GUS Daily Digest            Fri, 24 Feb 95  9:37 PST     Volume 19: Issue  24 

Today's Topics:
                       Dark forces, and X-wing
                             Final Unity
                     FPS:Football Pro '95 and GUS
            Getting Dark Forces Demo working with  GUS MAX
                    Gravis Ultrasound support for
                             GUS & Win95
                       GUS Daily Digest V19 #20
                             GUS in ROTT
                             Magic Carpet
                               MAXSBOS
                      Mega-Em, Gravis and stuff
                        No sound form CD-audio
                              OS/2 WARP
                              ROTT & MK2
                   the GUS and WIN-OS2 sessions...
                      Tie Fighter Drift (2 msgs)
                 Ultrasound Expierence (2 versions?)
            Win95 + GUS Drivers - GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!!
                          Win95, ROTT, etc.
                          Win9X and the GUS

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: Fri, 24 Feb 95 08:53:06 GMT
From: Martin Shaw <shawm@cs.man.ac.uk>
Subject: Dark forces, and X-wing

----- Begin Included Message -----

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 11:09:00 GMT
From: ferd@star-one.demon.co.uk
Subject: Final Unity

Hi fellow GUSsers,

You may like to know that after talking to a chap at Spectrum Holobyte about
Final Unity I was told that GUS support for this good looking game may not be
available for the release version.

They say this is due to problems with the game slowing down when the GUS is
used.

This seems to be the usual excuse I hear for lack of support for the GUS. Can
anybody help them ?. I'd be mightly p****d off if this was to happen.

Fernando <ferd@star-one.demon.co.uk>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 16:51:33 +0000
From: drkszk@ocf.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: FPS:Football Pro '95 and GUS

I remember seeing a bunch of posts about this in previous months, but
I didn't have the game then so I never read them.
This game seems to use HMI drivers and there is a GUS option in the
soundset program, but it doesn't do anything.  The Sierra tech said that
sometimes options don't work even if they're listed (great attitude, there).
I can get digital working with Megaem, but multiple sounds cut each other off
(could just be that the game only supports one channel).  SBOS works, too,
but it screws up my joystick.
What's the final word on this?  Also (non-GUS issue) does anyone have
the problem where going to the play editor produces a blank screen?  Sierra
and Diamond are blaming each other for this one.

Derek
drkszk@ocf.berkeley.edu


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 15:06:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Christopher McKillop <cdmckill@sail.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Getting Dark Forces Demo working with  GUS MAX

Hia!!!

Just thought I would let the world know that I have gotten ROCK 
solid digital effects with MAXSBOS with Dark Forces (demo).  You have to 
have a MAX to do this however, since MAXSBOS uses the CODEC on the MAX.  
Anyways, you have to use the /c and /x switches with MAXSBOS (disables 
NMI useage and loads the "dos4g" fix).  In the setup for DF, chose Sound 
Blaster 2.0.  The "normal" SB setting doesn't work well at all.  The 
resulting sound quality excedes that of a REAL sound blaster!!!  Mail me 
if you have any questions, I will try my best to answer.  TTYL.

Chris

--------- XORcists, 1B Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo
Chris McKillopcdmckill@sail.uwaterloo.ca
Eng Soc Rep."      "
Nice Guy.      -The Man That Couldn't Talk

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 18:06:00 UTC
From: lucasarts@genie.geis.com
Subject: Gravis Ultrasound support for

Reply to message 1608556 from SHAWM@CS.MAN.AC.UK@INET01# on 02/20/95, 06:12AM
 
Martin-
 
You'll be glad to hear that there will be native GUS support in Dark Forces.
Also, the megaem and emuset from TIE are exactly the same as the one on the
X-Wing CD.  If you can't find it on the CD you can use the ones that come with
TIE fighter.  And finally, there aren't any plans that I know of to create a
multiplayer version of X-Wing or TIE.
 
--=Ed / LucasArts


----- End Included Message -----

So there you go, I got a personal reply (heh, heh :-) ) And they are definitly
supporting the GUS!

The force will be with you

Martin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                 |     
 Martin Shaw,                    | "Una salus victus nullam sperare salutem"
 Dept. Computer Science,         |  
 Manchester,                     |                    - Virgils Aeneid
                                 |
 E-mail Shawm@cs.man.ac.uk       |  
                                 |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 19:56:54 +0000 (GMT)
From: Sam <Samuel.Marshall@durham.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: GUS & Win95

> Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 12:00:02 +0100
> From: Espen Wang Andreassen <espeand@ifi.uio.no>
> Subject: GUS & Win95 - HOW ??
> 
> Excuse me - but isn't Win95 supposed to have crash-protection and full 
> HW-control etc. etc.?? How on earth are the GUS drivers allowed to
> work??? (Hey - of course it's nice they do - but...?)
> 
> If someone could explain this to me, then MAYBE I would be able to
> understand it... :+)
> 
> This is maybe more Win95 than GUS related, but I find it interesting because
> we who use OS/2 just have Alpha drivers (and no Win-OS/2 drivers) for the
same 
> reason I thought Win95 would have problems too.

Win95 allows direct hardware access and so on because it's a new version 
of Windows, rather than a different program like NT, (even though most of 
it is completely new or taken from NT). This being the case, it needs 
99% backwards compatibility. Which definitely includes supporting VXDs.

So Win95 doesn't have full hardware protection. Many parts of it are 
still 16-bit, also for compatibility. In particular, some of the advances 
like preemptive multitasking require proper 32-bit or Win32s software.

Sam. Who doesn't have win95, but keeps up with the info on it.

--> Home Page <-- ** Go on, try it! ** --> http://www.dur.ac.uk/~d405ua <--
  --> Latest Feature:  BUGFIX: realtime fractalzoom in 3K (486/P5).. <--

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 01:11:26 +0100
From: tore.klev@infolink.no (Tore Klev)
Subject: GUS Daily Digest V19 #20

Lucasarts3@AOL.com

Hi!

I've heard that you are not going to put in GUS-support in Dark Forces,
but since I'm a GUS-owner and extremly tired of games that do not
work with this card I would highly recommend spending the extra time
on the GUS-support. Don't forget that GUS-owners tend to buy software
that uses the soundcard they have!

]   XTag v5.0   ^ Tore Klev - Sysop Mercurius MBBS(71 17 32 23) -
]XBoard 1.0 #305^ Mitsumi 4x CD-ROM til 1990,- inkl. mva.!

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 09:44:28 +0200
From: m@mjf.pp.fi (Mika Fonsen)
Subject: Re: GUS in ROTT

>I just got the full commercial version of Rise of the Triad but I am not 
>able to get sound effets to work when playing the game.  

        Try Ultrasound IRQ 7 or lower. It seems that it doesn't support IRQs
greater than that. When I had IRQ 12, the digital sound didn't work, but
when I changed it to 7 it begun to work.
               

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 14:58:53 MST
From: ac446@rgfn.epcc.Edu (David C Gilliland)
Subject: Magic Carpet

Okay, I'll admit it...I'm a newbie here and to the world of
gus.  I just got it and Magic Carpet, but I can't for the 
life of me get MC to work with any kind of emulation, ie
megaem or sbos (well, sbos works, but with mulched music
only) and I was wondering if anyone has a solution to this
problem.  
Dave

--
"Walk a mile in a man's shoes before you kick his a$$ with 
them just to piss him off."

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 19:13:08 -0800 (PST)
From: George <gmontem@mercury.sfsu.edu>
Subject: MAXSBOS

What does the /A parameter do in the MAXSBOS program?  It would be nice 
if Advanced Gravis for once document their parameters for MAXSBOS.

-George

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 11:38:41 +0800 (WST)
From: Karim Keshavjee <karim@iinet.com.au>
Subject: Mega-Em, Gravis and stuff

> Subject: Patches, Patches, Megaem and drivers
> 
>  Hi everybody ,
>  I am getting really disppointed of how gravis is managing the ultrasound.
>  You send the card and you dont get anything for two years.

What do you want from them?  Gravis finished updating all the owners of the
original software ages ago.  You can't honestly expect them to send out
6 high density disks to every owner every time they release a new update.
I get more news/access to new software/contact from Gravis than any other
company I have bought hardware from.  Especially Creative Labs.  I never 
got anything for my original soundblaster after I sent in the rego card.
(approx 4 years ago)
  
>  Everytime a new release of the install-disks is out there is ALWAYS 
>  something
>  not working ( now for the 3.59 for example its just clear they even didnt
try
>  to install it on a single machine and see if the gus was functioning).

With the amount of software and number of programs they give you, you can 
hardly realistically expect it to be 100% bug free, virtually no software
is these days, unfortunately.  I've found the best option is to not bother
gettting each new minor revision of the the install disks.  It's hardly worth
downloading 9-10MB when 95% of the programs are exactly the same.  Also this
allows you to wait and found out if new releases have any major problems :)
At least Gravis is constantly updating and trying to improve their software.

>  They announce something ( read Megaem protected mode ) and after 2 months
>  none has seen even the beta.

   Wrong.  I've seen it.  Jayeson is working very hard on this and he 
will release it when he feels it is ready to be released.  It is an 
exceptionally difficult thing to do to get two protected mode 
applications to run together reliably on various systems with a myriad 
of hardware and software configurations.

>  We just cannot let everything go this shameful way.
I'd hardly call it shameful :)

>  If the situations keeps this way i am going to sell this card.
It'll be your loss IMHO.

>  P.S. : yuck! when i wrote the subject i thought i would have not be so 
>         polemicus but while writing i got much angry! :) Bye

Yeah, the GUS always seems to make people very emotional ;-).
> 
> From: "Chris Bolin" <cbolin@teleport.com>
> Subject: Will Gravis ever really support General Midi??
> 
> A couple months ago I wrote gravis and asked them if they would ever 
> really support General Midi. (MegaEM works with almost nothing these 
> days... expanded memory? humpf) 

I suppose the Roland emulator you wrote is heaps better.

> I got a snotty response from one of
> their techs saying "a super version of MegaEM is in the works".
> A couple  issues:
> 1. Hopefully it won't require expanded memory.
Can't say on that one.

> 2. It better work with protected mode.
That is the whole point of it.

> 3. it will be nice if SB emulation is provided simutaneously.
Have you used the old Mega-Em?  If you mean digital SB of course it will.
If you mean FM SB I don't know but who cares anyway, since any game that 
only supports FM for music usually isn't worth it.

> 4. I hope MaxBos isn't what the tech was talking about. 
It isn't.

> I really like my GUS MAX, but I would sure like it if it DID support 
> General Midi like it says on the box (emblazed on the box actually).
I think all that is required to claim GM support is to have the 
appropriate patch banks available which the GUS does.  It does not
(unfortunately) mean it has a MPU-401(?) interface in hardware like
the roland cards etc.  The AWE-32 also makes the same claim and is in the 
same boat as the GUS.

> Does anyone have the scoop?  Or has Gravis given up on us GF1 folks?
I don't think they've forgotten us yet.

-- 
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Karim Keshavjee             | "What the smeggin' smeg's 'e smeggin' done?"
karim@iinet.com.au          |                               
Perth, Western Australia    |  -Dave Lister.
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 13:23:51 GMT
From: Clarke Brunt <CLARKE@lsl.co.uk>
Subject: Re: No sound form CD-audio

>Several games give good sound, but I'm unable to get sound from audio-cd's
>being played at my Mitshumi double speed, which works on it's own interface
>card.

Possibly simply due to lack of audio cable leading from the
audio-out pins on the CD-drive to the CD-audio-in pins on the
GUS. Try headphones in the socket on the CD-drive to see if
it is actually playing.

CD-audio is a purely analog signal which does not go through
the interface card or the bus. The GUS does very little with
CD-audio, other than feed it though the mixer and out of the
output.

Games can give sound because they most likely don't use CD-audio -
even if the game is on a CD, the sound may well be .WAV files or
whatever, which are read from the CD as data, and then played on
the GUS.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 12:07:12 +0100 (MET)
From: ralam@cs.vu.nl (Lam RA)
Subject: OS/2 WARP

Hy there, could any OS/2 (WARP) user tell me something about using my GUS
with it? I was originally thinking of waiting for windows 95, but now I heard
that wasn't goning to be release until next year, (So it'll probably won't
even be named Win95) And I read a comparison in a mag which prefered OS/2 
warp above Win95. So I'm thinking of trying OS/2 warp, but first I would like 
to know how well it goes with my GUS (And, for that matter, how's the 
compatibility with DOS and Windows?) 

Thanks for any reply

Remco Lam

PS
I know, this isn't completely related to the GUS, but still....

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 09:32:40 +0100
From: frodebe@stud.cs.uit.no (Frode Sandmo Berglund)
Subject: ROTT & MK2

>Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 23:47:01 -0800 (PST)
>From: Loren Kling (that's me) <lkling@rohan.sdsu.edu>
>Subject: Rise of the Triad -- HELP!!

>I just got the full commercial version of Rise of the Triad but I am not 
>able to get sound effets to work when playing the game.  

>I ran the sound setup and selected the Ultrasound for sound effects and 
>music.  When I selected the Ultrasound for sound effects, and each time I 
>entered the Sound setup afterwards, the GUS (MAX) with 512k would play 
>various midi notes.  WHILE IN THE SOUND SETUP, when I moved in and out of 
>selection screens, I would get sound effects.  When I ran the game, 
>however, I get music perfectly, but no sound effects.
 ....


I have the exact same problem. Great music, but no soundeffects (Well, allmost
no fx. Sometimes there is a sound that sounds like a short circut). After
playing around with the setup, config files and what not, I have come to the
conclution that the program is at faoult. It doesn't seem to init. the card
right. So i guess we will just have to wait for a fix, if there isn't anyone
who has found a way.....?


BTW:
>Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 23:59:32 +0000 ()
>From: "Eric M. Busalacchi" <emb@herman.tiac.net>
>Subject: Mortal Kombat II
>Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.91.950221235722.7705A-100000@herman.tiac.net>

>Is the official Mortal Kombat II out, or are you guys still 
>talking about the beta?  I live in Boston, Massachusetts (USA) and 
>all of the stores I call haven't heard anything about it.  *shrug*  
>Thanks!  
 ...

MK2 is out!!!

I have the demo, but I can not get my gamepad to work. Only the buttons work,
not the direction control. Anyone...?

Frode Sandmo Berglund
frodebe@stud.cs.uit.no

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 13:16 -0500
From: DANTONIO@PROCESS.COM (Momentary Language, Sexual Situations)
Subject: the GUS and WIN-OS2 sessions...

> Also, if anyone uses the GUS with os/2, I wanted to ask if you had 
> problems running windows sessions in Os/2. My system tells me that I need 
> to run Windows in "enhanced mode" to use the GUS, despite the fact I'm 
> telling win-os2 to do just that. And I'm left without any sound. I've 
> used the Manley vd and e drivers, as well as the Alpha drivers, to no avail.

The trouble here is that Gravis is using a .VxD (Virtual Device Driver) to
control the GUS in Windows. .VxDs aren't supported by WINOS2, since they need
total control of the hardware (run at ring 0) and OS/2 won't let them. So they
fail when loading. Normally, (under Windoze 3.1(1)), if they failed, it
usually meant you weren't in Enhanced Mode (or 386 mode). So this message is
displayed.

There is no work around and this has been an annoyance for quite some time.
Registering Robert Manley's fine OS/2 drivers gets one his DOS Box Roland
support so MT32 or SCC-1 (?) support in WinOS2 can then be loaded. But ya
ain't
gonna get digital audio from it.

The solution I've adopted is to have an cheap SB 2.0 in my machine along with
the GUS. OS/2 uses the GUS and WINOS2 uses the SB...

DDA

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 13:04:38 -0500
From: hobb0001@gold.tc.umn.edu (Mike Hobbs)
Subject: Re: Tie Fighter drift

I noticed the drift too, but since I never bothered turning off the sound,
I never realized it was the cause.  I don't have an answer for you, except
that you are not the only one.

Oh yeah, one more thing. You said something to the effect that it was all
but unplayable.  Not quite.  I have gotten quite adept at playing it with
the drift.  It makes little difference in a dogfight when you're pulling
hard turns.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 01:20:41 +0900
From: u888430@student.canberra.edu.au
Subject: Re: Tie Fighter Drift

A few months ago I was also a victim of the dreaded joystick drift in Tie 
Fighter and a few other games. Raptor was another if I remember correctly.

In Tie Fighters case, it only happened when the digital effects were turned
on. I was not able to solve the problem for ages, until I found the best
solution at the time: buying an el cheapo sb-clone card.

With TIE, I now use the sb-clone for digital effects and the gus for the midi
music, with not a bit of drift at all.

This has also come in handy for other games and applications which don't
support the gus properly.  Now that there are more games supporting the gus
(at last!) I have less of a need for the sb, but when there is a problem, it
bloody well beats messing about with sbos etc!

--------------------============================================----------------
"John Marshall
"u888430@student.canberra.edu.au
--------------------============================================----------------

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 21:46:42 CST
From: Jim English <jenglish@hpserv.keh.utulsa.edu>
Subject: Ultrasound Expierence (2 versions?)

hey, I've been reading about talk of the Ultrasound Exp. CD-ROM.  The
one I got directly from Gravis has version 3.53 of the drivers and such on
it, but people have been talking about it having 3.56, were there 2 
versions of the CD made?
-jim

--
______________________________________________________________________________
Jim English - jenglish@hpserv.keh.utulsa.edu / EJP51823@vax1.utulsa.edu

The University of Tulsa - I vote "no confidence."

"I don't care if it rains or freezes/As long as I've got my plastic jesus/
 Sitting on the dashboard of my car."
______________________________________________________________________________

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 10:18:05 GMT
From: "Mark.Carline BSc Elec Eng." <mark.carline@unn.ac.uk>
Subject: Win95 + GUS Drivers - GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!!

PLEASE!!! 

Will either Microsoft or Gravis get their act together for the soundcard
"Gravis Ultrasound" !!

If they don't I can't honestly see the ultrasound being around on the
market place for very much longer !!

Hey! - Everyone out there that feels the same way - Why don't you mail
microsoft + gravis on :

chicreq@microsoft.com   and
tech@gravis.com

and tell them that if they don't support the card you'll be throwing it a
way and buying a Creative Labs sound card instead!!!

Mark.Carline@unn.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 12:42:25 -0600
From: bbaskin@mail.utexas.edu (Bryan K. Baskin)
Subject: Win95, ROTT, etc.

Hey Y'all,

To the Rise of the Triad Guy,
        Apogee still has their heads in their arses about supporting the
higher IRQs. My guess is that you need to set the GF! IRQ to something 7 or
below. For example, this was my setup when running ROTT: 220,5,5,7,5
This worked fine. Tis a good, gory game.

About Win95,
        Um, they say crash protection and all, but everyone has to make
compromises, and it would seem that MS leaned over to the compatability side
rather than the stability side. Win95 will be a vast improvement over Win31
(not that that says much), but from what i understand, memory protection,
hardware virtualization, etc are not being implemented as originally hoped.
This is why VxD's still work. From what i understand, programs (especially
Win31's) don't have memory seperation. Tsk, tsk...

To the guy who wanted CD-ROM interface card,
        Go with a separate card, it'll be much simpler and cheaper.
                                                  Baskin -)
                                                  The University of Texas at 
                                                  Austin
                                                  Team OS/2

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 13:25 -0500
From: DANTONIO@PROCESS.COM (Momentary Language, Sexual Situations)
Subject: Re: Win9X and the GUS

> Excuse me - but isn't Win95 supposed to have crash-protection and full 
> HW-control etc. etc.?? How on earth are the GUS drivers allowed to
> work??? (Hey - of course it's nice they do - but...?)

I've never seen any evidence of "crash-protection" and full HW-control in 
Win9X. It's basically 16-bit Windows with some 32-bit code and one big honking
mutex around the 16-bit parts. It still runs on top of MS-DOS 7, which doesn't
appear to have been rewritten into a "real" OS. Perhaps you're thinking of
Windows NT? Yea, I get all the hype confused sometimes, too. :-)

> This is maybe more Win95 than GUS related, but I find it interesting because
> we who use OS/2 just have Alpha drivers (and no Win-OS/2 drivers) for the
same 
> reason I thought Win95 would have problems too.

We also have Robert Manley's beta drivers which (apart from OS/2 MIDI) seem
to be more advanced than the Alpha drivers from Gravis.

DDA

------------------------------

End of GUS Daily Digest V19 #24
*******************************
