GUS Daily Digest            Mon, 13 Mar 95  9:37 PST     Volume 20: Issue  13 

Today's Topics:
					 Advanced Gravis at CeBIT 95
					Dark Forces, GUS and Joysticks
						GUS + EIDE2300 Promise
					   GUS Daily Digest V20 #11
				  GUS Daily Digest V20 #12 (2 msgs)
					   GUS Max review in PC mag
					  latest instrument patches
					   mike probs with windows.
				  mouse disappering/reappearing act
							 OS/2 Drivers
				  Slowdown on level 3-- Dark Forces
						 Slowdowns with GUS.
					  System Shock CD 2nd level
						Where to find P-mode?

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: Mon, 13 Mar 1995 15:51:01 +0100
From: Jens-Uwe Jansen <Jens-Uwe.Jansen@Germany.EU.net>
Subject: Advanced Gravis at CeBIT 95

Hi folks, 

Maybe it's a little late to mention, because the CeBIT is over on wendsday.
And it will be of little use to people outside Europe.

Gravis is at the CeBIT 95 in Hannover, Germany. The are in (sorry can't
remember the right word) Halle 9 B10/1 and are showing their Soundcard and
Joystick products. You can also buy things at the fair. 

They show the GUS MAX and their two new Joysticks: Firebird and Phoenix

You can also get the Ultrasound Experience CD.

The Phoenix is quite a high end joystick. The show Descent with it and it's
quite an experience. You don't need you damn keyboard to play. I flew a few
maneuvers I haven't thought possible (something like a
backwards-spiral-inverted-loop :-) and the best is you don't need another
memory-eating driver. That beast comes with a keyboard-controller inside and
you hook it into the joystick-port AND in your keyboard-port.
It has 24 two-level programmable keys and you just down-load the configuration
before you start the game.

The prices they charge you at the fair are extremely low (for Germany). It
might have something to do with the fall of the Dollar ;-).

If you're just after the CD it's 10,- DM
The Phoenix is 160,- DM (Streetprice in Germany about 230,- to 255,- DM).
I haven't asked for the other prices but I expect them about the same
discount. Although I have seen the Phoenix a bit cheaper on a WWW
shopping-mall (https://www.internet.net  $101.03+shipping) but from Germany
one has to pay customs tax (I don't know how much) + 15% MWSt/VAT/Sales Tax
(hey thats an import then :-( Please get the Dollar price by using the current
Dollar/DM exchange rate.

I also asked them about the AMD Interwave, and they told me something about
it's specs (nothing new.. it has all been mentioned on this list) and they
expect AMD to deliver enough about the middle of 1995 so they can deliver a
new card (no name for it yet) in August/September this year. Amazing how
friendly people get if you turn up with suit&tie on a fair ;-)

I hope they can keep their schedule for the new card and don't RSN us ;-))))

I apologize for this post being not entirely GUS related and that it sounds a
bit like advertizing. But at least it's about Gravis :-)

I'm in no way affiliated with Gravis (other than that I user their products
and I think they made the BEST soundcard by now ;-).

	Cheers,
	Jens-Uwe Jansen

  ===    ____                          ===       EUnet Deutschland GmbH
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  ===  /----  /   /  /   /  /___/  /   ===       Emil-Figge-Str. 80
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  =====                              =====       Tel. +49 231 755 2444
  ===== Connecting Europe since 1982 =====       Fax  +49 231 755 2386

** Any opinions, thoughts, statements made in this message are privat and **
** may not be the same as the ones of the company I work for !!!!         **

  Wir stellen auf der CeBIT 1995 in Hannover aus. \ber einen Besuch auf
  unserem Stand (B56 in Halle 12/EG) freuen wir uns.

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

Date: 12 Mar 95 21:04:00 +0100
From: Rincewind@salem.heide.de (Michel Mohrmann)
Subject: Dark Forces, GUS and Joysticks

Hi,

is there a any way to play Dark Forces with an Ultrasound (MAX) and a
Jostick ?
The Readme-File says it's a problem with the Ultrasound gameport but if i put  
the stick on the port of my Soundblaster the drifting is still there :-(
When i use sound from Soundblaster it works...
So it seems to be a problem which occurs when using the GUS for sound...

Is there a patch for this ?

Michel Mohrmann




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

Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 22:28:22 -0800 (PST)
From: "Scott@CCnet Tech Support" <scall@ccnet.com>
Subject: GUS + EIDE2300 Promise

Hi all.

My GUS has gone a bit silly on me.

I purchased a 3rd IDE drive, so I bought a Promise EIDE2300Plus (I'd 
heard good things about promise in general...)

The drive now works fine, but my GUS is tweaked.  Doom works fine,  the 
the included (Playfile/playmidi/etc) programs seem to work fine, Descent 
and Dark Forces seem to have problems.

Descent has started assigning random patches to the music (it says 122 
patches loaded, which leads me to believe it thinks it's got more than a 
meg on it :)  and Dark Forces and a couple of other Digital Audio 
applications are scratchy aznd poppy (sorry for the inane descriptions) 

I ran setgus (via setup) and ran the tests there.  IT's getting a DMA 
Read error from soundblsaster dma(1)

I've disabled the printer port on the EIDE2300, because I use a networked 
printer, and that was the only thing listed on DMA 1 on the card.

Here's my setup[:

486/66 AMI Bios
EIDE2300+ w/3 drives, 2 serial, and one diabled enhanced lprinter port
(Uses IRQ 3-4 for serial ports, 14, 15 for drives)

GUS 3.4 (IRQ 11, DMA 7 SBIRQ 7)
Gus16 DB (IRQ 5, DMA 3)

Any ideas?  

-Scott

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
|Scott Call aka Zapo Zapper | Public Image Limited BBS 510-831-3634  |
|VBBS Support/anime stuff   | Owner: Atari Jag and Gravis Ultrasound |
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 21:01:52 -0300
From: "Jurassic Mark" <markus@nbnet.nb.ca>
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V20 #11

>Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 20:44:57 GMT
>From: ct91@cityscape.co.uk (Damian Scully)
>
>Hi,
>Could anyone please tell me wether there will ever be a way of getting the
>GUS to work with DOS4GW games.

	If Gravis can ever release the PM version of MegaEM, we'll all be 
happy campers.  Maybe we should call it MegaEM95...

>I can't get sound out of more than 50% of my
>games, even ones that support the card such as Ecstatica and Descent just
>crash my computer, although this may be because I only have 256k.

	 Depending on the version of the extender used, it might not like 
IRQs higher than 7.  That's why my GUS is on IRQ 7.  Put it on a 
lower IRQ and you should be fine.

						Jurassic Mark (Marc Y. Paulin)
	 Mail: markus@nbnet.nb.ca  -  IRC: J-Mark or Markus (In #GUS or #OS/2)
	/WARPing\  "Microsoft gave  us            Beta-testing: NautNews
	|--and--|   Windows, IBM  gave                          Intertia Player
	\GUSsing/   us the whole house"           Original father of the G-List
   * Press any key to continue...  Yeah, but I can't find the "any key"!!! *
	   - Survivor of the APICS '93 programming competition controversy -

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

Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 19:44:40 +0000 (GMT)
From: Sam <Samuel.Marshall@durham.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V20 #12

> From: ksoule@mobius.net (Kent E. Soule)
> Subject: Internet Phone and a Cheap Mike
> 
> I need to set up my GUS (rev 3.7) to use Internet Phone.  After some
> research, it appears that I need a dynamic mike with a preferred impedance
> of 500 ohms; and a reverse splitter (to channel a single mike into both the
> L & R channels).

Umm, we just plugged in a (cheap) mike at random and it worked... no messing 
with reverse splitter, whatever that is... (Haven't used IPhone, but I 
assume it just uses windows recording facilities).

[... some other message... I'm responding to 2 at once here, sorry...]

> isn't the only one that uses the Interwave, because I as others am very
> dissatisfied with the current majority of DAC+FM sound card garbage.

I'm dissatisfied with the DAC + GM, let alone DAC + FM! The only 
really good GM game I heard was X-Wing. (and that's probably because the 
starwars soundtrack was done by a *real* composer).

Most GM games are ok, but no others are any good at all compared to Epic's 
sound system, or Amiga games. (oh yeah, me loves Project X title music, 
same MOD on both systems, it's great...)

By the way, has it been confirmed that *Gravis* will use the InterWave? I
don't know if they actually made a profit from GUS etc, or how it compared
to their joystick business, so you never know, they might call it a day... 

Final question: Someone said at one point that Gravis had 10% of the 
soundcard market. Is this true? It sounds pretty high...

Sam

--> Home Page <-- ** Go on, try it! ** --> http://www.dur.ac.uk/~d405ua <--
  --> [1mLatest Feature[m:  BUGFIX: realtime fractalzoom in 3K (486/P5).. <--

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

Date: Mon, 13 Mar 95 10:25:07 -0600
From: jaj@dal.mcd.mot.com (John Johnson)
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V20 #12

>From: gt0074b@prism.gatech.edu
>Subject: motorola 680x0 has no dsp
>
>>From: Bryan Maher <bsm@SEI.CMU.EDU>
>>Subject: New Standards, Existing Standards...
>
>> ...
>>
>>Yes, a new standard of multi-channel hardware assisted mixing would be nice
>>but in general, most people who try to change standards fail.  The Amiga,
>like
>>the Mac's, use Motorola CPU's which have integrated DSP capabilities.  It is
>>natural for them to use this functionality for their sound output.  Even
>>today, Pentiums can not do signal processing as well as a 68040 let alone a
>>PowerPC.
>
>   No offense, but that's rubbish.  The motorola 680x0 line of processors
>do not have integrated DSP capability.  The only advantage that the Motorola
>CPUs have are slightly faster floating point units when compared to the same
>generation of Intel x86 CPUs.  The Pentium has vastly improved floating
>point, though.

Correct. And the above comment about the PowerPC is also rubbish. The PowerPC
processors are even more capable than the Pentium. I won't delve into
specifics here because this isn't the right forum, but with all the
microprocessor info and mis-info going around I wanted to set the record
straight. And I love my v3.4 GUS!

--***  ***--     -**  *     -*  *****  -*  ****  ****
John A. Johnson, N5NHH      email: jaj@dal.mcd.mot.com
Systems Engineer         OR john_a_johnson@dal.mcd.mot.com
Motorola Computer Group     Phone: (214) 888-3029
Dallas, Texas                   Fax..: (214) 888-2340

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

Date: Mon, 13 Mar 95 09:48:51 CST
From: Steve Sesterhenn <sesterhs@Janus-ccm.zenithe.com>
Subject: GUS Max review in PC mag

	 For all those who are interested....

	 PC Magazine just did a review of major sound cards, and the GUS MAX
	 got ratings of:

		  MIDI Composition:     Good
		  Business Apps:        Good
		  Multimedia Authoring: Good
		  Games:                Excellent

	 Overall, the review was extremely favorable for Gravis, with the
	 reviewer commenting that card was particularly good at digital
	 playback and MIDI playback.  PC Mag's technical tests showed excellent
	 frequency response, very low total harmonic distortion, and fine
	 signal-to-noice ratio, for "clear and well-defined sound."  The review
	 said that Gravis has "noticably upped the quality of the card's MIDI
	 playback capabilities from the previous generation of UltraSound."

	 Nothing bad at all was said about the card...  a good indication that
	 either PC Mag has wised up or Gravis has done a really good job
	 putting together the right combination of hardware and software that
	 pleases industry.  Good job, Gravis!

	 A side note:  the article said that gravis will be releasing CD-ROMs
	 soon with patch libraries to expand the GUS's MIDI library.  Anybody
	 know anything about that?

	 Another side note:  the aweful32 "Value" edition only got ratings of
	 4 "Good"'s and lists for $80 more.  The standard aweful32 got 2
	 "excellent" and 2 "good" ratings, but lists for $150 more than the GUS
	 Max.... it seems to offer no clear advantage except the CL name, if
	 that means anything.  The reviewer also noted the AWEful32 SB
	 compatibility is provided using an 80k TSR... clearly inferior to
	 SBOS's 20k or Mega-Em's 0k of conventional memory.

	 Just some info....

	 Steve

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

Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 16:41:23 EST
From: Rollerblading Dude <timkwan@MIT.EDU>
Subject: latest instrument patches

Hi again,  Where are the latest and "bestest" instrument patches for the GUS?

Also, does anyone have any patch for effects like footsteps, heartbeat, etc?

-Tim

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

Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 18:37:58 -0500
From: arg2@po.cwru.edu (Adam Glick)
Subject: mike probs with windows.

I have a gus max and i just installed the new ultrainit and the new windows
drivers. I don't know what did it but now i have the prob i had before. now
i have to load sbos and unload it before goting into windows or windows will
hang. if i load then unload it it workjs fine. but i alsocan't get the mike
to work. this all worked fine with the old driver (4.53 i think) now with
the 5.5 its junk anyone know what wrong?
thnaks 
-Adam
arg2@po.cwru.edu
			  'A person who believes one thing will solve all their problems
			   is a fool : they're twice the fool if they believe the thing
			   that will fix their problems is money'

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

Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 22:50:22 -0400
From: j5oa@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Craig Galbraith)
Subject: mouse disappering/reappearing act

Ok...this is weird.

I have both a GUS and an SB16 in the same machine
SB a220 i5 d1 h5 p300 t6
GUS 240,7,7,11,7

I copy in the Windows system.ini and control.ini files, depending on which
sound card I am using, in my autoexec.bat because I only want to use the
cards separately while in Windows.

When I use the GUS and Windows, the mouse comes up normally at first and
then disappears once the Program Groups come up.  If I quit Windows and then
go back in again...the mouse stays.

SB16 with Windows gives me no such problem.

Can anybody help me?

Craig Galbraith
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
				  |~ | | (~ |_|  _   _   _   _   ____         
 Craig Galbraith  |  |_/ _) | | | | | | |  \| | |    )     
 j5oa@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca    | |_| | | |\  | | SAINT JOHN
 3rd Year Biology                \___/  |_| |_| |____) 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 17:23:09 -0600 (CST)
From: 5087RAISSIA@vmsa.csd.mu.edu
Subject: OS/2 Drivers

I know that this topic has been beaten to death but I finally decided to give in and get OS/2 Warp.  I would just like to know where I can get these drivers
and which one would be the best one to get.  Any help is appreciated.

Abbas

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

Date: Sun, 12 Mar 95 14:22:52 EST
From: Greg <BGUZ@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA>
Subject: Slowdown on level 3-- Dark Forces

I have experienced my first slowdown with the GUS on level 3 of
Dark Forces. It seems to occur only in one room at the begining
of the level. The problem occurs when water/sewage it flowing at the
same time as gunfire from two sources. Lowering the digital sound from
8 to 4 sounds at once almost cured this problem. Anyone else notice
any slowdowns?

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

Date: Mon, 13 Mar 1995 11:43:02 +0100 (MET)
From: Lars Bo Wegmann <gc938774@gbar.dtu.dk>
Subject: Slowdowns with GUS.

After reading the many comments regarding Dark Forces and GUS, I just thought
that I'd mention that I regularly notice slowndowns, when using native 
GUS and SBOS/MEGAEM support, on my system (386dx-40).
I bought my GUS two and a half years ago and have been very pleased with 
it all along. Naturally, many of the problems are due to the fact that a 
386 is slow compared to todays standards - so I suspect that the warning 
from LucasArts is directed at people with "slower" systems. Since I don't 
own Dark Forces (in fact I don't even know if it will run on my system) I 
don't know if this is the case...

Lars Bo

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

Date: 12 Mar 1995 22:34:00 +0100
From: christian@birdy.ping.de (Christian 'Kiki'Schmitz)
Subject: System Shock CD 2nd level

Ok, I patched the System Shock CD with the usail310.zip file and  
everything worked great. But after entering the 2nd level the music stops  
playing after 5 seconds. Does anyone found a solution to this problem or  
is a real patch out by Looking Glass.

-------> mostly harmless

 ........Christian

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

Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 13:41:31 -0700 (MST)
From: "Roderick K.S. Lo" <rksl@dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Subject: Where to find P-mode?

Hi! I heard that there is a program that will take over the 4dos (or 
something like that: the infamous 32-bit extender that will not work with 
GUS) IT is called something like Pmode (i think). Where can i FTP it 
from? Thanks.

 =================================
|Roderick Lo                      |
|                                 |
|rksl@dana.ucc.nau.edu (Permanent)|
 =================================

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

End of GUS Daily Digest V20 #13
*******************************
