GUS Daily Digest            Sat, 11 Feb 95  9:37 PST     Volume 19: Issue  11 

Today's Topics:
                       Advanced Gravis Charged.
                              File name
                             GUS + RAP-10
                             gus0045.zip
                  GUS Daily Digest V19 #10 (3 msgs)
                          GUS game questions
                  GUS System Software v3.59 (2 msgs)
                       MK2 2 4button Joysticks?
                           Mortal Kombat II
                       Video Card to buy?/MKII
                      Wings of Glory and GUSMAX
                                X-Com

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: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 12:07:37 -0500
From: Farhan Thawar <fnthawar@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Advanced Gravis Charged.

After leaving it for a month in the digest it seems no one has 
said anything about Advanced Gravis being charges with copyright 
infringement, breach of contract and other offenses.  It seems that 
Gravis has being selling the Gravis and Gravis Max illegally with 3D 
sound technology.  They are being sued by Focal Point 3D Audio who are 
also suing Forte Technologies Inc.
It appears that Gravis had a license to sell 3D audio sound 
cards, but that license ran out in January.  Gravis says that future 
versions will not have this feature.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires you to   //
// change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers wear their //
// climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly spring up in   //
// the middle of the machine room.                                          //
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Farhan Thawar  fnthawar@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca
2A Comp Sci/Elec Eng E   University of Waterloo, Canada

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

Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 11:41:40 -0800 (PST)
From: Emory Menefee <em@crl.com>
Subject: File name

I mistakenly erased the first disk of my 3.58 GUS disks, with no backup
(now corrected), but on unerasing I found a file I couldn't identify. 
There are two readme files, software, bbsnode, install, gus001, and the
mystery one, which has 48128K.  It's not on the 3.59 set, which I am now
afraid to install after all the bad reports, and 3.58 seems to be omitted
from the archive.  Much appreciated if someone could let me know what its
name is, since I need to reinstall. 

Thanks, Emory Menefee 

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

Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 17:04:50 -0500 (EST)
From: Scott D Hansma <sh6k+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: GUS + RAP-10

I have a GUS and a RAP-10, and I would like to use them together (GUS
for digital and RAP-10 for music) in games, but, in a lot of them, the
GUS's line in (which the RAP-10 is plugged into) gets turned off, so I
don't hear any music. A couple examples are Wing Commander 3 and
Descent. Does anyone know how to permanently turn the line in on?

      * the  *      | "Live by the foma (harmless untruths) that make
     R  (__)  Y     |  you brave and kind and healthy and happy."    
    A  ( OO )  A    |                  - Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle 
   M    (  )    K   +-------------------------------------------------
  O______WW______*           The OMAR the YAK Seal of Approval          
  Seal of Approval     Beware of imitations -- Accept no substitutes

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

Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 15:11:19 -0500 (EST)
From: rmccask@online.comm-data.com (Randy McCaskill)
Subject: gus0045.zip

I grabbed a copy of gus0045.zip before the copy on epas was
corrupted.  I am in the process of uploading my working version back
into the submit directory on epas for those of you who need it.

-Randy

-- 
Randy McCaskill
rmccask@comm-data.com  --  http://www.comm-data.com/rmccask/

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

Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 20:40:08 +0000 (GMT)
From: Sam <Samuel.Marshall@durham.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V19 #10

> Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 14:32:57 EST
> From: "Carl" <CARL@BUSOP.CIT.WAYNE.EDU>
> Subject: How to play WAV file at diff. speeds off hard disk?

" Hello, I am looking for a program that works with the Gravis Ultrasound
 and will allow you to adjust the speed of a WAV file being spooled off
the  hard disk.  It must be able to play off the HD instead of loading 
into memory,  as the file I'm working with is about 60 MB in size.  I've
tried the  Gravis  program PLAYFILE and tried to adjust frequency, but
noticed no  difference.  Maybe I don't understand it's operation. I just
figure if the file is  sampled at 44 kHZ, and then played back at 22 kHZ,
it would be played half as  fast (?)." 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Playfile will only allow you to choose the speed of SND files. this is 
because WAV files have the speed built-in to the format, where as SND 
files are raw. Simply (?) convert the file to a SND, and it will work.

[If you don't mind some rubbish at the start, just rename it .SND, 
that'll do the trick if the convert software requires to load the whole 
thing as well.]

> Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 17:18:00 -0500
> From: jason.wong@canrem.com (Jason Wong)
> Subject: MIXER not working?
> 
> I just downloaded GUS0045.ZIP which contains MIXER.EXE, the new
> graphical DOS mixer.  Isn't this program supposed to have sliders where
> you can change the output level like the mixer in Windows?  Well, when I
> run Mixer, I can only change Line In On/Off, Mic In On/Off, or Mute
> Output.  No sliders to change the volume.  What am I doing wrong?

GUS hardware revisions 2.x do not have this feature (volume controls). So 
it will be disabled in the mixer, if the mixer does in fact support this.
(Otherwise I don't know).

Sam

--> Home Page <-- ** Go on, try it! ** --> http://www.dur.ac.uk/~d405ua <--
         -->  Latest Feature: short story, Living in Darkness  <--

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

Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 15:30:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: Harry C Pulley <hpulley@uoguelph.ca>
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V19 #10

RE: Mitsumi to GUS Max

What type of Mitsumi do you have?  1x, 2x or 4x?  The 4x cannot be 
directly connected since it is an IDE drive and the GUS Max's CDROM 
interface cannot handle this (but you can connect the interface to the 
IDE card in your system and the audio cable to the GUS Max).  With a 2x 
drive, you cannot use DMA transfer since the GUS Max does not support 
16-bit DMA channels for CDROMs.  You can, however, use IRQ transfers, 
which are almost as fast.

If you have other troubles then please reiterate them.  I don't remember 
seeing your original message.

RE: XCOM

I have upgraded my XCOM to 1.2 via the ufo1-2.zip file.  But I still use 
maxsbos since the native GUS support does not include music and I think 
the ground assaults still lock up.  However, maxsbos sounds excellent (FX 
are as good as native and music is better than FM) and more importantly 
it doesn't lock up.  Even the regular sbos works for me, although it 
sounds pretty bad in comparison to maxsbos or real FM.

Harry

<:-{}   hpulley@uoguelph.ca       |This message released|It takes all kinds,
 \      Harry C. Pulley, IV       |to the PUBLIC DOMAIN.|and to each his own.
 ---------------------------------+---------------------|This thought in mind,
Ultra-Violence with Ultrasound    |     Ultraverse      |I walk alone.

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

Date: Mon, 06 Feb 1995 17:34:22 -0500
From: jblair@ug.cs.dal.ca (Jeff Blair)
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V19 #10

>
>Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 13:10:23 EST
>From: hallo276@osiris.elte.hu
>Subject: help for PQ4
>
>Hi GUSsers,
>For anybody who has PQ4 and problems with it: You don`t have buy any dumb
>sounblaster horribility for enjoying this good game. There`s a patch 
>gus32.exe wich is a patch for all p-mode Sierra games. The only problem
>with PQ4 that is ******* up for some reason when the Sierra signal starts.
>BUT if you don`t wait for it, but you just click fast before it`s finished 
>the rest of the game is GUSsome. So click fast and it should work.
>                        Gergo
>

I've tried this patch on two different GUS equiped machines and they have both
completly halted, and DOS4GW spews out a bunch of error messages, as soon 
as the game attempts to play its first digital sound.  If anyone has found a
way 
arround this I would be glad to hear from you.  BTW the drivers worked fine
with
Gabriel Knight, go figure. 
------
Jeff Blair|
blairj@is.dal.ca|"God bless the Pagans"    
jblair@ug.cs.dal.ca|
Dalhousie University|    Homer Simpson
Halifax, NS, Canada|

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

Date: Fri, 10 Feb 95 16:23 EST
From: "Neil L. Sharp" <0006796954@mcimail.com>
Subject: GUS game questions

Has anyone tried the new demo for Star Trek: A Final Unity (CD-ROM)?  Trying
to
figure out how to get GUS to work with it.  I have tried MegaEM, SBOS, no
drivers, and nothing works for sound.  If I load no drivers, and select no
sound
the game demo will play, but with no sound.  Otherwise, my computer reboots
every time I start the program.  Anyone heard of this or experienced it?
Also,
does anyone know if the final version will have GUS native support.  Would be
a
shame, the game looks to be very good (graphics, etc.).

Also, the demo for Under A Killing Moon (CD-ROM) "clicks" constantly while
playing the digital music, sounds.  Anyone know why?

My config:  GUS 3.x (I think), 486DX2-66, 8meg RAM, Dbl-Spd Sony CD-ROM drive.
            Using GUS drivers 3.59.

Thanks!

Neil Sharp
679.6954@MCIMail.com

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

Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 13:02:31 -0600 (CST)
From: clarkb@netstar.com (Clark Bremer)
Subject: Re: GUS System Software v3.59

> Date: Thu, 9 Feb 95 11:06 EST
> From: "Neil L. Sharp" <0006796954@mcimail.com>
> Subject: GUS System Software v3.59
 
(Problem description with WFW3.1 deleted).

> it works, sometimes it doesn't.  I have heard there are a lot of problems
with
> v3.59 of the software, and that GUS0045.ZIP is supposed to contain new
version
> of ULTRINIT.EXE to solve these problems.  It doesn't though; it contains
> MIXER.EXE. (And the file is corrupt at orst.edu and epas.utoronto.ca) Is
there
> a fix?  Is anyone having the same problem?

The file GUS0045.ZIP conatians BOTH ULTRINIT.EXE and MIXER.EXE.  I downloaded
it from:
ftp://archive.orst.edu/pub/mirrors/archive.epas.utoronto.ca/
                                    pub/pc/ultrasound/gravis/disk/gus0045.zip
It unzipped just fine for me.
 
> Also, is there some problem with Video in Windows and the GUS?  On both
> Quicktime VR (v2.0, specifically with The Star Trek Interactive Technical
> Manual) and MS-Video for Windows (v1.1, I think, just playing AVI files),
the
> sound is either stuttered or stops in the middle of the file.

Decrease the size of the dma buffers in the ultrasound driver setup (control 
panel).  Keep chopping it in half until you get satisfactory results.  CB

-- 
===========================================================================
          _  _               Clark Bremer     clarkb@netstar.com
         /  /_)              Software Engineer, NetStar Inc.
         \_/__)              10250 Valley View Road  MPLS, MN 55344

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

Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 02:58:29 GMT
From: Smashed Surfer <LKHD@fs2.ee.umist.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: GUS System Software v3.59

Hi Gussers,

"Neil L. Sharp" <0006796954@mcimail.com> once wrote:
> Also, is there some problem with Video in Windows and the GUS?  On both
> Quicktime VR (v2.0, specifically with The Star Trek Interactive Technical
> Manual) and MS-Video for Windows (v1.1, I think, just playing AVI files),
the
> sound is either stuttered or stops in the middle of the file.

I'm using QTW 2.0 as well under VFW 1.1d and am encountering the same 
problem. There is a file qtw.ini in the \windows\ directory but I've
tried all manner of combinations of parameters to try and produce
smooth sound output and to no avail. Some sets of settings even make 
it worse. I've even tried twiddling with the driver settings in the
Control Panel as well but no luck. 

The best solution I can find is to turn off ALL disk caches (I have a 
2MB accelerated hardware cache, 8MB of system RAM and 256K secondary 
cache on a 486DX2/66) including forcefully setting VCache to 0 by 
editing system.ini and maximum buffer size (8192) in the drivers. 
This gives near-perfectly smooth sound for me but this is NOT a 
feasible solution as disk access for everything else basically slows 
to turtle speed with all disk caches off. I've not been able to find 
 AVI files sufficiently large for the skipping to start (it doesn't 
start immediately on playing the file).

Btw, I'm also running Linux 1.1.89 and using Xanim (latest version, 
don't recall the number) under XFree86 3.1 and the sound is as smooth 
as anything. With caches off however, it craps out to rubbish. The 
frame updates still leave a lot to be desired, however, and MS-WFW 
3.11 still does a much better and smoother job of it. This is with 
several 20+MB flattened .MOV files that I have.

I have a GUS v3.4 and running software set v3.59 too. Oh, while we're 
at it, has anyone managed to get music out of Doom/Linux? I can only 
get digital effects. Is there a GM patch-set loader for Linux 
somewhere? I've not been able to find one and up-to-date Linux sites 
are usually so mighty slow that I've spent ages poking around already.
Thanks in advance.

So, comments anyone?


                                 ___\                                
                              /  /  --- \                             
                     oooO     ( O  /  O )     Oooo                   
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
                  A thing of beauty is a joy forever.                 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Damien Lim
email: lkhd@fs2.ee.umist.ac.uk
alternative email: dli@sn2.ee.umist.ac.uk
finger: dli@greta.sn2.ee.umist.ac.uk

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

Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 15:11:06 +0500
From: mlanders@vt.edu (mike)
Subject: MK2 2 4button Joysticks?

Is it possible to get 2 4 button joysticks to work with MK2? I have a dual 
port game card but that just allows the buttons to work no dir control 
though..  The gravis midi box only gave me 1 4button joystick and a joystick 
with keys in the option menu.. 
Any help is appreciated.
Mike

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

Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 11:37:09 +0100
From: frodebe@stud.cs.uit.no (Frode Sandmo Berglund)
Subject: Mortal Kombat II

Hi, people!!!

I'm having trouble making my Gravis GamePad work with mk2.
I choose 4 button joystic in the setup, but only the buttons
work. i.e. I can not move around, only kick and punch. (Which
makes the game a bit boring). Though it is only the demo I have,
I have heard someone else having the same problem with the release.

If anyone know how to solve this problem, please mail me or the
digest. Thank you.

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

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

Date: Fri, 10 Feb 95 15:51:32 CST
From: Jim English <jenglish@hpserv.keh.utulsa.edu>
Subject: Video Card to buy?/MKII

Hi all...First so this is more topically based, Has anyone found a way to
get General MIDI and digital sounds out of the MKII demo?

Now here's my bigge...I just bought a Matrox MGA Impression Lite VLB
graphics card, and it's DOS performance was big time crap (43 as rated by
Wing Commander 3 in SVGA), the sad thing is my old Orchid Prodesigner II
from 1989 got an 18 in SVGA (does this tell you anything? haha).  Well I
asked Matrox tech support and they said that the card was optimized for
Windows and not DOS...ok, so who the hell can program a game like WC3
which is windows based?  ahahah!  So, I'm returning the card (after it seems
to have killed my monitor), and I was wondering what's a good VLB card
which stacks up with games like WC3 and has 2MB VRAM (or more) and works
well with a GUS in the system?  all replies/opinions are appreciated a
lot!  too bad it might be a while since now I'm going to buy a new monitor.
:(
thanks for any help.
-jim

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

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

Date: Fri, 10 Feb 95 15:39:26 EST
From: Greg <BGUZ@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA>
Subject: Wings of Glory and GUSMAX

I can not get Wings of Glory to play digital fx with my MAX.
The music works  with MAXSBOS and Megaem but no digital sound.
Although the game runs in protected mode using origin's JEMM
memory manager, Megaem will play good music but no digital sound.
Any one have a solution?

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

Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 16:49:22 -0700 (MST)
From: Randy Nonay <rnonay@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>
Subject: X-Com
Message-ID: <Pine.A32.3.91.950210164731.100529E-100000@gpu2.srv.ualberta.ca>

  FOr those struggling with X-Com and the GUS - there is a solution, but 
you may not like it. The way to get sound working is to use the origional 
version of tactical.exe (the one that shipped with UFO). It has several 
known bugs, but GUS sound works perfectly!

   Randy
   rnonay@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca

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

End of GUS Daily Digest V19 #11
*******************************
