasound/ GUS digest: http://gpu.srv.ualberta.ca/~itam/digest.html MailServer For Archive Access: Email to Email to New Submit Files Mailing List: Email to with content "subscribe epas-list " Hints: - Get the FAQ from the FTP sites or the request server. - Mail to for info about other GUS related mailing lists (programmers, musicians, etc.).