GUS Daily Digest            Mon, 12 Dec 94  9:37 PST     Volume 17: Issue  12 

Today's Topics:
					  1MB gripes, note dropping
					CDRom recording-Rom recording
							 dune and gus
				  GUS Daily Digest V17 #11 (2 msgs)
							INDYCAR Patch
							Magic Carpet,
							 My GUS dead
						   Note Dropping...
						  Patch replacements
						  Windows NT Drivers

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, 12 Dec 1994 10:15:10 GMT
From: Clarke Brunt <CLARKE@lsl.co.uk>
Subject: Re: 1MB gripes, note dropping

>Yes, I too, have my 1 MB limit gripe.  I'm not sure if it's actually the 
>problem, but could the 1 MB limit cause the note dropping in big MIDI 
>files?  I have a midi file called erasure.mid, and I notice some notes 
>are skipped, but it also turns out that this file has lots of instruments 
>playing at the same time, so I am wondering if the patch caching is 
>being stretched to its limit.  Also, couldn't Gravis get around this by 
>using motherboard RAM as patch RAM?
>I'm sure they can develop a driver that let's us select the 
>amount of motherboard RAM for loading additional patches.

The only limit imposed by the 1MB is how many instrument patches
can be loaded at once. Sure, if an instrument your MID wanted
did not fit, then the notes for that instrument would be missing,
but random occasional dropped notes seem to have been a feature
of most if not all releases of the Windows MIDI drivers.

The GUS has 32 independent voices (you can have less than this
enabled in the Windows driver setup) - this limits how many
notes you can play simultaneously, including the decay of the
note after the MIDI Note Off message. The driver must have some
scheme of allocating a voice to each new note - presumably a
'least recently used' algorithm - so if you try to play too
many notes at once, the oldest notes would be cut off, rather
than the new ones missed out.

Maybe the 'techies' can advise, but I doubt the practicality
of using main RAM for patches. The GUS has to scan the samples
(up to 32 of them, as I said) at up to 44kHz. If the samples
were 16bit, then this makes about 2.8 megabytes a second of
data (half that for 8-bit samples). This sounds like a hell
of a lot of traffic for the PC Bus to handle, if it were
possible at all. That's why the patches are stored in memory
*local* to the GUS.

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 94 14:06:30 MET
From: <martinus@morra.et.tudelft.nl> (Martijn de Jong)
Subject: CDRom recording-Rom recording

Hi Gussers,

A while ago there was a discussion on the digest about
recording data from Audio-Cd's directly through the databus
on your harddisk. It made it possible to record stereo 16
bit without having a soundcard. 
I'm working on a project where We're trying to give a
soundcard (we're using a MAX) a digital line-in, but at the
moment this is giving us big problems. (damn integrated
chips) Now I wanna know how many CD-Rom players have the
possibility to record audio directly on a HD using a program
like CDGrab Pro. I know the mitsumi drives can't. My own
CD-Rom (a philips CM206) is giving big trouble too (general
failure on command read long), but how about the Matsushita
drives for example or the Panasonics, Sony and Trust.
I'd like to hear from people what drive they have and if
they're able to record in the way described above.

Thanks in advance,

Martinus.

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

Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 21:02:02 -0700 (MST)
From: Yoo-Shin Lee <yoosh@cs.ualberta.ca>
Subject: dune and gus

Hello,

I've just reinstalled Dune 2 on my hard drive.  
I've used Dune2ail to change the ail drivers.  
I loaded ultramid -m100 -c.  I then started dune2.

The music is great throughout the introduction, but when I try to play
a game (choose "play game option" from first menu) The game just
freezes, with the music still playing. 

Any help would be appreciated.  Otherwise I have to use
sbos -o2 which doesn't give very good results.

Thanks.

-- 
			Yoo-Shin Lee
			yoosh@cs.ualberta.ca
			http://web.cs.ualberta.ca/~yoosh



-- 
			Yoo-Shin Lee
			yoosh@cs.ualberta.ca
			http://web.cs.ualberta.ca/~yoosh

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

Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 16:17:00 -1320
From: david.wei@uniserve.com (David Wei)
Subject: GUS Daily Digest V17 #11
Message-ID: <2ad.989.47@uniserve.com>

> > 1. The new chip is designed to be built in to the main PC processor.

> The rest of your message sounds pretty accurrate, but I doubt this one.
> I think you'll find it's made to be built into motherboards next to a CPU
> (perhaps local bus, etc).  If they built it into one of their CPUs, it
> would instantly rule them out from being used in any Intel-based PCs,
> which is the far majority of the market.
WHY??  Only the socket will need to be redesigned, the only problem *MIGHT* 
trouble AMD is the noise problem, since it on the same chip as the CPU which
is running at about 100Mhz+

> It would be nice if it were able to share memory with the CPU and access
> it directly, but I doubt it will.  I also remember hearing that they're
> thinking of putting it into notebooks, which means it's probably 3.3 volt.
SO?  P54C Faultium is USING 3.3V design already!  What's the problem with 
3.3V?

L8r




 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
david.wei@uniserve.com (David Wei)

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

Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 23:37:29 -0600 (CST)
From: ST4SI@Jetson.UH.EDU
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V17 #11

Hey... Well Uness. Roughness uses the crappy hmi.386 sound drivers..
Will the person who got music to work pleazzz repost how.. and
has anyone been sucessful with speech?

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 11:52:38 +0100
From: Martin Laukkanen <martin@triode.apana.org.au>
Subject: Re: INDYCAR Patch

	To whoever it was who asked, the FTP site where you can get the 
GUS fix for Indycar Racing is;
ftp.std.com
in the dir
/customers/vendors/papyrus
and the file is: gravis.zip
ok.

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 94 15:52:25 GMT
From: Martin Shaw <shawm@cs.man.ac.uk>
Subject: Magic Carpet,

Hiyup, 

	Probably old news, But I am a new subscriber.. Is there any way to get 
	sound and music with Magic carpet...

	Also, When I play Ecstatica, whenever I change scenes the GUS makes a 
	funny Buzzing noise.. It also happens in Tie Fighter, but everything else 
	runs ok! any ideas?

Cheers

Martin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
								 |     
 Martin Shaw,                    |  "Tonight you sleep in hell."       - Kurgan  
 Dept. Computer Science,         |  
 Manchester,                     |  "You only have one life! Value it! - Macleod
								 |
 Email Shawm@cs.man.ac.uk        |  "There can be only one!"           - Macleod
								 |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 17:53:45 -0600 (CST)
From: Mark Gabriel <umgabri0@cc.UManitoba.CA>
Subject: My GUS dead

Hi.


  I didn't know where else to send this, so I decided to send it here.

  I recently got the GUS MAX - through a friends upgrade offer, but...

  I set the jumpers and all (no CD-ROM enabled, yet) and placed the card
  in the computer.  I turned on the power and ran the setup program.  It 
detected the GUS and allowed me to test it out, etc...  Now, after that
was done I installed my CD-ROM drivers and then shut the computer off.
I proceeded to connect the CD-ROM to the GUS, and turned the computer back
on.  Now...the GUS is dead.  It doesn't detect (I tried all the settings)
even returned to no CD-ROM connected.   I got my friend (GUS expert) to 
help me out and he couldn't get it going.  We thought it might be my computer
(who knows) and tried the MAX in his (his GUS works in his system) and still
no go.

  Does it sound like my GUS is dead?  I want to make sure I didn't miss 
anything before I send it back to gravis for replacement.


Thanx!


						mark.

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 94 9:46:12 EST
From: "Brian K. Dowtin" <dowtin@ncat.edu>
Subject: Re: Note Dropping...

Just a "Be sure you check.." I had a small problem with note
dropping/cutting out, and it turned out I had the number of VOICES set too
few (like 10 or something). (in the drivers section, of control panel, under
GUS synth or something) Moving them up to 24 fixed it. I think 24 is when
the GUS switches outsampling rates to a lower one ( read: sound degrades a
little) But upping that helped me - just a simple thing to check before
you start looking deeper.
-- 
`Brian

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

Date: Sat, 10 Dec 1994 20:05:26 +0100
From: "Jerry van Waardenberg" <jerry@waard.iaf.nl>
Subject: Patch replacements

Hi,

Some time ago I posted a message about patch replacements. Some people
asked me which patches should be replaced. Well, I am not an expert on
this subject, but I downloaded the Pro Patch archive and replaced some
standard patches by custom PP3 ones.

I've compared some (not all!) patches. A lot of the PP3 patches sound
better than de original ones, but they are usually a *lot* bigger. So I
also compared the patch sizes and only replaced patches by others that
were not too big. This is my list of replacements:

  calliope.pat    36527  19-06-83   6:45
  cymcrsh1.pat    66185   7-04-83  18:44
  cymride1.pat    45137   7-04-83  18:47
  doo.pat        181943  14-06-83   7:05
  epiano1.pat     68671  14-03-83  21:31
  fx-fret.pat     13221  14-06-83   4:12
  hihatcl.pat     27189  14-06-83  13:57
  homeorg.pat     95217  19-06-83   6:48
  hrpschrd.pat   248683  14-06-83   4:08
  kick1.pat       24171  15-06-83  22:14
  kick2.pat       36849  14-06-83  14:15
  marcato.pat    156197  21-03-83  11:57
  ringwhsl.pat    70107  16-06-83   0:05
  stickrim.pat    22583  14-06-83  13:45
  voxlead.pat     75297   8-04-83  16:46

I like these patches better than the original ones AND most of them are
not a lot bigger (some of them are even smaller). If you have
suggestions for other replacements (e.g. patches that are not in the PP3
archive), please mail them to me. I would appreciate it if you could
tell me where I can find the patches (ftp-site, directory and filename),
since I don't have direct ftp-access (only ftp-by-mail). I prefer
patches <100k.

(Gravis, when will there be an Utrasound with at least 4MB RAM...?)

Greetz,
  Jerry
-- 
Merry X-mas!
_____________________________________________________________
 Jerry van Waardenberg     -=-  Internet: jerry@waard.iaf.nl
 Voice: (+31)(0)5476 2041  -=-  FidoNet: 2:283/726.9
__________________-= PGP-key available =-____________________

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 14:49:17 +0000
From: marc@tymnet.bt.co.uk (Marc Whiffen)
Subject: Windows NT Drivers

>Jari Kivela wrote:
>>> Once more: there is no Win NT drivers for GUS, and there probably never
>>> will be, unless someone is going to make them him/herself.
>
>About a month ago on Compu$erve, a group of NT developers offered to write NT
>drivers for Gravis.  I can't remember whether Gravis took them up on their
>offer, but I expect they started to discuss via private e-Mail.  Perhaps Gravis
>could comment on this.  I expect they're keeping quiet, as no sooner as they
>admit "There will be NT drivers", people will start to hastle them for 
dates and
>they'll get just as - if not more - unpopular than when they said they weren't
>going to do any at all.  It's all very OS/2, don't you think.
>

Hang on a mo'. I asked the nice people at gravis tech at AOL about the 
drivers in an email and they replied that along with new OS/2 drivers, they 
should be here some time soon. The reason I asked them is that I intended to 
start writing my own drivers if noone was going to do it. So they *are* 
giving the information out - but only if you ask for it

Marc


|  Marc Whiffen - Systems Development Specialist   | The views represented 
|        BT Managed Network Services               | here are my own and do
|                                                  | not represent those of
| -= So much month left at the end of the money =- | the company I work for

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End of GUS Daily Digest V17 #12
*******************************
