Impulse Tracker and Windows '95

Not much here, because I haven't been playing around with it much.. but...

First of all you need EMS to run Impulse Tracker. This can be achieved by
creating a shortcut to IT.EXE, and setting the EMS-Auto or some other
specific value AS LONG as you don't have "noems" in your config.sys (if you
don't know what this means, you can probably assume that it's not there)

Also note that sometimes, the presence of the mouse cursor/changing graphics
can prevent IT from operating in the background. Use Ctrl-M to disable this.

1) GUS Users.

   I haven't been able to get hold of the UltraSound Windows '95 drivers to
   test with the program, but *WITHOUT* them installed, the routines seem
   to work fine, as long as the tracker's window is highlighted. If you move
   to another window, then it takes ages for each update to occur UNLESS you
   read Drivers.TXT which will tell you how to avoid this.

2) SB 16/AWE 32 Users.

   Impulse Tracker's Sound Blaster 16 driver should be completely compatible
   with Windows '95 now. In some cases, the command line parameters
           IT /s3 /ixx /dxx
   have been requried, although this seems to be a rarity.

   If Window's starts swapping EMS memory to disk, then you're gonna be in
   *big* trouble when playback starts, due to the fact that the mixing
   routines need to access the memory quickly, and disk-swapping simply takes
   too long! You will know that the memory is being swapped to disk if, when
   you move onto a sample on the sample list, disk access occurs. This is
   because the memory is accessed to draw the waveform.

   The SB16 drivers work quite happily in the background of Win95 also.

   I finally managed to encounter a computer which wouldn't accept IT's
   SB16 drivers - when you pressed F5 to play, it'd just sit there without
   progressing (it actually *thinks* it's playing)..

   The fix is reasonably simple and really stupid ->

   Goto "My Computer", right click -> properties -> device manager -> sound,
   video -> SB16

   Now go to the "resources" tab, and unclick "Use automatic settings"

   Either:
     1) Change your MIDI port from 300h to 330h or
     2) Select a 'basic configuration' which doesn't include the MIDI port

     ( 3) Get an updated driver from Creative Labs )

      Click OK, then click OK on the warning message.

   There is a good chance that it should work now. I believe this is a bug in
   the older Win95 SB16 drivers. (I *know* that the SB16 driver I have prevents
   MIDI in DOS boxes and causes problems because if I remove it, MIDI works
   flawlessly in DOS boxes in in Win95)

3) SB Pro Users

   Impulse Tracker's Sound Blaster Pro driver should be completely compatible
   with Windows '95 now. In some cases, the command line parameters
           IT /s3 /ixx /dxx
   have been requried, although this seems to be a rarity.

   If Window's starts swapping EMS memory to disk, then you're gonna be in
   *big* trouble when playback starts, due to the fact that the mixing
   routines need to access the memory quickly, and disk-swapping simply takes
   too long! You will know that the memory is being swapped to disk if, when
   you move onto a sample on the sample list, disk access occurs. This is
   because the memory is accessed to draw the waveform.

   The SB Pro drivers work quite happily in the background of Win95 also.

4) ALL users

   Finally, if you STILL can't get Impulse Tracker to work under Windows '95,
   then you'll have to try to use it under a Vanilla DOS bootup. You have to
   press F8 when the computer first starts up, and select Command Prompt.

   If you are not experienced with DOS, have someone show you how to do this,
   and setup any requirements (eg. EMM386)

        You need the following lines in your CONFIG.SYS file:
                DEVICE=<path>\HIMEM.SYS
                DEVICE=<path>\EMM386.EXE RAM H=255

        eg. if the files are in your C:\DOS directory, you need this:

                DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
                DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM H=255


                                                - Jeffrey Lim