GUS Daily Digest            Mon, 20 Feb 95  9:37 PST     Volume 19: Issue  20 

Today's Topics:
                            Crystal CODEC
        Dark Forces and Full Throttle Demo has NO GUS support
                       GUS Daily Digest V19 #18
                       GUSMAX-MegaEM with Games
    MegaEm again, SB midi cable again, 1 meg limit again, AMD chip
                       Megaem and AWE32 patches
                            MK 2 Slowdowns
                       parity errors revisited
                      Sierra's EcoQuest (CDROM)
                    Suggestions to Advaned Gravis
                           Warcraft & SBOS

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.

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Date: Mon, 20 Feb 95 16:02:56 +0100
From: gysem@ecserver.isbiel.ch (Gysel Martin)
Subject: Crystal CODEC

Hi GUSers,

In some older digests I reed about the Crystal-CODEC chip on the MAX. And now
I need such a CODEC chip for a project of mine. So, can someone tell
me, from where I can get data-sheets, over those Crystal-CODEC chips. Any
adress, regular or E-Mail, are appreciated.

Thanks for help and keep on GUSing.
GYSEM

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

Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 22:43:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Stanley Kwong <shkwong@ucdavis.edu>
Subject: Dark Forces and Full Throttle Demo has NO GUS support
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.950219213337.29322A-100000@dale>

Someone mentioned that Dark Forces might not have GUS support.  
Well, I've got the demo and in the readme file it says that "Ultrasound 
support may be included in the final version"  Well, I guess you know 
what to do.  

Here's their e-mail address:

Lucasarts3@AOL.com

You can write them at:

P.O. Box 10307
San Rafel, CA 94912

Try giving them a call, if you're local or don't mind long distance bills:

(415) 257-3070

P.S. Full Throttle is unf--king believeable.  It's about an hour past 
awesome.  I saw the demo, with sound, in the store that I work in and it 
goes beyond kicking ass.  I can't wait for it to come out.  Unfortunately, 
that's in about 9 months.  Check it out, it comes with the Dark Forces 
demo and should be FREE at your local Software Etc.  It comes with a gift 
certificate for $10 off your new Lucasart product purchase.

P.P.S. If anyone still wants the Ultrasound Experience, my store is 
selling them for about $4.  It, too, comes with a $10 off rebate if 
you buy an Ultrasound.
 Stan Kwong
         Software Etc.
(This isn't advertising, just information.)

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

Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 14:56:13 +0200 (METDST)
From: John Peter Jore <JohnPeter.Jore@stud.hials.no>
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V19 #18

On Sat, 18 Feb -1, GUS Server wrote:

> > Subject: Descent and GUS (yeah, I know...)
> > 
> > I know this has been asked many times already but I haven't been able to
get 
> > this game to work with my GUS.
> > 
> did you get v1.1? v1.1 works really fine for me (even in os/2)

I'v only tryed the DEMO? verson from a CD, no problems at all, (only 
tryed it under OS/2)  
My settings are Base port:220, DMA'S:1,1  GUSIRQ:11 SBIRQ:7



Now my problem, i recently installed a EIDE controller with 2S/1P/1G,
i configured my system to this
COM1: IRQ 4,  EIDE
COM2: IRQ 3,  EIDE
COM3: IRQ 5,  I/O card
COM4: IRQ 9,  I/O card
LPT1: IRQ 7,  EIDE
GAME: -----,  EIDE
Other IRQ's:  15 == SCSI controller

My GUS is now DEAD, (dead==ALL apps freez, iplay, playmidi, etc) under OS/2 
dos sessions, it works under native OS/2 apps, under Linux and native 
DOS/WINDOWS.

Any1 know what i'm doing wrong?  I'v checked all IRQ's for conflicts but
the my system worked before, (I know SB-emu and PRN are useing IRQ7 but that 
worked fine before)


Any help would be appriciated!


PS: To the QEMM/Win9X/OS stuff: Flatmemory with a 80386sx -> is not realy 
flat, it's only using 4GB segments, which makes a total of 64TB memory, 
(with swapping), with a total of 16k segments... Plz correct me if i'm wrong.

============================================================================
E-Mail:  jjo@stud.hials.no                    Mail : John Jore
         jjo@unix1.hials.no                          Jongstubben 17
                                                     N-1300 Sandvika
                                                     NORWAY
IRC   :  _JJ_ on #GUS                         Phone: +47 70138443
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
PGP Fingerprint:  18 E8 DD C0 92 7B 92 78 6A 37 2E 81 FE BD 46 4B
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Developer of: ID, ID/2 & SRC
============================================================================

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

Date: Sun, 19 Feb 95 13:47:04 EST
From: Bryan Maher <bsm@SEI.CMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: GUSMAX-MegaEM with Games

I just got a GUSMAX in December and it was defective.  I didn't realize this
because my symptoms were so similar to the problems that I see reported here
in this digest.  I was able to return it even though it was after the 30 day
return.  I have been diligently testing the performance of the new card so I
don't get stuck with a bad one.  This is what I have found:

Lucas Arts Games:  I was having a lot of difficulty getting them to have sound
since I got the new card.  Turns out my problem was two fold:  I had QEMM 7.0
on my machine with the old card so I had enough DOS memory to run all my
games. I switched back to QEMM 6.02 because I couldn't load MegaEm and I
wanted to use it.  I didn't realize that in the transition I had lost enough
DOS memory to prevent XWING from playing music.  MegaEm and Xwing sound great
with the patches I found on the ftp site.  Moral of the story: Boot clean, or
drop QEMM 7.x and make sure you have enough memory to run the game with sound.
Lucas Arts games will load and play in less than ideal memory conditions but
they disable sound functions to make up for it.  The games never provide you
with a warning message - they just move on in silence.  I spent an entire day
working on my machine before I realized all this.

Descent: worked just by installing it.  Found my gus all by itself and sounds
great.

Sound Blaster Midi cable: I have heard many conflicting messages here about it
does work or it doesn't work... The final word is - YES, it works.  I simply
plugged it in, attached my Alesis drum machine, set the midi mapper to send
channel 10 to Ultrasound Midi Out Port and Eureka!  I even have my Flight
Stick attached to the joystick extension and EVERYTHING works.  

I have done nothing magical so if you are having trouble with these things I
would contact Gravis. I communicated with Paul Malcolm at tech@gravis.com
and he was helpful in diagnosing my problems.  It may take a week to get a
response but it should be worth it.   

For those who are curious, I am using:

SET ULTRASND=220,7,5,12,7

Good Luck,

Bryan Maher

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

Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 13:06:20 +0000 (GMT)
From: Sam <Samuel.Marshall@durham.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: MegaEm again, SB midi cable again, 1 meg limit again, AMD chip

> Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 04:17:27 +0800
> From: Andrew Koh <SKOHCHEN@vax7.curtin.EDU.AU>
> Subject: GUSMAX-MegaEM with Games
> 
> Hi ya!
> 
> Just aquired a GUS MAX and am proud to say that it is pretty nice. (But 
> nothing beats my old SB16+MPU-401 interface to my Korg X3 <grin>)
> Anyway, I find that when I load MegaEM up, on some games(i.e. 
> Origin/Lucas Arts: e.g. Sam'N'Max) it either reboots the computer or 
> does'nt give any sound.
> Any ideas?

These games probably run in protected mode, which MegaEm doesn't support. 
A new version of MegaEm that does support this (god knows how, by the 
way, seems pretty clever to me if they pull it off) was supposed to be 
out end December, but Gravis haven't finished it yet.

> Also on a similar thread...I can't seem to connect my Korg X3 to the 
> MPU-401 interface!!!!! Do I have to disable something on the GUS MAX?
> I'm using a old SBPRO Midi cable.
> 
> Thanks,
> SHock!

I got a feeling the SBPRO midi cable is different. We use Gravis's MIDI 
cable to connect to our Korg M1, and it works fine. If you don't want to 
fork out for the Gravis cable, I think the Gus FAQ contains information 
on how to solder on a resistor or something so that the SB cable works.

> Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 21:57:39 +1100 (EST)
> From: Paul Conroy <tetsuo@daemon.apana.org.au>
> Subject: More mem for Gus!?
> 
> Has anyone out there know if it's possible (or maybe possible in the 
> future) to upgrade the GUS's memory above one-meg?

With new chip and new sound card :) So no.

> I mean by either :
> 
> * Using XMS memory for Midi Patches

This would be possible if the software was rewritten to load patches in 
and out of memory during a song, provided the total number of patches 
playing at once is always < 1 meg, and provided that the patches are 
loaded in a clever order (there is not much of a time problem, as DMA can 
run 10+ times as fast as playback).

I think there are one or two MOD players that do this. But as we have a 1 
meg card, and I never saw a >1 meg MOD, I never saw it working...

> * Adding more chips to the GUS by piggy-backing or soldering a 
>           DRAM bank onto it.
> * Using an add-on memory board to the Gus
> * substituting the current chips for larger memory chips
> * Anything! There has to be a way to load larger patches!

All not possible because the GF1 central processor chip can only address 
1 meg of ram. Full stop. (that's Period for US readers).

> Has Gravis thought about this, or have any enhancment products in the 
> pipeline? I was disapointed that the MAX couldn't hold any more memory 
> than the plain vanilla GUS i bought so many years ago! It's not just 

Sorry. You'll just have to get the new AMD card :)

On this subject, does anyone know if it has filters on the voices? 

Sam

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

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

Date: Mon, 20 Feb 95 11:22:41 GMT
From: Martin Shaw <shawm@cs.man.ac.uk>
Subject: Megaem and AWE32 patches

Hiyup,

Couple of questions..

Is there anyway to adjust the Roland/GM Patch map when using megaem? Does it
just use the ultrasnd.ini (or whatever) file?

Also is it possible to get hold of the patches that are used on the AWE32?
While some of its patches are dodgy to say the least.. It does however have
some good ones (I.e. better than the GUS). (could you sanple them and use
patch maker?).

Thanks

Martin



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

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

Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 19:46:46 -0800 (PST)
From: Ted Ching <eauu906@ea.oac.uci.edu>
Subject: MK 2 Slowdowns

I get severe slowdowns when playing MK II with a GUS.  The game runs at 
twice the speed when I run it without sound.   Suggestions?

  

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

Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 01:18:31 -0600 (CST)
From: Tone <guia@cc.UManitoba.CA>
Subject: parity errors revisited

Hi, sorry for the delay in checking through these messages...  the reply 
to my original query was:
>Oke here we go again. There is a bug in a OPTI chip set, it has to do
>with the high dma channels. This chip set is also used by UMC. The number
>to look for is ???c206???.  If you have a chip set like this, you cant
>use the high dma channels for your GUS. if you try this you will lock-up
>or die with a off-board parity error (0000:0002).

the only problem here is that i did try the low dma channels as the first 
effort in trying to get this thing going.  i realize there's no working 
around a bad chipset for the 16-bit dma, but at least it should have 
worked with the 8-bit stuff.  it didn't.  

a summary of the continuing problem:
486dx33, 4meg RAM, a bum chipset, and many parity errors with the system 
lockup.  these are the type that show up in 40-column mode.  the parity 
errors are not affected by using low dma, low irq's, or by a clean boot.

i still have to check through the rest of the digests to get up-to-date 
here, but i've had no messages sent to me directly yet which may help out 
aside from the idea of maybe changing the cache ram.

any help would be appreciated.  Thanks.
-tg

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

Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 17:56:54 +0200 (EET)
From: Tuomas Maattanen <tuomasm@dream.fi>
Subject: Sierra's EcoQuest (CDROM)

        Has someone been able to play both the digital sounds
        and the music in EcoQuest?  MegaEm seems to play only
        the music and as SBOS doesn't work on machine that is
        all I got.
 
--
-- tuomasm@bbs.dream.fi

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

Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 20:02:00 -0800 (PST)
From: Ted Ching <eauu906@ea.oac.uci.edu>
Subject: Suggestions to Advaned Gravis

I don't know if Gravis actually reads these messages, but I here are some 
suggesstions to them.

1) Make 1 megabyte a standard for the GUS & GUSMAX.  Unfortunately, many 
people who buy the card want it to play games. They don't want any extra 
hassles. Extra hassles means less GUS's in the world.

2) Since the card's performance is based entirely on the software running 
it, invest more money/resources in professional programmers. This means 
flawless Sound Blaster emulation.

3) Either update your General MIDI patch set, or increase the memory of
your card. 1 MB is the bare minimum for General MIDI support. Or maybe
find a way to use XMS memory as a cache storage for patches, which can be 
loaded into the GUS when needed.


Thats it. I really think that the GUS can become as famous as the Sound 
Blaster one day if its implmented correctly. And please don't flame me for 
this. Its just one man's opinion.

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

Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 13:15:57 +0100
From: "The Slayer" <STESLE@calvin.nhidh.nki.no>
Subject: Warcraft & SBOS

Does anyone know how to get digital soundeffects to work in the game 
WARCRAFT??? 
The music works with sbos, but when I try to install soundblaster for 
digitaleffects the program locks up and I have to reboot my machine.
Does anybody have a answer to this problem?
 
 
                 
                        \|/
                       (o o)
                        (_)
      --------------ooO------Ooo--------------
      Steffen Sletvold
      STESLE@CALVIN.NHIDH.NKI.NO
      ----------------ooO---------------------
                     (   ) Ooo
                      ( ) (   )
                           ( )
                         
Akida is like origami, only with people instead of paper!            

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

Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 12:41:15 GMT
From: Daniel James Hull <cs94djh@brunel.ac.uk>

Sorry to ask.  I don't know if an answer finally came out, as to how 
to get startrek next generation demo to work with GUS, but I would 
like to know.  It is a bit annoying watching the great effects in 
silence.  

Thanks in advance.

Daniel

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End of GUS Daily Digest V19 #20
*******************************
