The GUS Daily Digest Tuesday, 5 December 1995 Volume 26 : Number 005 Today's Topics: Re: The GUS Daily Digest V25 #34 Some cuestions [none] Re: Some cuestions Re: GUS sound with 7th Guest Re: The GUS Daily Digest V25 #34 ProPatches Lite vs. MAXPats? Warcraft Re: Some cuestions SBOSMAX? Re: The GUS Daily Digest V25 #34 forwarded mail Re: HMI drivers for GUS MUSIC??? GUS sound with 7th Guest Unreliable GUS DRAM test results 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sam Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 10:19:42 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Re: The GUS Daily Digest V25 #34 > From: KrisJon Hanson > > Maybe the reason that the Win95 drivers are taking so long is that Gravis is > making one big, all inclusive driver for Win95, DOS and Emulation that will > be completely bullet proof. It will have undergone scads of testing. It will > make the games we want to play possible, faster and more fun. What game do I think the reason is that they're doing it at the same time (probably in the same program) as the Interwave drivers. > The GUS 2.4 contains a cheaper mixer circuit and no volume control. That's > all. RAM changes on the GUSMAX, and also on the PnP. > Yossi. I dunno what that was in answer to, but the important GUS 2.x->3.x difference is the general midi hardware assistance, *only* in 3.x. I'm sure Yossi knows this, but just in case anybody else gets confused... hey, I'm stuck with a 2.x and I'd hate it to happen to anyone else :) Sam >> homepage * http://www.dur.ac.uk/~d405ua/ * fiction, art, links and... >> s0ftware f0rge programs * entertainment : MIDI utilities * Win 3.1/95 >> latest feature * iNETRiS 2.0 internet tetris release! * req. Win 3.1+ ------------------------------ From: The Crazy GUSer Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 12:38:05 +0000 (CUT) Subject: Some cuestions Hello to all digest readers. I've got a GUS 3CD for about 6 months and I really love it (yep, Will Dormann, I've broken some yaws with that trick :)= , but I think we don't use all of its posibilities because of its software. I have a lot of questions about it, many of them are probably already posted, but I'm new in the digest, so please read them. * Why does MT emulation sound so strange in a lot of games? Most of the instruments sound where they souldn't in the melody channels, although the drum channel sounds great. If it's a patch problem, couldn't there be a patch set for MT and another for GUS and GM? If it's possible I hope some M= T user could digitalise it's instruments and make a 512 and 1024 set for GUS users. We could make a batch file that changed the GM set for the MT one. * Why doesn't everything use patch cacheing? In many Windows programs (like Cubase, Finale and many games) I've got to change the MIDI mapper to the 'Ultrasound 512' mode, and then I can only load a bit of instruments (even in 8 bit mode). Then, when I try to use two similar patches, the soft gives me the same sound, which is very bad for MIDI composition :(. MegaEm and UltraMid also load a limited set of patches, so MIDIs in Games sound worst than MIDIs in PlayMidi. Couldn't all that programs load the patches when they need them (except if they where already loaded)? I think that with fas= t HDs there wouldn't be many pauses... * When I try to load UltraMid or SBMidi (I owe a SBPro 2 too) I get a interrupt-vector-not-available error. As I have a 99% compatible EISA board= , I've allways thought that it was a main board problem that I couldn't FIX, = but... If there were way to free some vector that isn't usually used... Thanks in advance. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Firmado/Signed: Javier Prieto Mart=A1nez (prietom%galileo.fie@cs.us.es) | | Yep. I'm Spanish, so... Sorry 'bout my English :) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ From: The Crazy GUSer Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 12:43:24 +0000 (CUT) Subject: [none] >From: "Miguel Molina" >Well, I have a problem with these cards. If i try to install both cards,= =20 >aspi2dos.sys doesn't install. I've tried to change settings, but I get=20 >the same results. Now my settings are: > Ultrasound : port 220, irq 11, sb irq 15, dma 1 > Adaptec : port 140, irq 12, dma 0 Try to put your Adaptec in IRQ 11 & DMA 5 (it's the common way to use them= ) and your GUS to some other ones (as IRQ 7 & DMA 6). I have a GUS and an Adaptec with aspi2dos.sys driver too and I haven't any problem with that configuration. >Help me, please ! (and sorry for my english) Sorry about mine, too ;) +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Firmado/Signed: Javier Prieto Mart=A1nez (prietom%galileo.fie@cs.us.es) | | Yep. I'm Spanish, so... Sorry 'bout my English :) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ From: Dewi Daniels Date: Mon, 4 Dec 95 15:47:01 GMT Subject: Re: Some cuestions > * Why does MT emulation sound so strange in a lot of games? Most of the > instruments sound where they souldn't in the melody channels, although the > drum channel sounds great. If it's a patch problem, couldn't there be a > patch set for MT and another for GUS and GM? If it's possible I hope some M= > T > user could digitalise it's instruments and make a 512 and 1024 set for GUS > users. We could make a batch file that changed the GM set for the MT one. The MT32 was a rather unique card. As far as I know, the GUS does as well as any other card (and better than most) in emulating the MT32. The main problem as far as game sound is concerned is that the MT32 was programmeable (rather like an FM synthesis card), so that the games writer could create new sounds, for example engine noise or gun shots. Whilst the GUS can have a reasonable stab at emulating the built-in MT32 sounds, it can't emulate the commands to reprogram the synthesiser. An example of this kind of problem is the piano sound you get when you fire the cannon in Falcon 3! Even the mighty Roland SCC-1 suffers from this problem when emulating an MT32. The problem could be overcome by creating new patch sets for specific games -- the GUS's RAM gives it a big advantage over other wavetable cards in this respect. I was always hopeful that some kind, knowledgeable GUS user would do this for some of the more popular games, but as far as I know, it's only been done for XWing (where a new patch set improved on the GM sound). I've often been tempted to have a go at producing some game-specific patch sets. Does anyone know how you find out which MIDI channels are used by a particular game? I suppose you'd ideally need access to an MT-32 as well, so you'd know what the game was supposed to sound like. As far as MIDI files for the MT32, I agree they sound a bit odd. You're probably right in saying that the GUS patch set is optimised towards General Midi. I *really* like the idea of some kind MT-32 owner recording the MT-32 sounds and creating a GUS patch set. Better yet, the patch set could include some of the game specific sounds, such as gun fire, etc. The thing is, though, that MT-32 support is rapidly becoming of historic interest only -- I can't remember the last game that supported MT-32, but not General Midi (or GUS native). Dewi Daniels ------------------------------ From: "Peter C. Chien Jr." Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 17:36:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: GUS sound with 7th Guest You could just lower the volume of the CD player (which cannot be done with pre v3.7 of GUS if using the audio CD connector), so you could also raise the volume of the voices and SFX with the -s option (I think) under UltraMid. --Caephus On Sun, 3 Dec 1995, Mike Mainville wrote: > Hello all, > > I'm trying to get the sound to work a little better in 7th Guest. > The CD sound is fine, but it is a little too loud and drowns out the > voices. The voices also tend to be a bit cracky. > > I've used both the ail drivers and mega-em sussesfully, but both > exhibit these similar problems. > > Any help would be much apreciated, > > > Mike Mainville > Ottawa, Ontario, Canada > mmainville@iosphere.net > ------------------------------ From: Yossi Oren Date: Mon, 04 Dec 95 18:38:31 +0200 Subject: Re: The GUS Daily Digest V25 #34 Dan, you're WAY wrong. Emulation can often improve on the original. Take a fast PowerPC doing a 486, for example. There's no x86 code in it but it still outruns the 486 it's emulating. The GUS uses wavetable and AI to replace FM sounds with wavetable (SBOSMAX) - it sounds better, it's in stereo, it's 44KHz, and I don't know who told you it's slower, 'cause it ain't. Tubular has been mentioned several times as a game changed radically by SBOS, I'd like to add the PD version of SF2 Turbo (or whatever it's called - it's in Chinese anyway). It sounds SICK on my SB, but when SBOS takes over, resamples all effects to 16bit, 44KHz (it does that, yes) and makes the soundtrack wavetable and stereo, well, there you have it. Will, Creative were lucky. They're also VERY SUCKY programmers. Had Origin built Wing Commander I around the GUS, maybe Creative would be making CPU fans today... Also, the GUSDRAM utility (at all GUS sites worldwide, dah dit dah dah) shows you the bank and chip in which the error was found. That should help! Mike, your English is fine. Try moving the GUS base port to 240h, or the AHA's port to something different. Remember that the GUS takes up ports at 100+ the base port as well (220 and 320 in our case). This is venturing into SCSI territories, which could be our culprit. ALso, you may be doing something ridiculous such as loading SBOS in autoexec (old installs did that). Take it out. HTH, Yossi. lioren1@weizmann.weizmann.ac.il / Visit . Currently serving somewhere in / Politically correct my ass. the Israeli Defense Forces. / Get a GUS. - --------( "ObKibo" )--------- ------------------------------ From: "Peter C. Chien Jr." Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 17:40:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: ProPatches Lite vs. MAXPats? I've read great reviews of ProPatches Lite 1.3(1) on this digest, so I will be downloading those. But I have also heard about MAXPats, and I want to know if these are good too, and how so when compared to ProPatches Lite or the original patch set. Also, where can I find the MAXPats? Thanks. --Caephus ------------------------------ From: Jarrod Loewen Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 11:17:12 -0600 (CST) Subject: Warcraft Hello. The GLIST says Warcraft has native support using 32 bit AIL drivers. I figured as much out myself, but the game refuses to run complaining it can't find the sound hardware. Doesn't a SB hardware check negate the purpose of these drivers? Anyway, can anyone tell me how to fool this game into seeing a sound bastard on my system? Thanks, - --jarrod. ------------------------------ From: Cuthalion / Sliced Bread Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 12:26:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Some cuestions On Mon, 4 Dec 1995, The Crazy GUSer wrote: > * Why doesn't everything use patch cacheing? In many Windows programs (like > Cubase, Finale and many games) I've got to change the MIDI mapper to the > 'Ultrasound 512' mode, and then I can only load a bit of instruments (even > in 8 bit mode). Then, when I try to use two similar patches, the soft gives > me the same sound, which is very bad for MIDI composition :(. MegaEm and > UltraMid also load a limited set of patches, so MIDIs in Games sound worst > than MIDIs in PlayMidi. Couldn't all that programs load the patches when > they need them (except if they where already loaded)? I think that with fast > HDs there wouldn't be many pauses... > With most hardware, patch caching does nothing - all of the samples are in ROM or are FM generated. You can just, out of the blue, say "Play a bagpipe" and it will. To be compliant with whatever standard there is, programmes must implement patch caching, but since 95% of the time (that is an EXTREMELY generous figure - it's probably closer to 99%) they'll work just fine without it, and so they have other things to implement that seem more important than adhering to a standard strictly when it makes no functional difference that they can tell. /*********************************************************************** * Jesse Morris * cuth@gryphon.ccs.brandeis.edu * jrmorris@macalstr.edu * **************** Cuthalion / Sliced Bread ************************* \*********************************/ ------------------------------ From: johnr@citenet.net (JOHN) Date: Mon, 04 Dec 1995 12:31:21 -0600 Subject: SBOSMAX? "SBOSMAX" is sometimes mentioned, yet what is it? I have a GUS MAX and it came with just "SBOS" - are they the same? ------------------------------ From: PaulSS1259@aol.com Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 13:01:17 -0500 Subject: Re: The GUS Daily Digest V25 #34 I currently have a GUS card in my PC. I also have access to (read that uninstalled) a Sound Blaster card (right now I forget which flavor of SB it is. Does it matter?). Would my life really be simpler if I used both cards? How much aggrivaton and grief is it to configure both cards? Is this spelled out anywhere? Am I increasing or decreasing my problems of compatability (or incompatibility)? Is this worth the effort? All suggestions greatly appreciated..... Thanks.... Paul ------------------------------ From: GreenNet User Support Date: Mon, 4 Dec 95 17:45:01 GMT Subject: forwarded mail Hi there, Because of a routing error, this message came to my account at GreenNet in the UK. I am therefore forwarding it to you on behalf of the original sender. Regards Sarah GreenNet Support Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 12:38:05 +0000 (CUT) From: The Crazy GUSer X-Sender: prietom@galileo To: Gus Daily Digest Subject: Some cuestions Message-Id: Organization: Infoalum Mail Gateway Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Sender: owner-gus-general@apollo.COSC.GOV Precedence: bulk Status: R Hello to all digest readers. I've got a GUS 3CD for about 6 months and I really love it (yep, Will Dormann, I've broken some yaws with that trick :)= , but I think we don't use all of its posibilities because of its software. I have a lot of questions about it, many of them are probably already posted, but I'm new in the digest, so please read them. * Why does MT emulation sound so strange in a lot of games? Most of the instruments sound where they souldn't in the melody channels, although the drum channel sounds great. If it's a patch problem, couldn't there be a patch set for MT and another for GUS and GM? If it's possible I hope some M= T user could digitalise it's instruments and make a 512 and 1024 set for GUS users. We could make a batch file that changed the GM set for the MT one. * Why doesn't everything use patch cacheing? In many Windows programs (like Cubase, Finale and many games) I've got to change the MIDI mapper to the 'Ultrasound 512' mode, and then I can only load a bit of instruments (even in 8 bit mode). Then, when I try to use two similar patches, the soft gives me the same sound, which is very bad for MIDI composition :(. MegaEm and UltraMid also load a limited set of patches, so MIDIs in Games sound worst than MIDIs in PlayMidi. Couldn't all that programs load the patches when they need them (except if they where already loaded)? I think that with fas= t HDs there wouldn't be many pauses... * When I try to load UltraMid or SBMidi (I owe a SBPro 2 too) I get a interrupt-vector-not-available error. As I have a 99% compatible EISA board= , I've allways thought that it was a main board problem that I couldn't FIX, = but... If there were way to free some vector that isn't usually used... Thanks in advance. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Firmado/Signed: Javier Prieto Mart=A1nez (prietom%galileo.fie@cs.us.es) | | Yep. I'm Spanish, so... Sorry 'bout my English :) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ From: "Peter C. Chien Jr." Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 12:54:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: HMI drivers for GUS MUSIC??? On Sun, 3 Dec 1995, Dan Merillat wrote: > > Emulation is NOT inherently BAD. Please don't judge this by Gravis' > > Let's try this again. Output for one type of device -> emulator -> > completely different device. > > Now compare that to, say: > Output for a device -> the device it was made for. > > Emulation is _ALWAYS_ with _NO_ exception, worse then the original. Emulation compatibility may not be 100%. In this case, it is worse. But an SB FM emulator like MAXSBOS has sounds superior to regular SB FM. The quality of "GUS-FM" with MAXSBOS approaches wavetable. --Caephus ------------------------------ From: Mike Mainville Date: Sun, 03 Dec 1995 16:14:54 -0800 Subject: GUS sound with 7th Guest Hello all, I'm trying to get the sound to work a little better in 7th Guest. The CD sound is fine, but it is a little too loud and drowns out the voices. The voices also tend to be a bit cracky. I've used both the ail drivers and mega-em sussesfully, but both exhibit these similar problems. Any help would be much apreciated, Mike Mainville Ottawa, Ontario, Canada mmainville@iosphere.net ------------------------------ From: Desmond Bean Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 15:29:08 -0600 Subject: Unreliable GUS DRAM test results - ------ =_NextPart_000_01BAC261.41828900 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have a GUS rev3.4 board with 1MB ram, which I have had for > 2 years. About 9 months ago I upgraded to a 90MHZ Pci Pentium Mainboard SI2 motherboard and everything seemed to operate correctly with the GUS. However I eventually realized that my system had become unstable with occasional faults in grvsultr and excessive buzzes on play. I recently reran the setup Dram test, which I had omitted to do when upgrading, and found that it consistently failed, even when all but 256K ram was removed. Dma and Irq tests passed. The instability has worsened with Win95. Have any other users had these sorts of hardware problems with the Gus on the newer Pentium boards. 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