ÕĶĶĶĶĶĶ Vanadium Module Player v1.10 documentation ĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶø ĄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄŁ ÕĶĶĶĶĶĶ Contents ĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĶø ĄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄŁ ž Introduction ž Configuring your Vanadium Module Player ž Loading a song with Vanadium Module Player ž Using the Playlist ž General keys . ž Technical information . : ž Troubleshooting : | | ĄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄŁ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ŪŪŪŪŪŪ Introduction... (praising ourselves) ŪŪŪŪŪŪ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Well I can't say much more than that I'm glad that you decided to use Vanadium Module Player... or at least to try it. But hey, I can assure to you that this utility is worth testing. We've Spent lots of time making it userfriendly, bugfree, highquality and goodlooking. And I think that we've succeeded... at least a little. So if you're a SB owner you will find VMP very good player indeed. It might be confusing to your little minds that this text is written using I and we on random periods... and using bad english. Well the first one is because I am the compiler of this documentation (Samuli Lehto - TooL) and we are Aimo Heikkinen (the mighty codeproducer) and me again (the awesome ansi artist). Yeah narcissism is a part of my life. ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ŪŪŪŪŪŪ Configuring your Vanadium Module Player ŪŪŪŪŪŪ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ There is a program called VSETUP.EXE. By using it you can configure your Vanadium Module Player. VSETUP has no parameters. It only has to be run from the same directory where your VMP.EXE is. Using VSETUP is easy: Select Sound Device ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ First when you enter VSETUP you will see the main menu. Before the other options you must select a soundcard you're using. You can either select the soundcard manually, so you will be prompted for the DMA channels, IRQ's etc. If you select autodetect VSETUP will get the values for you. Set Sound Quality ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Now that you have selected a soundcard you can configure it. VSETUP detects by default the best (highest) possible values for your soundcard, but you can change them from the sound quality menu. Sampling rate, stereo or mono, number of bits and filters can be changed from there. There are two filter selections. First one is the Sound Blaster Pro hardware filter which, of course, can only be used with SBPro. The second is Vanadium's own software filter which can be used with all cards and it increases the sound quality a lot, but, on the other hand, needs a lot of processor time. Test Playback ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ When you have completed the sound quality settings you can test the soundcard in the next main menu selection. Left and right channel can be tested separately and if they don't quite match with your stereos or whatever you're using you can reverse left and right channels. Set Player Defaults ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ From this menu selection you can set most of the startup options. Default panning means that all channels are not completely left or right, but a mixture. For example if a channel is by default left using default panning it will be 75% left and 25% right. Warning! default panning needs a huge amount of processing powder. So use it with care. Well, the other options should be quite obvious. I quess... Save & Exit ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ After you've made all required configurations and you're satisfied you can save your configuration and exit to dos. Exit ÄÄÄÄÄ If you decide not to save your configuration use this selection. ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ŪŪŪŪŪŪ Loading a song with Vanadium Module Player ŪŪŪŪŪŪ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ there are three ways of loading songs with VMP: 1. Simplest way of loading modules with VMP is typing the module name after VMP at the command prompt. Multiple song names are separated with spaces. 2. You can use playlist files with VMP. Playlist files are the simplest thing in the whole world. They consist of song names... nothing else. For example this could be a playlist file: C:\MODULES\FC\WPLSTC.S3M C:\MODULES\BLITZ.MOD D:\TEMP\TEST.MOD So those files can be used with VMP by typing at the dos prompt VMP @filename. The filename is ofcourse the file you've created consisting of those song names. Again you can use multiple playlist files separated with spaces. 3. The most splendid way of loading songs with VMP is ofcourse the integrated file selector. Using the file selector shouldn't cause much problems. The file selector appears immediately after launching VMP (if you haven't used any command line parameters). There are three fields in the file selector: 1. The file field. Displays the files in the current directory. 2. The directory & drive field. Shows the directories and drives available. 3. The Wildcard field or the mask field. Here you can insert a mask so that there are only some sort of files displayed in the file field. ?'s and *'s are allowed and there can be many masks separated with commas. For example your mask could look like this: *.S3M, T?R*.ST? And here are the keys you can use in the file selector: TAB goes through those three fields ENTER selects a file or opens a directory UP goes up DOWN goes down... I guess LEFT well you can never be sure RIGHT perhaps formats your harddrive PAGEUP goes page up PAGEDN and this one goes page down If you're tired of seeking your dear song with those good old arrow keys you can use the quicksearch feature. Quicksearch works just by typing the name of yer file in the file field or yer directory in the dir field. If you wat to load a song while playing other read the chapter about using the playlist. There is a little limit with VMP in loading multiple files. First of all VMP loads all files in memory so the amount of machines memory determines the number of songs can be loaded at a time. Also there are 32 slots for songs which means that if you have got enough memory to load songs VMP lets you load only 32 songs at a time. ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ŪŪŪŪŪŪ Using the Playlist ŪŪŪŪŪŪ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Vanadium Module Player a playlist which has got 32 slots. Each slot can be loaded with a module. You can get to the playlist from almost anywhere (except from dos-shell) by pressing F9. Following keys can be used in playlist: UP goes one slot up DOWN goes one slot down ENTER or Goes to file selector. If file is selected INSERT there it is placed into this slot DELETE Deletes a song from memory (not from disk) SPACE Plays this song ALT + N Plays next song in the list ALT + P Plays previous song in the list ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ŪŪŪŪŪŪ General keys ŪŪŪŪŪŪ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ These keys should work almost everywhere in the VMP: F1 Help screen(s) F2-F6 Play screens (try) SHIFT+F2-F5 More screens (try for gods sake) F7 Instrument viewer F8 & CTRL+D Dos-shell F9 Playlist F10 Toggle Spectrum analyzer on / off (Useful with slow machines) F11 Toggle Module looping on / off F12 Toggle Orderjumps on / off TAB Toggle playscreen CTRL+TAB Select ideal playscreen 1, 2, 3, 4 Choose bottomline mode R Make channel right L Make channel left M Make channel middle O Mute channel D Set channel to default H Pan channel to middle G Pan channel away from middle CTRL+R Pan channel from left to right CTRL+L Pan channel from right to left ALT+[RLMOD] Using ALT with channelkeys affects on all channels. Works also with CTRL + (numpad) Increase volume - (numpad) Decrease volume ALT+[+-] Fine volume tune (Very fucken important... Yeah) * (numpad) Increase playspeed and pitch / (numpad) Decrease playspeed and pitch . Scroll orders forwards , Scroll orders backwards ALT+N Plays next song on playlist ALT+P Plays previous song on playlist ESC Go back / Exit to dos ALT+X Exit to dos immediately ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ŪŪŪŪŪŪ Technical information ŪŪŪŪŪŪ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ VMP supports following soundcards (for now) ž Soundblaster 1.x ž Soundblaster 2.x ž Soundblaster Pro ž Soundblaster 16 Well okay thats not much, but SB is still the most popular soundcard. Following fileformats are supported ž S3M ž MOD Ooooh... tooo much technical data... divide overflow... snytzax eerro... @œ$#Ļ#FDDD *zsip* ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ŪŪŪŪŪŪ Troubleshooting... yah right ŪŪŪŪŪŪ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Well this section isn't very covering, but we try to explain those problems some users of VMP have encountered. We've had several complainings about running out of memory although having lots of memory attached on board. Well well well... let me put this straight... the thing is that VMP is based on using EMS memory. If you run your system without an Expanded Memory Manager like QEMM386, EMM386, 386MAX etc. VMP finds only your base memory and if it runs out, like it usually does, you get the out of memory error. So what to do ? The answer is pretty obvious and simple. Use Expanded Memory Manager. Easiest way is to use DOS's Manager. Just add this line to your CONFIG.SYS: DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM Remember that you must load HIMEM.SYS before loading EMM386.EXE. If you already had the EMM386.EXE loaded but with NOEMS parameter (this is commonly used to gain more upper memory) remove the NOEMS parameter.