Ultrasound Daily Digest Fri, 1 Jan 93 Volume 2 : Issue 1 Today's Topics: 669 files (2 msgs) Buying a GUS Digest Admin: Is a split needed? Effect of DMA Buffer Size On Choice of DMA Channel GUS CH Interface, is it regular SCSI? (2 msgs) GUS memory prob? GUS Programming: The Repost III (2 msgs) How to use user-created patches with Windows Maintain Single Digest midi files New drivers - first impressions New Gravis software solves several problems Purchase of GUS SBOS 1.23 beta impressions Split the Group? Two questions/problems Ultrasound Daily Digest V1 #62 Ultrasound Daily Digest V1 #63 Information about the UltraSound Daily Digest (such as mail addresses, request servers, ftp sites, etc., etc.) can be found at the end of the Digest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 14:05:23 GMT From: tld@moon.base.bellcore.com (Terry Davidson) Message-Id: <1992Dec30.140523.5827@walter.bellcore.com> Subject: 669 files To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> In article <1992Dec30.102438.17788@sfu.ca>, mtichy@fraser.sfu.ca (Martin Tichy) writes: |> Thanks to PHAT and Gab my uploading problem is fixed. I |> have uploaded about 7 669 files to the ftp site |> archive.epas.utoronto.ca in the \pub\pc\ultrasound\submit |> directory. |> |> The following files are 669 music modules which can be played |> with p669gu0.arj. |> OK - (1) what are `669' music modules? (2) what does p669gu0.arj support? SB? PAS16? GUS? (3) Stereo? -- # include disclaimer.lib //* All standard disclaimers apply *// My wife let's me think my opinions are my own. Bellcore doesn't care either way, and doesn't claim them anyway... Terry Davidson - tld@cosmos.bellcore.com / tld@cosmos.bae.bellcore.com ------------------------------ Date: 30 Dec 92 15:27:39 GMT From: s106275@ee.tut.fi (Anssi Saari) Message-Id: <s106275.725729259@ee.tut.fi> Subject: 669 files To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> In <1992Dec30.140523.5827@walter.bellcore.com> tld@moon.base.bellcore.com (Terry Davidson) writes: >OK - (1) what are `669' music modules? (2) what does p669gu0.arj support? > SB? PAS16? GUS? (3) Stereo? (1) They are 669 music modules. 8 channels, stereo, maximum size 1408kB. The editor is Composer 669 or some such, requires 386, 2MB and VGA and no memory managers, supports SB and SB pro. (2) GUS. (3) I'm not sure whether p669gu0 supports stereo. It says that it doesn't support most special commands. I have only two modules hardwire.669 (comes with the editor) and crystal.669, I haven't listened to the 7 new modules uploaded to epas yet. If there's interest, I'll upload the editor to epas as well. Does anyone know if there is newer version than 1.3? Anssi -- Anssi Saari s106275@ee.tut.fi Tampere University of Technology Finland, Europe ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 15:52:05 -0800 From: mchen@cory.berkeley.edu (Mike J. Chen) Message-Id: <9212312352.AA27800@cory.Berkeley.EDU> Subject: Buying a GUS To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> Hi all. I've just started to read all the info about the GUS and it sounds like a very good board. I had some questions about finding a place to buy one though. I've looked in my local computer magazine adds and nothing. No mention of the board. I also read in the mailing list info articles about possible new releases coming out soon. Does anyone know when these new release are due and what they will add? I don't want to get a board just before a new release! As for purchasing, what is the best prices people have seen mailorder and does anyone know of stores in the San Francisco Bay Area region which carry it (specifically the Berkeley region) in case I don't want to wait for shipping. Thanks for any responses. Please send email to mchen@cory.berkeley.edu -=Mike ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 12:58:49 -0500 From: "It's your hand, Buckaroo" <dantonio@magick.tay2.dec.com> Message-Id: <9212311758.AA01325@magick.tay2.dec.com> Subject: Digest Admin: Is a split needed? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> > There was a comment made a few days ago that the digest had > deteriorated into a "how do you get this game to work" forum. Not sure I'd call this "deteriorated". Since there isn't much out there yet for native GUS stuff, getting SBOS to work is a pressing need... > I've been watching, and there does seem to be a large amount > of this going on. I'm wondering if it calls for a split into two > or more digests or mailing lists. I'd say wait a while. I've been told by Gravis that there will be some game announcements in January and hopefully the SDK will be rewritten and released soon. Given the NDA stuff, the folks who have the current SDK can't really go around asking questions about it... I'm also not sure what kind of questions/comments people EXPECT to see. I tend to answer stuff via direct mail to the perosn asking. Should I be sending to the digest as well? DDA ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 10:30:54 -0500 (EST) From: bli@hubcap.clemson.edu (Bao Li) Message-Id: <9212311530.AA07201@hubcap.clemson.edu> Subject: Effect of DMA Buffer Size On Choice of DMA Channel To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> It seems to me that the size of DMA buffer has effect on the choice of 8 bit or 16 bit DMA channel when using EMM386.EXE on my machine. I bought a GUS recently. The installation had no problem when using all default values. After the initial installation, I found that there were intermittent static noises when playing some musics. I tried to switch the DMA channel from the default 1 (8 bit) to 7 (16 bit) as suggested by some netters. After switching, my computer became unstable when playing songs. Occationally, it worked well in both DOS and WINDOW. But most of time it would lock my machine. Sometimes, It worked in DOS. When I run Window, it gave a lot of noise and Window locked when exit. Sometimes it worked in DOS at beginning, after MIDIDEMO played a couple of musics the computer locked up . I had no choice but reboot. It was especially true when I run FLIDEMO right after reboot. FLIDEMO refused to work properly even if when PLAYMIDI could works. (Note: I switched DMA channel in Window too every time I run SETUP.) After rebooting and trying many times, I gave up and went back to DMA channel 1. Yesterday, I added "d=128" to the line "device=c:\windows\emm386.exe noems" in my CONFIG.SYS file (default value was d=16, I think.). And then, I setup the DMA channel to 7 again. This time everything works fine, both in DOS and WINDOW. (My window DMA buffer has been setiting up to 200 in SYSTEM.INI file.) My machine's configuration: DTK 386 SX/16 (DTK bios) C&T chip set Quantum 170AT hard disk ATI 8514 Ultra and ET4000 SVGA adapter GUS ver. 1.24 with 1 MB Also, I found if I install the GUS on the expansion slot as far away as possible from my video card, as suggested in GUS manual, I will get a lot of sustained noise. I think the noise come from my hard disk since the GUS is very close to it if I use that slot. Right now I move the card closer to my ATI Ultra, and the noise disappear. Bao ------------------------------ Date: 30 Dec 92 17:14:30 GMT From: unity@mcl.ucsb.edu (Andrea Pessino) Message-Id: <unity.725735670@mcl> Subject: GUS CH Interface, is it regular SCSI? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> Hi, I'd like to know if the optional CD interface on the GUS is a regular SCSI; I already have an internal CD, but I have a bunch of other SCSI devices (a Syquest drive, a tape backup unit, etc.) that I need to use. I was going to buy a SCSI interface, or even a PAS+ (in addition to the GUS) just for that. If the GUS could do it all, it would make me even happier :) Thanks in advance.. -- Andrea Pessino // Kiwi Software, Inc. // unity@mcl.ucsb.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 08:06:50 EST From: Matthew E. Bernold <MEB117@psuvm.psu.edu> Message-Id: <92366.080650MEB117@psuvm.psu.edu> Subject: GUS CH Interface, is it regular SCSI? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> In article <unity.725735670@mcl>, unity@mcl.ucsb.edu (Andrea Pessino) says: > >Hi, I'd like to know if the optional CD interface on the GUS is a >regular SCSI; I already have an internal CD, but I have a bunch of >other SCSI devices (a Syquest drive, a tape backup unit, etc.) that >I need to use. I was going to buy a SCSI interface, or even a PAS+ >(in addition to the GUS) just for that. If the GUS could do it all, >it would make me even happier :) > Ok, maybe this will clear up the problems some people have been having with soundcards and CD-ROM drives. To use a CD-ROM drive with a soundcard, you need two things, a controller for the drive, and a connection to the soundcard so you can record from the CD, or play the CD back through the soundcard's amp. Many people have recently been confusing the two, and I haven't seen anyone trying to clear the situation up. On Creative Labs soundcards, the INTERFACE part is non- standard (NOT SCSI), but you can still hook up ANY CD-ROM drive that has it's own interface card to the soundcard's audio in (either the 3 or 4 pin CD-in connector, or just a line in) without any problem. Same type of thing with the GUS. If you have a CD-ROM with it's own interface, like a seperate SCSI controller, you can still hook up the CD's audio in to the card. The one thing I would watch out for is that most SCSI controllers on sound boards do not have very good transfer rates. They are more than sufficient for a CD-ROM, but trying to hook up a hard drive to that controller isn't the best way to get serious speed out of a drive....I'd check that out first if I were you. (Note: I have NO idea what the transfer rate on the Gravis SCSI daughterboard is, but I hope it's FANTASTIC, cuz I own a Gravis... :-) >Thanks in advance.. >-- > Andrea Pessino // Kiwi Software, Inc. // unity@mcl.ucsb.edu You're quite welcome, and I hope that others out there who are confused about this can straighten it out. Matthew E. Bernold MEB117@PSUVM.PSU.EDU <<APOCALYPSE>> meb@haydn.psu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 17:38:00 PST From: brian@ccnext.ucsf.edu (Brian Huddleston) Message-Id: <9301010138.AA19043@ ccnext.ucsf.edu > Subject: GUS memory prob? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> Greetings all, I just finished installing my 1meg of Dram into my GUS, and I came across a few things I want to ask about. The chips in the card it's self are 100ns but the ones I installed are 80ns, Is it ok to mix? (the card now has 2 100ns and 6 80ns). The Dram tester says all clear. But when I played some .mids some sounded a litte off, could it just be the programming of the mid or can bad (fast/slow) chips cause a prob like that? Also, what is a GOOD mid to show off the GUS. (I loved hidnseek, but it's short and limited) I'm looking for a mid that plays a lot of different patches. Two last things: 1: When I try to play the Simpson mid I keep getting some "Unable to load program 7 to track 4) or something like that. (so the song isn't complete) I still hear what has been loaded. 2: last thing, has anyone had any probs with Starcon][, for some reason, it messes up what playing a few songs, (eg: an instrument in a song is replaced with another instrument. or when I fire a missle from the earth ship I sometimes hear the effect for the pkunk: "Goober, Idiot, etc....) HELP..... brian@ccnext.ucsf.edu (I still love this card!!!) (May all your GUS'es live long and prosper) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 02:05:52 GMT From: janicek@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Jana Janicek) Message-Id: <C01v5s.JFM@ccu.umanitoba.ca> Subject: GUS Programming: The Repost III To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> Okay, I am pretty sure that patches are not limmited to 64K as I guessed earlier. I am in fact having the reverse as a problem in my patch routines. I mean, I cannot seem to make my patches cut off where they should. They all seem to cycle through the full meg of on board ram. But I will keep on hacking untill I solve these problems. Some more observations (GOOD and BAD): **Remember that my routines are not yet perfected and many of the BAD stuff is probably based on this fact. First, the bad. We have heard before some complaints of a slight popping noice when playing certain MIDI files with the GUS. Well, I thought I would further investigate this. I listened to all sorts of GUS stuff, (patch based). MIDIS do indeed (some more than others) seem to have a popping problem. It is not very noticible at first, but the more you listen, the more annoying it becomes. I found this same popping in Star Control II, and again in the Modulatr (which is a BETA I should remind people). The final place I found popping was in my own patch test programs. So, I did some experiments. The patch I am using is the spook.snd file in the ULTRASND/SOUNDS directory. I played this patch using USS8, than I saved it from the GUS DRAM with my own routine to disk, and than the fun began. It seems that whenever start_voice_playing is called, the first thing it does is generate a pop. I was not 100% certain of this, so I created a loop, and played the same patch through 15 voices with a 30ms delay between each one. The result was an awsome sound with a distinct loud buzzzzzzz right at the begining. In other words, alot of pops being played one after the other. This made my heart sink, could GRAVIS have overlooked such a flaw in their hardware? I checked the patch itself to see if there was any noise at the begining, I found a fairly constant stream of values close to zero. This should not creat such a distinct buzzing pop noise. I really really really hope this is a bad patch or there is a fault in my routines that is doing this, but as I listen to more and more GUS native stuff, I still hear the little pops. If this is hardware, I hope the next revision addresses this problem. Remember, I am merely making an observation, I don't want to start a flame war, I hope I am wrong, but I cannot ignore my ears or those pops any longer. Now, some good observations. I found that you can do some really cool stuff with the GUS, one of my favorite things is creating an echo/reverb/metallic effect by playing the same patch on several voices I use about 6 to 10 depending on how pronounced I want the effect, with a very small delay between each one (about 10..20 ms). This effect would wave some really neat uses in games where they could use the same patch on board the card to generate several different sounds. A really neat effect, must be heard to be believed. My next project is the Patchinator (cant think of a better name yet) which will do precisly that mentioned above, using the special abilities of the GUS to do cool things to samples. -Later ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 1992 14:39:09 -0800 From: joseph@aludra.usc.edu (Jeff Lawson) Message-Id: <1hqk2dINNqeu@aludra.usc.edu> Subject: GUS Programming: The Repost III To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> In article <C00Cop.LDH@ccu.umanitoba.ca> janicek@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Jana Janicek) writes: >And one final observation: This is just a guess, but I am finding some >evidence to support this. Is it true the GUS can play patches only 64K in >length? I have noticed that the Modulator often gives patch too large >errors, and I had a look at the patches in the ULTRASND\MIDI directory, >with the exception of one, all of the patches seem to conviently fit under >65536 bytes (the larger one may be some sort of compound patch??) Am I >just dreaming or is this substanciated? I believe that you're dreaming. The reason why the Modulator gives you that message was because I was in a hurry when I wrote the sample loading routine and I try to load each sample in with one pass. Unfortunately, you cannot have a string larger than 32k (that's really the cutoff point, not 64k) in QuickBASIC (which is what the whole program is written in, except for a couple of short screen updating routines in assembly.) I could easily make it take more than one pass to load a sample if it is too long, but right now I am in the middle of converting the entire program to C and I'll work out those bugs as well as other little things like stereo and wiping the memory faster when I'm done converting. With that mentioned, don't expect the next version out for at least a couple of weeks (there's over 5,000 lines totaling almost 400k of source!) --- Jeff Lawson joseph@aludra.usc.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 07:36:59 PST From: bs@mda.ca (Bruce Sharpe) Message-Id: <9212311536.AA01843@ mda.ca> Subject: How to use user-created patches with Windows To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> >just got the new patch manager... am I to understand that you cannot load >any user-created patches with it? And if so.. how? >I have several patches I would like to use outside of the limited playmidi >program (including Dion's) > The short answer is: You can load any patches you want. However, in any given Windows session the driver (and hence the Patch Manager) can only use the patches that were listed in the ULTRASND.INI file that was read when Windows was started. To use a set of patches different from the default ones, edit the ULTRASND.INI file. (It lives in the directory pointed to by the environment variable ULTRADIR.) This file has two kinds of information: (1) Where do the patch files live? This is the PatchDir variable in the [Ultrasound] section. (2) What is the name of the patch file that goes with a given patch number? This is what the lines that look like 0=acpiano1 are all about. That line informs that driver that whenever the melodic patch number 0 is needed, it is to use the patch in the file ACPIANO1.PAT that lives in the PatchDir directory. Change the appropriate lines in ULTRASND.INI to point to any patches you want to use. When using the Patch Manager, the patch names shown will default to those in the General MIDI set. You can use the Options | Preferences menu command to instead show the names that are embedded in the patch files. This lets you use any names you want, by putting them into the patch header. (These names are not quite right in the current set of default patches, hence you'll get a lot of ? marks when you choose this option with them.) >do I have to mess with the midi mapper? > No. The MIDI Mapper can only shuffle around the patches that were named in the ULTRASND.INI file. It is highly unlikely that anyone would want to use the MIDI Mapper with the GUS. The Patch Manager does not go through the MIDI Mapper. It talks only to the Ultra Wave and MIDI Synth device. Bruce Sharpe ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 11:36:16 -0700 From: Marc Clarke <mic@hpfimic.fc.hp.com> Message-Id: <9212311836.AA26587@hpfimic.fc.hp.com> Subject: Maintain Single Digest To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> Today's digest contained a request for comments about the idea of splitting the digest into a games and non-games section. I oppose this suggestion. I think the heavy game-related traffic we are observing now is a natural phenomenon in the life cycle of a very immature sound card as people try to get it working with existing applications. The Gravis card and its drivers were clearly released to the paying public when they were in fact only ready for alpha-test on controlled machines at the Gravis lab with every existing game on the market. Gravis instead conned the readers of this list into paying for the cards and then peforming that alpha testing. Once the alpha-test Gravis emulators settle down into released and tested form, working smoothly with all the existing games out there, we will see severalsubsequent phases in the life of this mailing list. As new games come onto the market purporting to support the Gravis in native mode, we will see more traffic about how these new games don't quite work. As new music sequencers (Cakewalk, etc.) and song generators (Band in a Box, etc.) start to support the Gravis in native mode, we will see a lot of traffic about how the applications don't quite work and what their quirks are. All these phases will come and go. In the mean time, there will be a steady flow of information about the card, how to configure it, how to make it work correctly, how to connect cables to it, new patch editors, evaluations of Gravis' continuing attempts to improve their software up to beta-test quality, and so on. I support the idea of keeping a single mailing list containing all these threads. Like many others, I archive these digests. They act as my reference manual for how to configure the card tow work with various games, which new games to buy, what capabilities do or do not exist for the card, and what new features we can look forward to. Keep the digest as it is, containing all the GUS-related threads. -- Marc Clarke ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 14:11 MST From: Dustin Caldwell <DUSTIN@GSE.UTAH.EDU> Message-Id: <9E7941291000041A@CC.UTAH.EDU> Subject: midi files To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> Does anyone know the format of .mid files, or where to find out? (header, note descriptions, etc.) I want to write a program to make .mid files, but cannot find out how they work. Thanks in advance, Dustin Caldwell dustin@gse.utah.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 11:13 EST From: Scott Bringen <ZMSKB@GIBBS.GSFC.NASA.GOV> Message-Id: <9212311614.AA20339@orca.es.com> Subject: New drivers - first impressions To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> Hi all, I downloaded the new Windows driver and SBOS. Although I haven't had any trouble with the previous versions, I installed them just to see what would happen. I'm running a 386/33 clone with 4 meg ram, DOS 5.0, Smartdive, Himem.Sys, Windows 3.1 and Norton Desktop 1.0. I run everything low. My GUS is set to 220,7,11,5 and has the origonal 256K memory. I'll upgrade someday :). I installed the new GUS drivers and played with them for about an hour. Here are my non-technical first impressions. The Windows driver is an improvement. I played a few MIDI files(downloaded from epas, my thanks to the uploaders!) with Media Player. At least one song had more instruments than when played with the previous driver. I think the sound was a little smoother too(a bit subjective!). SBOS 1.2B didn't seem much different than the previous version. But like I said, I wasn't having problems before. The only game I have to test it out on is the old version of Chuck Yeager's Air Combat(pre-GUS) run with the BLASTER parm. I think the digital speech was alittle softer than before, but still plenty loud. About the only strange sounds I've ever noticed are when the enemy planes crash. I get a quiet squeally(sp) sound. The other sounds have always been fine and still are. 1.2B has turned off the famous 'SBOS installed' announcement. I like this. It gets a little old after awhile. So I'm happy with the latest and greatest releases :). I want to thank GRAVIS for uploading these updates. I think this is a *great* way to service their customers. By the way, has anyone come across a Windows MIDI player that will sequentially play all the MIDI files in a directory? Something like MediaPlayer would be nice. Take it easy, Scott Bringen ...... has anyone seen my sig. file? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 01:23:50 GMT From: fisher@nodename.dec.com Message-Id: <1992Dec31.012825.10072@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> Subject: New Gravis software solves several problems To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> I just downloaded the latest and greatest windows drivers, patch manager, and SBOS. They seem to solve several problems. SBOS is available as a driver which can be loaded high. That saves memory. In addition I think the patches sound better. At least they do with Kings Quest V. And best of all, the windows drivers seem to understand the SBOS driver, so that you don't need to unload SBOS or even run Ultrinit before starting windows. I tried this and no more of the "ralph all of GUS memory all out the D/A" problem after the Ta-DAAA. One problem that STILL happens, however: in Earl Weaver Baseball II, the music sounds nice up till the first crack of the bat, or other digitized sound (like "OUT!" call from the ump). After that, no music at all, and the digitized sounds all come out the PC speaker. Finally, the patch manager is neat. It lets you see what is loaded in GUS memory, and even better, you can play each patch individually. They are really pretty darn good with only a few exceptions. Plus "Orchestra strings" and "String Pizzacato" seem to be reversed. And "Helicoptor" is more like "Mack Truck". But hey, compared to FM, it is great! Burns ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 11:25:49 CST From: meferg@cobra.b23a.ingr.com (Mark E. Ferguson) Message-Id: <199212311725.AA03852@cobra.b23a.ingr.com> Subject: Purchase of GUS To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> I've finally decided to purchase a GUS for my system and would like to hear from you where the best prices and best service can be found. I've looked through the January Computer Shopper but haven't been able to find anyone who carries the board. Also, has anyone installed a GUS in a Gateway 486DX-33 ISA system? If so, did you have any special problems getting things working properly. Thanks for any information you can provide..... -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------- + | Mark E. Ferguson Intergraph Corporation | | meferg@cobra.b23a.ingr.com __o One Madison Industrial Park | | -\<, Huntsville, Alabama 35894 | | .............................(*)/(*)....... (205) 730-8863 | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 14:24:30 EST From: Meshreki@ee.udel.edu Message-Id: <9212311924.aa18148@zip.ee.udel.edu> Subject: SBOS 1.23 beta impressions To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> Here are my impressions of the new SBOS 1.23 Beta: ftp archive.epas.utoronto.ca: /pub/pc/ultrasound/submit/gus0009.zip (and don't forget to grab -> /pub/pc/ultrasound/submit/gus0012.zip the new Windows drivers! -> /pub/pc/ultrasound/submit/patchmgr.zip) --- SUMMARY ------------------------------------------------------------------- Where SBOS 1.22 fixed digital sound problems, SBOS 1.23 fixes the uneven (music/digitized sound) volume ratio. It also adds 5 new *.SBS patches, and introduces a new (optional) SBOSDRV.SYS driver that has some bugs. --- SPECIFICS ----------------------------------------------------------------- GUS0009.ZIP contains 35 *.SBS patches, of which only five are new. They are alternates of the five percussion patches (the names are slightly changed.) The other 30 patches are the same as the ones that came on my 1.21 install disks. SBOS 1.23 fixes the uneven ( music / digitized sound ) ratio. It has increased the playback volume level of the patches while leaving the digitized sfx unchanged. Why do the sfx sound quieter? LOADSBOS -debug will show you that the default volume level is now 15, whereas it was previously 28 with SBOS 1.22. (Try LOADSBOS -v32 if you want to hear some static overload in games with music) Unfortunately, for some games, the music overpowers the digitized speech. I can still hear the Kilrathi talking (in the Wing Commander 2 demo), but I can't really understand 100% of what they are saying. Perhaps Gravis can add a separate volume control for the music in LOADSBOS.EXE? With the new SBOS, you can use either SBOSDRV.SYS in your config.sys or SBOSDRV.EXE anywhere else. SBOSDRV.SYS has some quirks. The first one is that LOADSBOS.EXE -f cannot remove it from memory. (Intentional?) The second one is that it doesn't work with some games that SBOSDRV.EXE works with, and with stranger results. For example, if a boot loads HIMEM.SYS -> SBOSDRV.SYS -> ULTRINIT -> LOADSBOS.EXE and nothing else (no TSR's, other drivers), then Jill of the Jungle (Epic) will shortly into the game stop playing digitized sfx and then shortly after that completely lockup my computer. Now if I just add one thing to my boot sequence, HIMEM.SYS -> SBOSDRV.SYS -> ULTRINIT -> DOSKEY -> LOADSBOS Jill of the Jungle works perfectly fine! There are other weirder combinations that will and won't work (like my standard config and autoexec :-(, but it all seems sorta goofy to me. Check out the game reports for a few others. "If I ignore the fact that SBOSDRV.SYS exists and just use the new SBOSDRV.EXE & LOADSBOS.EXE, then I have SBOS 1.22 robustness and I get the new music volume level functionality." By the way, has anyone noticed (heard) any of the 5 new SBOS patches? I really can't tell if there's a difference in any of the games I've tried. --- GAME REPORTS ------------------------------------------------------------- All of the following worked with no problems and no switch settings with SBOS 1.22 and SBOS 1.23 (using SBOSDRV.EXE). The following report deals _only_ with SBOSDRV.SYS. GOBLIIINS (Cocktel Vision) Fine. GOBLIINS 2 [Demo], WEEN [Demo] (Cocktel Vision) Fine. INCA [Demo] (Cocktel Vision) This provided for the most interesting results. The demo runs smoothly until you board the Spanish galleon in space. You start to walk around (a la Ultima Underworld) and then the animation freezes for 3 entire minutes while the music continues playing! After a hefty chunk of silence, the demo continues normally. At the end the demo automatically restarts itself and the same thing occurs everytime at the Spanish galleon. WOLFENSTEIN 3-D (Id) Runs fine. Here is a game where I actually liked the digitized sfx to be a lot louder than the music (when using SBOS 1.22). VEIL OF DARKNESS [Demo] (Event Horizon) The music plays fine, but there is no digitized sfx or speech. ULTIMA 7 [Demo] (Origin) This works fine, but suffers from the "quiet speech" syndrome I described. The speech also stutters, as it did with SBOS 1.22. WING COMMANDER 2 [Demo] (Origin) The music works, but there is no speech. GALACTIX (Cygnus) Fine. Here is a game where I'm glad the sfx are much quieter! (Too many loud and annoying metallic grinding noises blew my ears off with SBOS 1.22) KILOBLASTER (Epic) Works, but the sfx seem to be bypassing the volume control! They are extremely loud. Now, if I play galactix immediately after, the digitized sound in Galactix also becomes outrageously loud. Both problems occur independent of whether I use SBOSDRV.SYS or SBOSDRV.EXE. JILL OF THE JUNGLE (Epic) See SPECIFICS above. BRIX (Epic) Has the same problem as Jill of the Jungle. OUT OF THIS WORLD [Demo] (Delphine) Fine. ==EURODEMOS== So far, none of the EuroDemos I tried have changed (work, not work, etc.) with SBOS 1.23. One additional demo that sounds good (and works :-) is DRAGNET (with SBOSDRV.EXE only). --- My HARDWARE --------------------------------------------------------------- 386DX-33 Laptop w/ Docking Station 32K ext. cache, VLSI(?) Chipset, Award BIOS 3.20 386Max 6.02, SBOSDRV.EXE loaded high, MSDOS 5.0 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 16:39:31 EST From: warrenl@graphics.rent.com (Warren Lieuallen) Message-Id: <k12NwB1w165w@graphics.rent.com> Subject: Split the Group? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> I say "NO" to splitting the digest up into separate groups. You never know where you'll pick up a useful tidbit for the GUS, and if a message concerns a game I don't have, I just skim it quickly. I wouldn't think the volume in this digest is large enough to warrant splitting it up. ======================The Graphics BBS @ (908)469-0049===================== Dr. Warren G. Lieuallen R.W.Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute BitNet: LIEUALLEN@AM@ALLOY Raritan, NJ (908)704-4368 InterNet: warrenl@graphics.rent.com ===="Imagination is more important than knowledge." -- Albert Einstein ==== ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 08:39 EST From: "Matthew E. Bernold" <MEB117@PSUVM.PSU.EDU> Message-Id: <9212311338.AA18349@orca.es.com> Subject: Two questions/problems To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> First off, an SBOS question. Has anyone gotten the GUS to work with the Sierra game Thexeder II: Firehawk? I can get it to work fine in AdLib mode, but then the lasers and explosions sound stupid. It worked once in SB mode for about 45 seconds, and then locked up cold. Most of the time it just keeps repeating the digital sounds over and over, no matter what combination of options I use for SBOS. I tried v1.22 and the new v1.23 with no changes. *Flame mode on* Second, who's ASSININE idea was it to make SBOS a device driver?? It's bad enough that I have to give up 17-20K each time I run a program that uses SBOS, now I have to dedicate this memory to SBOS PERMANENTLY?? I really don't like messing with multiple CONFIG and AUTOEXEC setups, but it looks like I'm going to have to do this in the future. Please, if you're listening out there Gravis, DO NOT KEEP SBOS AS A DEVICE DRIVER!! *Flame mode off* Boy, that feels better... :-) Matthew E. Bernold MEB117@PSUVM.PSU.EDU <<APOCALYPSE>> meb@haydn.psu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 4:39:09 EST From: Phat H Tran <ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca> Message-Id: <9212310939.AA10740@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca> Subject: Ultrasound Daily Digest V1 #62 To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> > Date: Tue, 29 Dec 92 08:08:02 PST > From: "Burns Fisher, VMS DECwindows 29-Dec-1992 1056" <fisher@decwin.enet.dec.com> > Message-Id: <9212291608.AA00737@enet-gw.pa.dec.com> > Subject: Questions that I can't answer > To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> > > Well, I just answered some questions from a new user, but I am also a new user > and have some questions that I CAN'T answer. Can someone else? > > 1) Ok, so the media player does not load patches. Will it ever? How does > this eventually get fixed? > Media Player *does* load patches. However, it will not abort when it runs out of memory on the GUS, and it will not substitute a piano for all the patch numbers not listed in the ultrasound.ini file (the Windows equivalent of default.cfg). > 2) For playmidi, you apparently need to have a patch change command in the > MIDI file in order for it to load a patch, even from the default list. Is > there a way to convince it to use a set of default patches for each channel? > (Is that the -a and -g parameters? Not clear from the docs. Note: I know > about the .cfg files. Those tell which patch number goes to what patch file. > I want to assign default patches to each channel. > Playmidi defaults to acpiano1.pat for all channels. I don't think there is a way to set your own channel defaults. [questions I couldn't answer deleted] Phat. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 4:51:48 EST From: Phat H Tran <ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca> Message-Id: <9212310951.AA10766@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca> Subject: Ultrasound Daily Digest V1 #63 To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> > Date: 30 Dec 92 23:17:26 EST (Wed) > From: orbit@m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us (Adam Traidman) > Message-Id: <9212302317.AA20802@m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us> > Subject: New Windows Drivers > To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com> > > After having downloaded the new windows drivers, > I was glad to see that WinMod can now play in 16bit, > stereo. Good job guys... > Anyhow, I have a question... With the > new windows drivers, the MediaPlayer is actually loading > the patches into GUS RAM, so I should get quality equal to > PLAYMIDI outside of windows, correct? Not quite. Media Player has always been loading patches onto the GUS, but with three differences from playmidi: 1. Media Player does not abort when it runs out of memory for the patches. Whatever patches that do not fit will not be played. 2. Media Player does not default to acpiano1.pat (or any other patch) for patch numbers not listed in ultrasnd.ini. 3. The patch-number-to-patch-filename mapping is done in ultrasnd.ini for Media Player as opposed to default.cfg for playmidi. Also, even the latest MIDI driver for Windows does not support panning for stereo effects and is only capable of 12-voice polyphony. Playmidi does do panning, and supports 20-voice polyphony, so files played under DOS will sound quite a bit better than those played in Windows. Now, we just have to wait for a player that supports 32-voice polyphony. > Also, do I need to edit the patch maps, and choose > "Ultra" for each of the channels, as opposed to none? By the > way, exactly what do the patch maps do? > If you're just playing songs that conform to General MIDI, then you can leave the patch maps at "none". All patch mapping does is substitutes one patch for another. Phat. ------------------------------ End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #1 ******************************