GUS Daily Digest Fri, 4 Feb 94 007 Volume 11: Issue 2 Today's Topics: "The Last Byte" 3.1 software, IndyCar 32-bit AIL 6x9=42 ABOUT OS/2 & GUS..... suggestions.... Argh! No GUSTRIT.ZIP Can't get files Creative Labs Voice Assist Demo?? Customize MEGAEM ? DIGEST ADMIN: You're right, there were no digests yesterday! Dracula Unleashed CD w/ GUS work ?? ElectroMan and SBOS GUS0037.ZIP (sbos v3.8b) (2 msgs) GUS0038 gus0038.zip (3 msgs) GUS0038.ZIP revealed... GUS Daily Digest V11 #1 (2 msgs) GUS Windows driver Help! Indycar Indy Car Racer Just to let you know... Just to let you know 1/4 Just to let you know 2/4 Just to let you know 3/4 Just to let you know 4/4 New GUS software New MIDI New SBOS New windows drivers and kq6 :: and GK CD Nice new version, or is it a bad thing? Playfile, MegaEM and QEMM 7.03 PlayMIDI bug? Privateer Problems with new Gravis software Problem with new playmidi (v5.03) Sierra Syndicate with 32bit Ail UMC motherboard voice blaster wrong sounds in games/new Win drivers WWW MTV.com URL You want more samples, you got it! 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: Wed, 2 Feb 94 16:30:36 -0500 From: liaor@churchst.ccs.itd.umich.edu Subject: "The Last Byte" In yesterday's digest, someone posting about the UMC 486 motherboard mentioned that "The Last Byte v?.?? now supports UMCxxx chipset" What exactly is the Last Byte? Is it just like UMBDRIVER (is UMB522 the latest version)? UMBDRIVER used to let me access (before I upgraded to SiS motherboard and MSDOS 6) UMB memory WITHOUT a memory manager. Thus I could loadhi stuff without loading EMM386 or QEMM> This was awesome for games that insisted on hogging the 386-protected mode (can you say "Ultima VII"?) Anyway, what's this program Last Byte? Does it perform the same function or did I just misread the post? Royce ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 09:29:35 -0500 (EST) From: Phat H Tran Subject: 3.1 software, IndyCar > Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 12:32:16 +1030 (CST) > From: Gavin > Subject: GUS0038.ZIP > > OK, who uploaded a 2.5meg file? How about if some nice person could split this > up into something that fits onto a floppy please. I thought it rather inconsiderate of Gravis to release a file that size. :) > Also what's the story with the v3.1 disks, are these to be mailed to anyone? No, not for free, anyway. The base 3.1 software (without the MIDI patches) is in gus0038.zip, which you can DL from Epas. To get the other 3.1 stuff, you'll have to order the disks from Gravis. Seems reasonable, seeing that Gravis can't really afford to email software out to every GUS user per update. > Date: Mon, 31 Jan 94 10:19:04 EDT > From: Henrique 'Snoopy' Vianna > Subject: GUS Windows driver > > I am a happy recent owner of a GUS... well, I still have some > problems to make both my GUS and my SBPro live together, but > it's fun after all. > > One thing that is really boring me is my Windows start. Since > I installed the GUS drivers, Windows now takes several seconds > to start up because the driver loads a lot of those patches... > It looks kinda useless, since the correct patches will be loaded > again for each .MID file I want to play. > > My question is: IS THERE A WAY TO TELL THAT STUPID DRIVER NOT > TO LOAD THE DAMNED PATCHES BY THE WINDOWS START ??? Yes, if you use the new Windows driver. DL the software in gus0038.zip and install it. The new ultrinit.exe found within it will also make the GUS coexist much better with your SBPro. > Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 21:50:38 -0500 > From: Michael Dauria > Subject: indycar > > Hi, I have a question about indycar and the 32 bit miles drivers, how > do I get engine sounds? I assume that I have to somehow adjust the > patch.ini file. IndyCar only supports engine sounds through the SB' FM chip (or another card's emulation of SB FM sounds). You won't get engine sounds with any other soundcard configuration. Phat. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 22:13:01 -0400 (EDT) From: Roger Frederi Clark Subject: 32-bit AIL Maybe I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Police Quest 4 from Sierra also used 32-bit sound drivers, and the drivers in gail3213.zip don't appear to be what PQ4 needs. Am I mistaken, or are the Sierra 32-bit drivers something different? Thanks, Roger Clark | /\ helios@strauss.udel.edu |/^^\ o "I'd rather be biking." University of Delaware | \ J\. Chemistry (and others) | \__O_<_O_______________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Feb 94 22:49:26 From: john.smith@gravis.com Subject: 6x9=42 Hello, ladies, gentleman, fellow Gravoids and members of this planet. Jayeson and I decided to take a peek at the digest before going home to Star Trek. Glad to see all your great comments regarding the latest releases of software. I won't be back to work until next week (taking some courses) so I thought we'd answer your questions now. GUS0038 - you can install this from your hard disk. Just unzip all the files into a directory and go for it. - this install no longer looks at the volume lable or disk.id to figure out which disk it is. It simply looks for a file called GUS.001, GUS.002, GUS.003 etc... - If anyone knows a way to tell which icons are installed within a program group from within Windows I'd like to hear about it. - MODUS V1.5 - doesn't take over the WAV/MIDI devices so don't try playing MIDI/WAV files while this is running. Well...you can if you want. Makes for a very interesting effect - 2.5Mb - Actually it never occured to me that this would be a problem. I figured there are plenty of large files out there (CD2, Unreal, DOOM, etc...) so people should not have a problem with it. All I can suggest is try unzipping it on your local host. - Your MIDI mapper should have been backed up. - Only files which or newer or not equal to the current files on your disk will be copied. Hence, it makes reinstalling the software a snap - SETUP vs SETGUS. The entire purpose of SETGUS is simply to determine a set of parameters that will work on your system. The setup will then use this information to setup the correct configuration files in your system. Jayeson here. GAIL3213 - SYNDICATE. Due to a bug in LOADPATS Syndicate will crash without fail. This has been fixed and will be released soon. In the meantime modify PATCHES.INI as described in the previous digest. - INDYCAR. As already noted several times, there are no engine noises or tire squeals when using the UltraSound drivers. As described in the IndyCar readme, these effects are only available for FM boards. The routines bypass the AIL drivers and access the hardware directly. So if you wan't sound effects while driving, you'll need to use SBOS -o3, sacrificing the GM music and digital effects. Jayeson gone. John here - Jayeson forgot to mention that Sierra does not use the AIL drivers so you will NOT be able to get them to work with your 32 bit Sierra games. Native mode Sierra drivers are being worked on however. Just don't ask me when they'll be done C'ya John & Mr. Lets attempt to grow a beard Lee-Steere ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 00:04:00 GMT From: thomas@hammer.hacktic.nl (Thomas van Kuipers) Subject: ABOUT OS/2 & GUS..... suggestions.... I posted a while ago about why gravis should tell us every 2 weeks how far os/2-drivers are ..... I would like to add that if say: 3 months from now on .... we COULD say: we don't pin you on it ..... perhaps they tell us more of which % they have finished... <--------------------------------------------------------------------> Thomas van Kuipers Email: thomas@hammer.hacktic.nl De Wadden 49 Examenyear of HighSchool (6 VWO) 3524 AG Utrecht Important: Computers, Math, Women and Music! Telephone: +31 30 884235 Netherlands (in Europe) <--------------------------------------------------------------------> ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Feb 94 00:54:40 -0500 From: hal wayne black Subject: Argh! No GUSTRIT.ZIP Hey everyone... I have been searching for GUSTRIT.ZIP that was supposedly released by Gravis. It is not in the submit directory of any of the archives or mirrors. I did see it on a BBS, but I don't have DL access. If someone who has it could please put it on an ultrasound ftp site, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks! For those of you wondering, this is a GUS flyby demo. -- | sylk@mik.uky.edu | hwblac00@ukpr.uky.edu | Entitlements kill | (tastefully short signature) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 18:12:40 -0500 From: David A Denis Subject: Can't get files I have been trying to get gus0038.zip for 2 days now. I set it to binary, then I try to get the file and it sits there for usually half an hour, and then it says timed out. It I tried getting the smaller one too, and I get timed out. I have gotten bigger files beforre with no problem. Any idea whats wrong? Dave PS-Don't forget to d/l DAVEMIDI.ZIP from epas! :) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 17:56:23 -0700 (MST) From: Keith McIntyre-ELlis Subject: Creative Labs Voice Assist Demo?? Hello, fellow GUSers... I noticed that the fellow who uploaded to epas the Creative Labs Voice Assist Demo (for non-SB cards) mentioned that if anyone wanted it, he would upload it again to epas. I would be very interested in taking a look at it. (I believe that it was deleted because it was corrupted...) Also, can anyone who knows post a list of all the upadted files which are included in GUS0038.ZIP that are not available otherwise? Or alternatively, this hypothetically kind person might simply upload these individually to epas... Finally, got the new 32-AIL patch. Couple of comments: although I am thrilled to soon be able to throw our that ugly SBOS sound, it seems to me that the AIL drivers suffer from the large problem that they don't support hardware mixing (or whatever). Playing a SFX causes (as far as I can tell) unfortunate pauses that I don't hear when running games that support the GUS truly natively. Also, isn't SimCity 2000 wonderful with the new AIL drivers? We get to hear the awfull music now played with real instruments! Joy! --------------------------------------------------------- Keith McIntyre-Ellis kmellis@santafe.edu "Great Books, No Gym" -Unofficial St. John's Collge Moto --------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 14:49:23 +1030 (CST) From: Gavin Subject: Re: Customize MEGAEM ? >I wonder if it is possible to customize MEGAEM, Yep, just edit ultramid.ini. >you can decide which of the standard patches to replace by other This is the hard part of course. One way I've not done but could be tried is to make a whole heap of patches that say " patch 1", "patch 2", so that you know which patches are being used. Of course you will want to turn the music off and just have sfx. The down side is that Mega-em does not differentiate between ROM and RAM patches on the MT32, so if the game uses RAM patch 1 for explosions and ROM patch1 (piano) for music, then you can't replace it. IMHO Megaem _should_ differentiate between a RAM (memory) patch and ROM patch, but with Jayeson seemingly so busy I don't expect it soon...... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 07:20:35 -0700 (MST) From: ddebry@lhasa.dsd.ES.COM (Dave DeBry) Subject: DIGEST ADMIN: You're right, there were no digests yesterday! There were no digests yesterday. This may not seem like an amazing news item to many of you, but then a lot of you thought it might be one for me, and so promptly mailed me to let me know that there was no digest. Folks -- I know when the digests have screwed up. I'm not just the President of the Gus Digests, I'm also a client. :) In any case, hopefully the sysadmins have fixed the problem (I wish they'd just give me access to the offending machines so I could fix them, but nooooooooo), and the digests will be sent out tonight. -- Dave ddebry@ debry@ \ "In summing up, the moral seems DeBry dsd. peruvian. | A little bit obscure... es. cs.utah. | Whatever you do, com edu / Take care of your shoes." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Feb 94 15:15:18 MST From: Kirk McFaul~ Subject: Dracula Unleashed CD w/ GUS work ?? Hello all - I just picked up Viacom's Dracula Unleashed CD. I have a 1MB GUS, and so far, the only audio I can get is a heavily echoed soundtrack using a variety of new and older SBOSes. Mega-EM didn't work at all for me, even though the G-List said Midi was supported and Digi was not. Dracula Unleashed seems to rely heavily on digital audio, and has an extensive dialog soundtrack. Playing with all that echo (both the character's voices and the background music) just isn't acceptable. A friend of mine with a PAS16 had trouble too trying to use his SB emulation s/w. Seems Dracula Unleashed truly wants to see 100% h/w compatible SB cards. The game uses DOS4GW by the way. I have a 1X Mitsumi CD-ROM in a DX2-66 system. GUS IRQ @ 15, DMA @ 7, I/O @ 220. (I've tried playing with these too). I will try the newly released SBOS I just pulled off epas tonight. In general, it seems the older SBOSes worked better ... maybe I need to dig out my old 1.22 disks. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated. - Kirk ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 12:52:47 -0800 (PST) From: mikebat@netcom.com (Mike Batchelor) Subject: ElectroMan and SBOS I've got a game "Electro Man" that offers Adlib, Sound Blaster, PC Speaker and LPT DACs. I've tried using SBOS 1.20, 3.8b and 3.7, and each one causes ElectroMan to reboot the PC with a CMOS memory mismatch. This happens under a clean F5 boot with DOS 6, or just himem.sys. It works just fine with MegaEM -ROFF, though, so this is not a big deal (sounds pretty good too, just a little static). I'm wondering if the static is absent with SBOS, but I can't get that far. Anyone else have this problem? I'm not really missing anything, since it plays FX and MOD music only, no FM synth music. -- Mike Batchelor | UseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinux mikebat@netcom.com | XuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesU ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 19:15:56 +1100 (EST) From: Andrew Leahy Subject: Re: GUS0037.ZIP (sbos v3.8b) >2. On my machine the gus settings are 220,1,1,5,7. > If I try a "sbos -f" and also have the ULTRASND environment variable > set my machine hangs. Anybody else care to verify this? Yup..I have the same problem, ULTRASND=220,1,1,7,5 though. Setup: 486/33 8Mb, DOS 6.2, GUS 1Mb. ___________________________________________________________________________ | Andrew "Alf" Leahy email: alf@st.nepean.uws.edu.au | | Computer Systems Officer phone: (047) 360622 (work ;-) | | Department of Computing, University of Western Sydney - Nepean, Australia | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 94 10:29:30 -0500 From: Steve Hitchman Subject: GUS0037.ZIP (sbos v3.8b) A couple of comments regarding this latest SBOS. 1. The "readme" file seems to be an old one (SBOS v3.7B2). Although, the software is new! This is unfortunate because there are some changes that could do with some explanations. 2. On my machine the gus settings are 220,1,1,5,7. If I try a "sbos -f" and also have the ULTRASND environment variable set my machine hangs. Anybody else care to verify this? <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Steve Hitchman srhitch@ranger.uwaterloo.ca Dept. of Mech Eng University of Waterloo ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 06:07:45 -0500 From: gmyles@cml.com (MajorBBS: Amber) Subject: GUS0038 First of all I would like to say that the new installation program in this is pretty good. It only overwrites files that have an older date stamp. - There are a few small problems: - 1) If you run the install twice it will give multiple icons of the same program in the Gravis windows group. To avoid this (if for some reason you have to run the install twice), just say no when windows boots up the second time and asks you to create Gravis program icons. - 2) The installation won't get rid of your old mixer icon and any other program icons that were named differently than the new names. You can just delete these extra icons (note: the older copies will be the first occurence of the icon in the Gravis program group). - 3) To run the GUSsetup you must now run the install program first. This is annoying as it means a couple of extra steps in changing things, but not really that bad. - 4) The only real bug I found is that the GUSSetup doesn't work properly. When you change your DMA or IRQ settings it correctly changes them in Windows for you but not in your Autoexec.bat. You have to do this manually: change the lines Set Ultrasnd= and the Set Blaster= lines. One thing that is definitely better in the installation is the problem of falsely identifying bad 16 bit DMA channels is gone. Yeah! - Later Garry Myles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 12:32:01 +0100 (MET) From: ralam@cs.vu.nl Subject: gus0038.zip These are the new installation disks (2). Unfortunately they don't have a disk,id on them, so unless you copy the ones from your older disks to them end edit them (change the version number to them and give them the the correct disk number) you won/t be able to install the second disk. Remco Lam e-mail: ralam@cs.vu.nl ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 17:31:18 MET From: John Vernooij Subject: gus0038.zip Dear fellow-gussers, I've got gus0038.zip installed and because yesterday someone asked about the contents and because the enclosed readme doesn't tell you much I will give it a try. INSTALLATION You can do it in two ways: take two 1.44MB disks; unzip README GUS.001 GV.EXE INSTALL.EXE + PARSE.EXE to the first disk; unzip GUS.002 to the second disk and then start with install from the first disk. I noticed that somebody has already split the archive at epas. A faster way is to unzip the entire archive into a temporary directory on your harddisk and start install from that directory. For me the installation worked flawlessly, it even skips the parts that are older than already installed (like SBOS from gus0037.zip). CONTENTS First, I checked Gravis BBS and yes, that's were it's coming from, it's an official release from Gravis. It's called 'Gravis Ultrasound Installation v3.1' and contains an update from the 2.06a disks and several in-between updates. Basically it's a stripped down installation: patches, Recording Session and Power Chords are not included but just about everything else is. It installs new versions of Playmidi, Playfile, Setgus, Ultrinit, Mega-em (not sure if v2.03 was out already), Ultramid, Windows-drivers, Mixer and PatchMaker Lite. Included are also the latest versions of Ultrajoy, Gusmod (this time complete) and Patch Manager. Although the names of the midi-files are the same the dates have changed so maybe they are modified too, Gravis also added some new ones. SBOS is also included, but if you have already installed the SBOS from gus0037.zip (which is newer) the installation skips this part. I mentioned Mega-em and Ultramid earlier but also 3ddemo, Midifier and Modus are now part of the installation. That just about covers it, I think. Things worth mentioning at first sight: - Playmidi (v5.03) now defaults to a lineair volume map - that's quite an improvement. A switch for using a logarithmic volume map, handy if you Vmapped your midi-files, is provided. I also noticed that in Midi1mb.bat a switch -Xnn is used, which is not mentioned if you enter Playmidi -?; I guess it's used to set the number of voices. - Modus is a MOD-player for Windows that nevertheless uses the GUS in it's native mode unlike WinMOD Pro or MOD4Win. As a result it sounds awfully good and I didn't even notice any processor overhead on my 486DX/33MHz. Listen to it and you'll probably never use WinMOD Pro or MOD4Win again. Modus is in it's 1.50 version: if you quit Modus you will be able to play midi and/or wav-files afterwards and exit Windows without crashing. Just don't play any MIDI or WAV-files while Modus is playing, unless you like weird music. - Windows drivers are new: for me installation went without problems (but I have never had any problems with that). Mixer looks improved, probably reads ultramix.ini correctly now, but didn't check that yet; so far it only refuses to load minimized from my StartUp-group. CONCLUSION This is a must for every GUS-owner, see that you get it. And to Gravis: thanks very much! Greetings, John + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + | John Vernooij | e-mail j.vernooij@earth.ruu.nl | | Universiteit Utrecht | | | Faculty of Earth Sciences | | | The Netherlands | | + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Feb 94 07:53:45 -0600 From: "David Grayless" Subject: gus0038.zip Hello, I installed the new GUS0038 software, and am very pleased except for one thing. I had spent several months creating some custom patch maps and key maps in the Windows MIDI Mapper, and now they have suddenly disappeared. I have two questions: 1. Where did they go? 2. How do I get them back? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 12:11:26 -0400 (AST) From: Jurassic Mark Subject: GUS0038.ZIP revealed... G'day, I downloaded the file yesterday and installed it today. I was impressed. The installation file is DOS6 multi-config compatible. Wonderful!!! At last, a linear volume compatible PLAYMIDI.EXE and the graphic screen has a nice "Gravis Ultrasound" logo on top. But there is one thing I don't like about this new playmidi. It seems to screw up on the drums. I have some MIDI files that has drums that sound like hitting on plastic cans and they sounded correct with the old playmidi. I checked all my patches, they're all correct. What's wrong? I tested the Windows drivers very quickly and couldn't get the infamous note-dropping problem. Did they get rid of it? Will test more later. But what I nice surprise when I saw MODUS for Windows. Clearly the best MOD player for Windows (for the GUS) I've seen. But after using MODUS, your Windows WAV files and MIDI files might play twice as fast as a side-effect. That's what it did for me. The GUS 3D demo included is the same you can find on the GUS FTP site from Dust. And they still distribute the old GUSMOD. There is MegaEM 2.03 and Ultramid 1.07. I only gave a quick 10 mins look to the whole kit because I was late for a course. The README file didn't say what was new about MegaEM 2.03 and I didn't check Ultramid 1.07. The biggest problem is with the new playmidi. The drums don't sound right at all on many MIDI files either with linear and log volumes. Also, there is still the "strange not deleted directory" problem during the installation. You'll have to do it manually. Overall, the package is nice, very nice. But Gravis, please fix that playmidi problem. I have two GUS demos to give this month. I can do it with this playmidi. :) Marc Y. Paulin - Jurassic Mark (Usenet) - J-Mark (IRC) Graduating CS student in search of a job... - markus@clement.info.umoncton.ca (Talk 'n Mail) - (506)856-9518 - Inertia Player Beta Tester - Author of the G-List for Ultrasound owners ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Feb 94 10:04:39 CST From: Jon Fletcher Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V11 #1 Also sprach GUS Server: > GUS Daily Digest Tue, 1 Feb 94 007 Volume 11: Issue 1 > > Date: Mon, 31 Jan 94 09:53:55 > From: blevins@MIT.EDU > Subject: .au files > MTV has a WWW site where you can download .au files of current songs, if > you have an ethernet hookup to the net, check it out using Mosaic. > > Matt Conway > blevins@mit.edu > Matt, this sounds interesting and I would like to check it out. What is the Document URL (i.e. http://.... ) for this "MTV" site? I was browsing through the Web with XMosaic and I didn't come across it. Thanks, in advance - Jon P.S. You may replay by email to fletcj@tenfwd.uci.com if wish. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Feb 94 14:16:00 CST From: Maestro Assaf the Younger Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V11 #1 ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, On Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 17:41:39 +0200, Erik Bunn wrote: > I was trying to unsubscribe and resubscribe in order to start > receiving the digest again. Has anyone else been missing copies? I > haven't received anything for a few days. It seems that I, too miss some copies of the GUS digest, since sometimes I get digests which jump in numerical order from issue 1 to 3, or something similar. I'm curious as to what has happened as well. -- \\=--=Maestro=--=\_/=-=internet=-=\_/=---------=--------=--------=-----=-----// | (Bernard) Assaf _ bassaf@bsc.edu _ Birmingham-Southern College | math & cs | //==the Younger==/ \=-=address=--=/ \=---------=--------=--------=-----=-----\\ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 94 09:19:44 EST From: "Burns Fisher, VMS Engineering 01-Feb-1994 0923" Subject: GUS Windows driver >One thing that is really boring me is my Windows start. Since >I installed the GUS drivers, Windows now takes several seconds >to start up because the driver loads a lot of those patches... >It looks kinda useless, since the correct patches will be loaded >again for each .MID file I want to play. Well, it's not actually loading them. It is checking to make sure they are all there. But it is still annoying. > >My question is: IS THERE A WAY TO TELL THAT STUPID DRIVER NOT >TO LOAD THE DAMNED PATCHES BY THE WINDOWS START ??? The last few revisions of the drivers have had a switch in the setup to make them not do that. You need to go into the control panel/drivers applet to get at it. If you do that, select the gus midi driver, and then go to the "Settings" (I think) dialog box and there is no check box that seems relavent, you probably have the older drivers. Download a new set from epas or wherever. Good luck! Burns ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Feb 94 11:17:52 GMT From: Hauxwell James S BSc 1 Mod Comp 93-94 Subject: Help! I have just downloaded the new version of SBOS ( v3.8b ) and I cannot get it to work. The version I recieved with my card was v3.6 and when I tried to install it it came up with a message ' The NMI Procedure on this PC is dissabled ' I then upgraded to v3.7 which seemed to fix the installation problem but it didn't acctually appear to function - i.e. wouldn't play any sound but the GUS test program said it functioned. Now I have upgraded to v3.8b I am getting the original problem back of - ` The NMI Procedure on this PC is dissabled ' My machine is a 486SX local bus with 4 megs of ram and both local bus I/O card and Video. Can anyone help me or am I better not to bother with trying to emulate an inferior card? Jim ( J.S.Hauxwell@uk.ac.teesside ) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 20:17:51 +1100 (EST) From: Andrew See Subject: Indycar Phat, regarding indycar, and it's inability to produce engine sounds on a Wavetable synth, don't forget we have RAM. THere is no Engine sound in the GM set, so I guess that is why they decided not to implement engines on the SCC-1 and others. Now, to produce the fm engine noises on the SB's, it must still be using MIDI with an SB custom patch. It may be possible, with a custom patch (Engine noise), and the right INI file to get a real digital engine on the GUS with INdycar. What do you think? Am I being an optimist :-) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Feb 94 16:11:22 FWT From: tblanchot@vnet.IBM.COM Subject: Indy Car Racer I can't get digitized sounds with 32 bit ail drivers. Does it need a special setup? My GUS is currently at 210,7,7,11,5. Also does the couple Xwing & Megaem need the GUS to be in 220? Since I moved the GUS to 210 to install a sb 2.0 at 220, Xwing crashes when I start it. Third question: does anybody know if the game Kill Mr Rogers has been uploaded elsewhere on the net? I only have the part that was uploaded then deleted from epas. Thierry. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 15:06:42 -0600 (CST) From: Michael D Hobbs-1 Subject: Just to let you know... The latest letter from John Smith can be found on the musicians digest a couple of days ago. It explains quite a few things such as the latest GUS*.ZIP files, CES, etc. I'm not sure why it wasn't posted here. Perhaps he was interrupted or having problems, I don't know. Anyway, if it doesn't show up here sometime soon, some kind soul might want to consider cross-posting it. Thought I'd let you know. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Feb 94 15:30:56 From: john.smith@gravis.com Subject: Just to let you know 1/4 I'm not sure if this message made it around to everyone so I'm reposting it. Gravis JUST TO LET YOU KNOW #11 ------------------------------ Gravis Macintosh MouseStick II & Mac GamePad SDK V1.2 (MACSDK.SEA) ---------------------------------------------------- The game developer's joystick guide for Macintosh contains a book, joystick artwork and sample code for supporting the Gravis MouseStick and Mac GamePad. This guide provides a look at the various styles of Mac game controllers and their implementation with an emphasis on the Gravis MouseStick and Mac GamePad. SBOS V3.8B (GUS0036.ZIP) ---------- This version of SBOS adds the following: - Automatically loads itself high (ie: no need to use load high - LH). A -m switch will by pass this. - No longer hooks the keyboard interrupt. This means by default you will not be able to use the keyboard to adjust the volume. You may use a -k switch to enable this feature. - Improved help screen in LOADSBOS - -O5 switch added to help improve digital audio. May cause problems with some memory mangers. NOTE: You should not have to use any switches with SBOS. A file called SBOS.CFG contains a list of all the known games that require switches. In total there are only about 10. UltraSound V3.1 Software (GUS0037.ZIP) ------------------------ The new UltraSound software is now an 8 disk set. Six for the base software (patches, windows drivers, midi players, etc...) and 2 for the bonus software (power chords, midisoft, wavelite, etc...). A full install requires 17Mb of disk space. Now, that is one heck of a bundle. You not only get a great sound card (yes I could be considered biased) but you get enough software to keep you and your family entertained for months. Note that this software will NOT be shipped to our users free of charge. I'm working on putting a package together so that you will be able to order the software and manuals directly from us. I'll let you know the cost of this upgrade once I finish putting the package together. GUS0037.ZIP will consist of the BASE software minus the MIDI patches, not the BONUS software. The following is a quick overview on what has changed since V2.06a. Installation ------------ Handles DOS 6 multiple configs Windows Setup - Windows is now all setup and configured from DOS - Check for presense of other sound devices/drivers (VSB*.386, VPAS*.386, or anything in the midi=, or wave= that isn't the UltraSound drivers) - Groups/icons created next time Windows loaded - Drivers now put in the user's WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory Software Included ----------------- Ultrajoy - Will no longer give a MIDI IRQ timeout error Ultrinit V2.16 - -S Silent - Do not display heading -ej Enable Joystick (V3.4 GUS or higher) -dj Disable Joystcik (V3.4 GUS or higher) No longer floats the AdLib ports to improve coexistence with other sound cards. Windows Drivers - Auto detects UltraSound hardware installed Support for ICS/Codec mixer chips Combined 16 bit and regular GUS drivers Reads in Ultramix.ini file > 64K patch sample size support added ADC DAC set to 0db for 16bit CODEC by default Mixer - Now changes depending on hardware installed Gain slider (w/CODEC) Added ALWAYS on top PLAYFILE V3.2 - Fixed sine wave problem PLAYMIDI V5.3 - Control 7 Messages fixed - Sampled Release added - Possible solution to droped notes added Mega-Em V2.03 - Master volume switch (-Vxx) fixed - Corrected problems with IRQ 2 and EMM386 - EMUSET now checks to make sure SB IRQ's are working - General purpose check for other resident GUS software - Added -FAST switch to EMUSET for problems with Sierra software on fast machines. - Added support for Netroom 3. - Fix EMUSET SB IRQ check SBOS V3.7 - Added support for comments in SBOS.CFG - Some fixes for Carmen SanDiego Patch Maker Lite- Windows based patch editor MODUS V1.5 - More stabel version since .5 DEMO3D - 3D Demo (InterActive/Running Demo) (Continued to next message) --- ~ QMPro 1.51 ~ How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise MY hands ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Feb 94 15:30:59 From: john.smith@gravis.com Subject: Just to let you know 2/4 (Continued from previous message) UltraMID V1.7 - Fixes controller #7 messages - Fix possible divide by zero error message UltraSound AIL32 (GAIL3212.ZIP) ---------------- Gravis has released AIL32 drivers for the UltraSound card. These are the 32 bit protected mode versions of the AIL sound drivers. Unlike our real mode AIL drivers these do not require the loading of a TSR. Howeverr they do require that you preload your patches onto the UltraSound card via a program called LOADPATS (note that LOADPATS is NOT a TSR). The immediate benefit of these drivers is you can now gain UltraSound support in SimCity 2000, Shadow Caster, Syndicate, and Indy Car racing to name a few. Many of the major game developers are moving to a 32 bit platform and are excited about adding UltraSound support. This includes Maxis, SSI, and many others. I know the question will come up that why don't the drivers support patch cacheing. The problem is loading the patches and DMA them to the card will halt the system and possibly lockups during the transfer. Since a MIDI file may contain any number of patches to load this pause could be from 5-20 seconds depending on the number of patches and speed of your system. Jayeson is now working closely with game developers to get the AIL32 and other protected mode drivers implemented into their games. OS/2 Drivers ------------ We have been hearing from many OS/2 owners wanting drivers for the UltraSound. We are letting you know that your messages ARE heard and Gravis is commited to getting them done. We are not a $500 million company and do have limits on our resources. The core of the drivers are looking good but are not making sound yet. This is the next step . What you will see is OS/2 MMPM/2 drivers. They will NOT be Win/OS2 drivers and they do not give improved SBOS support in a DOS box. I know you are waiting for an expected release date but I can not. All I can do is tell you that we are working on them and are commited to getting them done as soon as possible. Once they are ready for public beta you will be the first to know. I can tell you that it is not that far off, so please be patient. Gravis and TRITON (GUSTRIT.ZIP) ------------------------------ When I was working on the Gravis sales demo last year I asked Triton (Swedish demo group) to write a virtual reality fly by. This included writing on the sides of buildings giving information about the UltraSound. GUSTRIT.ZIP contains this demo. Gravis Nodes - Software Creations -------------------------------- The Software Creations BBS, which was voted the Number 1 BBS in North America (BoardWatch Magazine - September 1993) is now an official Gravis node. With over 150,000 users we are proud to welcome them aboard. There phone number is (508)368-7139. They will be setting up the areas this week and should have them all visible the first week in February. UltraSound CDROM Audio Cable Fulfillment --------------------------------------- SC&T International Inc. of Phoenix, Arizona will sell UltraSound audio cables directly to users for a flat price of $12.95 plus shipping. You may reach them at 1(800)-208-2080. Consumer Electronics Show ------------------------- We had some press releases during the CES show in Las Vegas. I've seen some rumours spreading on the nets regarding these products so I would like to clarify on what they actually are. PS: The VFX1 was a huge success at the show among buyers and developers. VFX1 - VR System ---------------- Release Date: January 07, 1994 TORONTO: AED VANCOUVER: AED OTC BBS: GRVSF Advanced Gravis and Forte Technologies Announce New Joint Venture for Virtual Reality Systems Forte Technologies, Inc. ("Forte") and Advanced Gravis Computer Technology Ltd. ("Advanced Gravis") today announced they have signed a letter of intent to form a new joint venture to introduce new technology and products targeted at the consumer Virtual Reality market. The letter of intent calls for the formation and financing of a new (Continued to next message) --- ~ QMPro 1.51 ~ How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise MY hands ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Feb 94 15:31:02 From: john.smith@gravis.com Subject: Just to let you know 3/4 (Continued from previous message) company that Gravis and Forte would jointly own. The new entity would be the exclusive licensee and developer of the VR technology and products. Advanced Gravis will negotiate to acquire rights to manufacture and market products licensed from this venture. The formation of the venture is subject to the parties concluding formal agreements concerning the terms, conditions and financing of the new joint company and the receipt of all regulatory and governmental approvals, as may be required. The first product from this proposed new company is the VFX1 being demonstrated this week in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronic Show. The VFX1 is a fully integrated interactive head mounted virtual reality system equipped with color 3D stereo display, proprietary 3D head tracker to detect head motion, and stereo sound, all packaged in a sleek ergonomic shell. "This level of integrated design with displays, head tracker, headphones, and PC interface video card, at a consumer price point, is unprecedented in this young VR market," explains Paul Travers, President of FORTE technologies. "The VFX1 system connects easily with existing PCs and entertainment software, so users can gain a whole new sense of realism. The full capability will come from true 3D VR software applications which are currently being developed", said Grant Russell, President of Advanced Gravis. The VFX1 is the first truly integrated full VR headset to enter the market at a target retail price of under $1000. The product should be ready for introduction by Fall 1994. Features include: o Dual 0.7 inch color LCD displays that offer high quality 428 X 244 resolution o Provides an image equivalent to watching a 35 ft screen in 3D at a distance of 35 ft. o High fidelity stereo headphones o Virtual Orientation System - VOS head motion tracker provides roll, pitch and yaw coordinates o Compatible with existing Multimedia IBM PC's The VFX1 is aimed at the PC market, but is compatible with workstations, or any device that utilizes a standard VGA card. There is also an option to accept NTSC or PAL video signals from home entertainment systems such as Sega and Nintendo . Piano Bundle ------------ Release Date: January 06, 1994 TORONTO: AED VANCOUVER: AED OTC BBS: GRVSF Advanced Gravis Provides Total Musical Solution with Gravis Personal Piano System Vancouver, British Columbia -- January 06, 1994 -- Advanced Gravis Computer Technology Ltd., an innovator in affordable wavetable audio boards and software, announced that they will ship in February a complete home piano package based on the Gravis UltraSound board. The "Gravis Personal Piano System" provides all the elements for a versatile musical keyboard system that will satisfy the needs of beginning piano students to sophisticated orchestral composers for under $495. Unlike proprietary musical systems, the Gravis Personal Piano System provides important multimedia components that can be used by non-music computer users as well. The Gravis Personal Piano System includes the following: Gravis UltraSound board, providing natural piano sounds along with 192 MIDI instrument sounds. Gravis UltraSound uses wavetable synthesis to provide true-to-life sounds of musical instruments and special effects. A four octave velocity sensitive MIDI keyboard with full size keys, manufactured by Fatar, the worlds leading manufacturer of master keyboards. Pair of Powered Speakers. Musicware's Piano, a self-pacing, instructional piano teaching program for all ages levels, which steps users through a programmed teaching system designed to give users keyboard skills and build their confidence to explore the world of multimedia applications. According to Grant Russell, president of Advanced Gravis, "the Gravis Personal Piano System reaffirms our commitment to product development by providing high quality multimedia solutions that the whole family can experience and benefit from together." The Gravis Personal Piano System includes Musicware Piano's professionally developed and curriculum based teaching program. Six courses in all, Musicware Piano is designed to take beginning music enthusiasts from the basics to the classics and beyond. Following is a (Continued to next message) --- ~ QMPro 1.51 ~ How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise MY hands ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Feb 94 15:31:05 From: john.smith@gravis.com Subject: Just to let you know 4/4 (Continued from previous message) comparison of Musicware Piano and Miracle Piano (based on information available 12/29/93): Musicware Piano Miracle Runs under Windows Yes No Integrated Sequential Curriculum Teaches: Music Theory & Notation Yes No Ear Training Yes No Rhythm Yes No Sight Reading Yes No Tracks Individual Students Yes No Provides Immediate Feedback Yes Yes Structured Learning Format Yes No Multiple course offering taking student through 3+ years of traditional piano instruction. Yes No Once users become familiar with their new "piano", they can explore other bundled software including Midisoft Recording Session and Power Chords for Windows, and sample the variety of 192 patches provided with the UltraSound board. In addition to UltraSound, Gravis' 16-bit CD quality stereo sound cards featuring wavetable synthesis and recording, Advanced Gravis Computer Technology Ltd., also designs, manufactures and markets high quality microcomputer input devices including joysticks, gamepads for both PC and Macintosh platforms. Wew, thats all that I can think of for now. Have a good weekend and keep on GUSsing! C'ya John --- ~ QMPro 1.51 ~ How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise MY hands ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 10:40:55 -0500 (EST) From: Phat H Tran Subject: New GUS software > Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 22:13:01 -0400 (EDT) > From: Roger Frederi Clark > Subject: 32-bit AIL > > Maybe I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Police Quest 4 from > Sierra also used 32-bit sound drivers, and the drivers in gail3213.zip > don't appear to be what PQ4 needs. Am I mistaken, or are the Sierra > 32-bit drivers something different? They are something different, but should be out soon. > Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 12:32:01 +0100 (MET) > From: ralam@cs.vu.nl > Subject: gus0038.zip > > These are the new installation disks (2). Unfortunately they don't have a > disk,id on them, so unless you copy the ones from your older disks to them > end edit them (change the version number to them and give them the the > correct disk number) you won/t be able to install the second disk. Actually, just make sure that the volume labels on the disks are set to NONE and the install program will be able to recognize them. > Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 17:31:18 MET > From: John Vernooij > Subject: gus0038.zip > [...] > It installs new versions of Playmidi, Playfile, Setgus, Ultrinit, > Mega-em (not sure if v2.03 was out already), Ultramid, > Windows-drivers, Mixer and PatchMaker Lite. > Included are also the latest versions of Ultrajoy, Gusmod (this time > complete) and Patch Manager. Although the names of the midi-files are > the same the dates have changed so maybe they are modified too, > Gravis also added some new ones. Of interest to users with both a GUS and an SB is the new ultrinit.exe which automatically floats the GUS' Adlib ports for better co-existence of the two cards. Users need not go through the load SBOS, unload SBOS ritual any longer. > The biggest problem is with the new playmidi. The drums don't > sound right at all on many MIDI files either with linear and log volumes. (Sorry, Marc. I chopped your message header.) PlayMIDI 5.03 has a bug with the percussion channel, so people shouldn't worry about something they've done. In short, many of the percussion instruments should choppy (as though they're plastic canisters, as someone so aptly put it). This problem is also exhibited by the new Ultramid 1.07, and the new AIL32s. I hope Gravis gets them fixed soon! > Date: Tue, 01 Feb 94 11:35:04 -0500 > From: "Momentary language, sexual situations" > Subject: Re: New windows drivers and kq6 :: and GK CD > > > Solution: I reverted to the earlier windows drivers and everything works > > fine. (even emm386) This is my suggestion to your > > problem. If you miss the fact that you can save the > > ultrasound settings from the mixer, you can do the > > same thing from the control panel. > > I tried GK CD under Windows and it was unbearably slow (this might have > been due to the "tiny" installation, but I don't think so). It's fine under > DOS, though...There is a patch available from Sierra that fixes some bugs, If you're using a 16-bit DMA channel, you might want to switch to an 8-bit one. I can't play things of my CD ROM with my GUS on a 16-bit DMA channel in Windows (but I can in DOS). > Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 15:48:22 +0800 (WST) > From: Adam Boyt > Subject: Re: Syndicate with 32bit Ail > > I followed the instrutions which came with the 32 bit drivers and used > the batch file to copy the files across. When I run syndicate it plays > the first sound then when it tries to play the music hangs and says > divide by 0 error. I mucked around and it appears it thinks the midi ail > driver is not a standard xmidi driver. > > Has anyone else had this problem and has anyone fixed it? Brian Semotiuk found that editing the line M026 026 027 026 000; Electric Guitar (jazz) found in patches.ini to M026 026 024 026 000; Electric Guitar (jazz) gets rid of the divide error in Syndicate. Phat. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 14:39:15 -0500 From: David A Denis Subject: New MIDI There is a new great MIDI that I uploaded to Epas, called DAVEMIDI.ZIP. It has a different name when you unzip it, but that is another story. If you want more original Midi's that I and some friends have done, let me know, and I'll upload the I'll upload them. denis@acsu.buffalo.edu Its 11+ minutes, so sit back and enjoy! Dave ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 10:56:16 -0600 (CST) From: Fitzgerald Jr Steele Subject: New SBOS Has anyone gotten this new SBOS to work with Front Pages Football Pro? The documentation said it should work with the -o4 option, but maybe it was talking about FPS Football, not Pro. Anyway, when I tried it (with a variety of option switches) I would get the Dynamix logo screen with no sound save a little "bloop" as the football hits the logo. When the screen clears, the computer locks up, requiring a cold boot. Something else happened with this version. Whenever I tried to release the SBOS driver from memory (sbos -f), I lost all keyboard control. Couldn't type a thing (it obviously would let me do Ctl-Alt-Del). Any Ideas? --------------------==========*********==========---------------------- Jerry Steele "Give me a lever, and a place to stand fjsteele@icaen.uiowa.edu and I will move the world" fsteele@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu -- Archemedes --------------==============*************==============---------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Feb 94 11:35:04 -0500 From: "Momentary language, sexual situations" Subject: Re: New windows drivers and kq6 :: and GK CD > Solution: I reverted to the earlier windows drivers and everything works > fine. (even emm386) This is my suggestion to your > problem. If you miss the fact that you can save the > ultrasound settings from the mixer, you can do the > same thing from the control panel. I tried GK CD under Windows and it was unbearably slow (this might have been due to the "tiny" installation, but I don't think so). It's fine under DOS, though...There is a patch available from Sierra that fixes some bugs, but prevents the use of old saved games! So, if you haven't played much, get the patch now... I was looking through the installation files and there are help messages related to various soundcards, including the Gravis UltraSound. Apparently, they really are set up to handle the GUS, except the driver (gmgus.drv) isn't included with GK CD. Sigh... DDA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Feb 94 16:21:00 +0000 From: da930908@mcis.messiah.edu Subject: Nice new version, or is it a bad thing? And so another version of the Ultrasound software is released..... IN ONE FILE?!?? Now lets see... are we supposed to DL this to our local server, split it up on our local network, and then cart it back to our local computers to run it? Or is it 8 seperate files? Come on... Don't expect us to DL a huge file and split it up when it's MUCH easier for YOU to split it into 8 seperate files... Hey, it's the same amount of space and alot easier on the end user. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 12:48:41 -0800 (PST) From: mikebat@netcom.com (Mike Batchelor) Subject: Playfile, MegaEM and QEMM 7.03 Don't you love little problems like this: If I play a .snd or .wav with the playfile.exe from gus0038.zip, and then try to load MegaEm 2.03 or 2.02 (only versions I tested), the PC will hang solid before emuset terminates, just at the point where it would have posted "Emulation is now on." This happens with QEMM 7.03 loaded, but not DOS 6 EMM386. If I use the playfile.exe from the 2.06a disks, neither version of emuset has any trouble with either memory manager. I do not have to create any high RAM for this problem to occur, nor is any other software involved. You should be able to reproduce this with only device=qemm386.sys in the config.sys, set your variables, run ultrinit, play a .wav, then run megaem & emuset. My ULTRASND=220,7,1,7,5, and I use -SBI5 with MegaEm. -- Mike Batchelor | UseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinuxUseLinux mikebat@netcom.com | XuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesUxuniLesU ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Feb 1994 18:04:48 -0800 (PST) From: Matt Denault Subject: PlayMIDI bug? Hmm...people have been complaining about PlayMIDI having a problem playing a particular patch. Well, I noticed that in Gravis' press releases, they say the Ultrasound has 192 patches, while the 2.06 disks only had 189. So, could it be that the order got messed up because of the addition of 3 new patches, and thus the new PlayMIDI, which is meant to be used with 192 patches, has problems with only 189? On the other hand, I don't know that much about the innards of MIDI, so it might just be a bug...has anyone talked to Gravis about this? On a completely unrelated note, what do people think of the Triton GUS demo. I don't have the time to d/l big files often (miseries of a slow modem), but if it's good, I'll get it ASAP. Thanks and happy GUSing ciao matt mdenault@pomona.claremont.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Feb 94 11:59:01 +0100 From: rock@POOL.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE Subject: Privateer Hi! Is there any way to get the digital part working ? I use SBOS 3.7 and have patched sound.tre with the ailpatch. Thanx...Olli ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 21:46:20 -0500 (EST) From: "D. Michael McIntyre" Subject: Problems with new Gravis software I was wondering if anyone else had had the following problems: First of all, the Windows MOD player seems to be CPU sensitive. It plays on my 386-40 but it sounds like a 45 being played at 33.3 and is, as such, pretty worthless to me. WinMOD may not sound that great, but it doesn't drag like that. My second problem is probably my own fault. I got Ami Pro for Windows and got to screwing around with fonts in Windows for the first time, and I decided to clean out all of the fonts that I wasn't using, to reduce the number of worthless choices from the font menu. I killed everything with an 8514 or an EGA in it. Now, when I run Patch Manager the font it uses for all the text in the main dialog box is really gigantic so that the dialog box won't fit on one screen. Does anyone have any idea what specific font file is needed for the font that it wants to use? Also, when I edited the dialog box with Borland's Resource Workshop to change the font, it wouldn't let me select any text attributes. The checkboxes were grayed out, and the bold box was checked. The only font I could find that would work was something called Gil Sans and it's really gross looking in that dialog box. Did anyone else have this problem by chance? Or did I just screw myself by deleting the un-wanted font files? --Michael-- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 11:04:07 +1100 (EST) From: Andrew Leahy Subject: Problem with new playmidi (v5.03) I've just installed the "gus0038.zip" file from epas on my system at home, and while being impressed by the new playmidi, it seems to have problems playing a particular patch! I was listening to the XWing MIDI files again...which sound a lot better with linear vol, and I noticed that there were no Snare drums! Where the snare usually was I get this tom-tom sorta sound. I tried the same files under Windows and they sound fine (ie. snares in the right places)! (BTW the MODUS Windows MOD player, is mucho cool :) Using "playmidi -verbose" I found that the snare is Patch 38 "Acoustic Snare" (snare1.pat), a good file to try is HANGER1.MID, it has a snare drum roll at the beginning, which becomes a tom-tom roll under playmidi...yuck! Does anyone else have this problem...or is my config now totally rooted? (\ULTRASND\MIDI\DEFAULT.CFG doesn't get updated when you install "gus0038.zip") FYI: My setup 486/33, 8Mb RAM, GUS 1Mb, DOS 6.2, Win 3.1. __________________________________________________________________________ Andrew "Alf" Leahy email: alf@st.nepean.uws.edu.au Computer Systems Officer phone: (047) 360622 (work ;-) Deptartment of Computing, University of Western Sydney - Nepean, Australia ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 13:15:11 -0600 (CST) From: Mike Allen Subject: Sierra Can anyone tell me where to find the Sierra Drivers? ------ _________________________________________________ | Mike Allen | | University of Arkansas | | email | | mlallen@comp.uark.edu | |_______________________________________________| ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 15:48:22 +0800 (WST) From: Adam Boyt Subject: Re: Syndicate with 32bit Ail I followed the instrutions which came with the 32 bit drivers and used the batch file to copy the files across. When I run syndicate it plays the first sound then when it tries to play the music hangs and says divide by 0 error. I mucked around and it appears it thinks the midi ail driver is not a standard xmidi driver. Has anyone else had this problem and has anyone fixed it? Thanks Adam Boyt (aboyt@tartarus.uwa.edu.au) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Feb 1994 15:47:44 +1000 From: David Vu Subject: UMC motherboard I 've seen posts about bad UMC motherboards. Specifically the 206 part made by UMC. I bought a UMC 486/50 motherboard about three months ago and have had absolutely no problems with using 16-bit DMA. So I guess UMC have fixed it in the new revision. The chipset is indeed a UMC480 including a 481 and a 482 part. You must have been unlucky and got the old revision motherboard :-(. BTW, another good news for UMC motherboard owners: The Last Byte v 2.31 now supports UMC480 chipset so you can get more high RAM and more conventional RAM, yet with the 486 still in real mode. So all of you who can't play games cause you can't load the ultramid TSR now can. -David- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 00:01:55 -0800 From: dross@ultrix4.cs.csubak.edu (Dean Ross-Smith) Subject: voice blaster whether or not the voice blaster is compatible with the gus (and whether or not it actually works) may now be a moot point: Last week Covox was ordered to Change the Voice Blaster's name because Creative Labs had set a marketing precedent by selling a bunch of (crummy) products using the Blaster Name (soundBlaster, Video Blaster). So basically CReative Labs has intimidated another competitor (who has been around much longer than Creative Labs). Hey- anyone remember the speech recognition for the c-64 by covox? oops i'm off topic... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 94 13:17:42 EST From: dmcintyr@muselab.ac.runet.edu Subject: wrong sounds in games/new Win drivers >I wonder if it is possible to customize MEGAEM, so that (most of) the >correct patches are loaded - instead of the standard set of patches. >I imagine that one could find out (don't ask me how) which MIDI >instruments are really used by a certain game, so that you can decide >which of the standard patches to replace by other, more suiting ones. >This could eliminate the 'wrong sounds' you can hear in many game >tunes and which I find extremely annoying. >Let me know what you think of this idea, and if you know how to do >this. The problems with the wrong sounds are twofold. Sometimes it uses the wrong instrument because, say, there was room for only one guitar sound and that guitar sound is the wrong one for the particular sound they REALLY wanted. The other problem is the problem of General MIDI in general when used for sound effects. Take the high pitched engine sounds in X-Wing, for example. They sound fine on a Sound Canvas, but the particular instrument that sound effect uses doesn't sound the same on the GUS, so the sound effect is all wrong. Both problems can be fixed, but the second is much more difficult. In either case, you need someone with a REAL MIDI setup, and not just the GUS MIDI which is worthless outside of Windoze. What you need to do is get someone with an external sequencer, or another computer, and send the game's MIDI data (by playing the game) out the real MPU-401 card. Then you capture it with an external, portable sequencer, save it to disk on the sequencer and play it back into a program like Cakewalk, and then you can look at the data stream and see all the patch changes, and configure your ultrasnd.ini accordingly. For sound effects that are off, doing the above may not be the total solution. If the sound effects are totally wrong, the only REAL way to fix it is to get a sample of whatever isntruments are being used to make the effect, being played on a Roland Sound CAnvas, and then set up a GUS patch with that sound as close as possible to the real thing so that when the sound gets manipulated by the game to make the sound effect the result will be the same as the sound canvas. Just sampling the end result sound effect is not enough, as it will just get distorted when the game tries to play it in the wrong octave or whatever. In other words, this is a big pain in the ass, and generally a big problem with General MIDI as a whole, and not necessarily the GUS's fault in all cases. %$%$%$%$%$%$% >One thing that is really boring me is my Windows start. Since >I installed the GUS drivers, Windows now takes several seconds >to start up because the driver loads a lot of those patches... >It looks kinda useless, since the correct patches will be loaded >again for each .MID file I want to play. > >My question is: IS THERE A WAY TO TELL THAT STUPID DRIVER NOT >TO LOAD THE DAMNED PATCHES BY THE WINDOWS START ??? Yes. The new Windows drivers let you tell it you don't want to check the patches at boot time. HOWEVER, it doesn't make a damned bit of difference on my system, and Windows STILL takes like 1.5 minutes to boot. --Michael-- << dmcintyr@muselab.ac.runet.edu >> <> That's odd... My strip program didn't work... Oh well... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 19:27:28 +1100 (EST) From: Andrew Leahy Subject: Re: WWW MTV.com URL > What is the Document URL (i.e. http://.... ) for this "MTV" site? > I was browsing through the Web with XMosaic and I didn't come across it. Linkname: MTV's Web Site Filename: http://mtv.com/ (I only found it two days ago :) I don't think it's actually sponsored by MTV...although they "know" about it. For some more Music related WWW/Gopher/ftp sites try: Linkname: Music on the Net Filename: http://www.music.indiana.edu/misc/music_resources.html Which provides a super-list of sites. ___________________________________________________________________________ | Andrew "Alf" Leahy email: alf@st.nepean.uws.edu.au | | Computer Systems Officer phone: (047) 360622 (work ;-) | | Department of Computing, University of Western Sydney - Nepean, Australia | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Feb 1994 15:11:16 +1000 From: David Vu Subject: You want more samples, you got it! Fellow GUSicians, With right patch editor, a sample editor, and a little bit of patience, you can turn your GUS into many classic analog synthesisers. If you've never heard an analog synth before, you are missing a great many beautiful sounds of the world. So where 's the 16-bit daughterboard? ------- Forwarded Message February 1st, 1994 Hi! It gives me great pleasure to inform you that the "Analogue Collection" sampling CD is now shipping (heh-heh... that felt good to say :) Your copy of the disc is ready to be mailed -- I can ship COD or upon receipt of payment (the ordering info is in the attached message). Thanks for your support! Best regards, James Grahame - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - The Analogue Collection Sampling CD Over 650 samples of 24 classic analog synthesizers The Analogue Collection is an audio compact disc of patches taken from two-dozen classic analog synthesizers. The material for this disc was provided by an intrepid and adventurous bunch of internetters, compusmurfers, pan users, delphi subscribers (IOW, some cool guys, me included: ) There are over 650 samples on the disc, comprising approximately 160 different multisampled patches which can be loaded into digital sampling keyboards. Most patches are multi-sampled over three or four octaves. The disc is similar to a standard audio Compact Disc, and plays on any audio CD player. To use it, just listen for a classic synth patch that you like, and sample the output of your CD player into your digital sampling keyboard. ***** The Analogue Collection is US$30 ****** TO ORDER: If you live in the United States or Canada, I can ship your order COD. simply email me telling me; (a) that you'd like me to send you a copy of the disc COD; (b) your street address; (c) your email address; (d) a daytime phone number (answering machines are fine, as long as I can reach you if I have to). If you want to avoid the hassles of being around to accept a COD shipment, you can send a check or money order for $30US to the address below. If you live in Europe, Asia, Africa, or South America (IOW, anywhere else), you will have to prepay your order. Email me telling me; (a) that you're sending me an order; (b) send an international money order for $30US plus $2US to cover international air mail to: Grahame Digital 1940 South Broadway Unit 223 Minot, North Dakota 58701 United States of America Should you have any questions about the disc or the status of your order, don't hesitate to email me at Grahame@skyfox.usask.ca , or telephone me at (306) 757-5706. Happy sampling! ------- End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 13:52:42 GMT From: Chris Barrett >I wonder if it is possible to customize MEGAEM, so that (most of) the >correct patches are loaded - instead of the standard set of patches. >I imagine that one could find out (don't ask me how) which MIDI >instruments are really used by a certain game, so that you can decide >which of the standard patches to replace by other, more suiting ones. >This could eliminate the 'wrong sounds' you can hear in many game >tunes and which I find extremely annoying. >Let me know what you think of this idea, and if you know how to do >this. I used a program called XRAY to trace which patches MEGAEM loaded. It reads the ULTRASND.INI file to get the patches, and all you have to do is make a back-up of this file, and change the right patches for your own selection. You can delete the rest of the patch text, to make it neater. The patches that MEGAEM loads (for the 1 megabyte card) are : [melodic] 0 acpiano 20 reedorg 32 acbass 42 cello 56 trumpet 65 altosax 73 flute 6 hrpschrd 8 celeste 12 marimba 16 homeorg 24 nyguitar 29 odguitar 40 violin 49 slowstr 80 sqrwave 88 fantasia 96 aurora 105 banjo 112 carillon 123 jungle 75 clave 11 vibes 17 percorg 19 church 27 cleangtr 30 distgtr 32 acbass 38 synbass1 43 contraba 47 timpani 48 marcato 52 choir 58 tuba 61 hitbrass 67 barisax 68 oboe 69 englhorn 71 clarinet 76 bottle 77 shakazul 86 lead5th 104 sitar 107 koto 108 kalimba 109 bagpipes 110 fiddle 114 steeldrm 125 helicptr 126 applause 127 ringwhsl [percussive] 36 kick2 37 stickrim 38 snare1 39 claps 41 tomlo2 42 hihatcl 49 cymershl 53 cymbell 54 tamborin 56 cowbell 58 vibslap 60 bongohi 63 congahi2 65 timbaleh 67 agogohi 70 maracas 71 whistle1 73 guiro1 76 woodblk1 79 cuica2 81 triangle2 44 hihatpd 46 hihatop 47 tommid1 48 tomhi2 51 cymride1 52 cymchina 55 cymsplsh 57 cymcrsh2 59 cymride2 61 bongolo 62 congahi1 I hope these are all correct. Sorry for not putting them in numeric order, this is the order MEGAEM loads them. Be careful when choosing patches, as I believe you have to leave some memory free (8K + 32 bytes) free for digital sound effects. Hope this helps! Chris Barrett. "Fish!" --- se1cb@dmu.ac.uk --- ------------------------------ End of GUS Daily Digest V11 #2 ******************************