GUS Daily Digest            Tue, 17 Jan 95  9:37 PST     Volume 18: Issue  16 

Today's Topics:
                   ADPCM and MU-LAW (yeah, I know)
                   Choppy .AVI playback in Win 3.1
                  Choppy Video in Win;  Descent info
                     Crackle - Pop in some games
                    GUS & AWE-32, GUS & OS/2 Warp
                          GUS/MegaEM Problem
                       GUS Daily Digest V18 #15
                          MED format TO MOD
                MegaEM and EMM Compatability Problem.
                               Megarace
           Q. What is Gravis "Gamepad?" (digital joystick)
               Quarantine - my trouble persists........
                        Searching for some GUS
                             Tie-fighter
                   UltraMax & Windows v3.11 Problem
                 What is the new GUS card - ACE ??!?!
                     Windows Drivers, AVI's, CD's
                       Would like some info...

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, 16 Jan 95 19:32:30 EST
From: "Timothy W. Golden" <art3twg@cabell.vcu.edu>
Subject: ADPCM and MU-LAW (yeah, I know)

I'm looking for info on ADPCM and MU-LAW compression (i.e. how they
work, what the do to the integrity of the sound they compress, where
to get good utils for them).  The main thing I'm interested in is
what they do to the frequencies of the sounds they compress.  I'm
thinking of compressing a bunch of wave files but want to know what
exactly will happen to the samples when they are compressed (what
I'll loose, etc.) Blah... Blah... Blah...

Tim Golden
art3twg@cabell.vcu.edu

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 11:52:43 GMT
From: Clarke Brunt <CLARKE@lsl.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Choppy .AVI playback in Win 3.1

>I recently got a GUS MAX and everything works OK in Windows
>EXCEPT when I play back .AVI files in Microsoft Video for Windows
>the video is really choppy but the audio is normal.

Usual answer is to reduce the DMA buffer size in Control Panel/
Drivers/UltraSound. It's as though DMA'ing a large amount at
once disturbs the video.

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 00:14:05 -0330
From: Aaron Cameron <acameron@europa.cs.mun.ca>
Subject: Choppy Video in Win;  Descent info

> Date: Mon, 16 Jan 95 08:59:17 EST
> From: jday@bank-banque-canada.ca (Jim Day)
> Subject: Choppy .AVI playback in Win 3.1
> 
> Hi,
> I recently got a GUS MAX and everything works OK in Windows
> EXCEPT when I play back .AVI files in Microsoft Video for Windows
> the video is really choppy but the audio is normal.  It didn't do this
> when I had my old ATI F/X 8-bit card.  Any ideas?

The bug is in Video for Windows, not the GUS.  The same thing happened to 
me when I got my MAX, and I fixed it with the patch WV1019.EXE that 
upgrades Vid for Win to ver1.1.  The patch can be had from Gravis BBS, or 
probably from one of the GUS ftp sites.  If you can't find it anywhere, 
let me know and I'll post it or mail it to you.

Cheers,
AC


> Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 09:38:57 GMT
> From: "egnilliB .D kraM" <PPYLMDB@ppn3.physics.nottingham.ac.uk>
> Subject: Descent
> 
> This isn't exactly GUS-related, but does anyone know where I can lay 
> my hands on a copy of Descent?  I take it it's shareware.

At ftp.uml.edu in the /msdos/games/temp directory.  You might also find 
it in a different directory if it's been moved, or at 
archive.epas.utoronto.ca in the /pub/pc/ultrasound/submit dir.  Make sure 
to get either decnt11 or get the dcnt11up file to patch it if you have 
more than 512k on your gus.  Version 1.0 had a nasty ol' bug in it that 
didn't like 1meg GUS's.

Cheers,
AC

/---------------------------------------------------------------------------\
|        ***              *****               WELCOME TO MY WORLD!          |
|       *****          ***********            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~          |
|      **   **       *****      ***         It's really not that bad...     |
|     ***   ***      ****                   once you get used to it!        |
|    ***********     ****                                                   |
|   *************    *****      ***    ---------> Aaron Cameron <---------  |
|  ****       ****     ***********     Memorial University of Newfoundland  |
| *****       *****       *****        ---> acameron@europa.cs.mun.ca <---  |
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------/

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 95 12:13:22 EST
From: jday@bank-banque-canada.ca (Jim Day)
Subject: Crackle - Pop in some games

Hello,
In games I came hear some static along with
the music and effects on my GUS MAX.  Midi, Mod
and wav files are cyrstal clear, though.  My MAX
is next to my video card in my box, and nowhere near
the power supply and HD controller.  PC Mag had
a review of 16-bit cards a while back, and the Max
got a poor signal/noise score.  Could this just be 
the nature of the card. With the treble down this
minor annoyance is less noticable.  Anyone with a
similar experience? The GUS is still the best bang
for the buck for quality sound.

JD

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

Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 23:46:13 +433659908 (GMT+4336599:08)
From: jwarren@capital.edu (Jeremy Warren)
Subject: GUS & AWE-32, GUS & OS/2 Warp

#1) To my knowledge, which is limited only to a few AWE-32 owners (But 
one of which is a professional musician who is into this kinnd of stuff), 
I haven't heard anything about a GUS emulator for the AWE32.  Let me 
point out something, though:  An GUS emulator for the AWE32 wouldn't 
really be a victory for the GUS, as the AWE-32 would then almost 
supercede the GUS, considering it's awesome capabilities as far as patch 
sampling (Korg, Kurtsweil, etc), which it can easily convert; its huge 
RAM capability (up to 6 megs I believe).  Don't get me wrong -- I am a 
die-hard GUS user, but I think that even the possibility of a GUS 
emulator for the AWE-32 should make Gravis take notice.

#2) I used OS/2 2.1 for a long while, and had a decent amounnt of success 
with the Manley drivers in their beta versions.  When I installed the 
Gravis OS/2 drivers, I found that they were quite good.  I seem to have 
missed one major point, however:  Am I correct in stating that there is 
still as yet, no REAL support for the GUS under OS/2?  In other words, to 
my knowledge, are they any versions of MegaEm, SBOS, Ultramid, etc which 
are in the works for OS/2?  This would be a great asset to all GUS/ OS/2 
users, and would definitely help Gravis's cause.

Jeremy Warren

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 95 8:50:15 EST
From: jcossin@pgt041.cpd.ford.com (Jon Cossin)
Subject: GUS/MegaEM Problem

Help.  I recently upgraded my motherboard from a 486DX2/66 to
a 486DX4/100.  When I try to load MegaEm,  it complains that
I have an EMM compatability problem and suggests that I use
EMM386, QEMM386 or 386 to the max.  Problem is that I am already
using QEMM386 v7.5.  Anybody know what this error is about?

Thanx,
Jon Cossin
jcossin@pmsa28.pms.ford.com

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 00:02:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: Harry C Pulley <hpulley@uoguelph.ca>
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V18 #15

RE: AVI troubles

You should set your playback buffer to 1024 or 512 bytes.  This will 
clear up much of the problem.  If you can get away with 2048 then use 
it.  You should use the largest value that does not cause skipping, since 
other sound quality may be affected by using too small a buffer.

Next, if your CDROM is using DMA, then stop using it.  Just use IRQ.  I 
found that using both my Mitsumi CDROM on 16-bit DMA and my GUS Max using 
16-bit DMA with a local bus video card causes cycle stealing.  There 
isn't enough bandwidth to do video and 2 16-bit DMA channels at the same 
time.  Going from DMA+IRQ to just IRQ will not affect your average 
transfer times, although your burst speed will drop by 10-15%.  The 
improvement in sound quality is well worth the performance hit, IMO.

RE: recording troubles

Are you using a compressed drive?  I have found that sound station is 
almost useless for recording.  In Windows with Wave Lite, I can only 
record at 22KHz stereo 16-bit (on a 486DX-33 with 128K cache) even on a 
fast local bus controlled IDE drive without sound problems.  With a 
compressed drive it is worse.  Under DOS, using Ultrasound Studio, I can 
record at 16-bit stereo 48KHz without any problems at all.  I have a 
Maxtor 405 IDE drive and Vision IDE controller.  I get 8.5ms average seek 
time and >1.5MB/sec. transfer rate.  So, for serious recordings I would 
use USS on a fast uncompressed drive.  Also, I don't use a disk cache.  
While a cache may speed some things up it may actually hamper some 
critical operations, like recording.  If you do use a disk cache, try 
turning off write cachine.

I have never seen the lost cluster problem during recording that you 
describe.  Are you using a disk cache in EMS or XMS?  I have had troubles 
with some programs interfering with high memory disk caches, and causing 
garbage to be written to the FAT, which in turn causes lost clusters and 
cross-linked files.  This is usually present with write caching enabled.

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: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 13:57:27  GMT+2
From: "Zsolt Parak" <PARAK@cogpsyphy.hu>
Subject: MED format TO MOD

Anybody have converter to conver MED to MOD, or any program to play 
MED files  ????????????????                MED is Amiga format too.

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 95 8:49:19 EST
From: jcossin@pgt041.cpd.ford.com (Jon Cossin)
Subject: MegaEM and EMM Compatability Problem.

Hi.

I just recently upgraded my motherboard from a 486DX2/66 to a
486DX4/100.  When I try to load MegaEM now, it says I have
an EMM compatibility problem and says that I should use EMM386,
QEMM386 or 386 to the max.  Problem is that I AM using QEMM386.
I am currently using v7.5, but I also tried v7.04 to see if that
would work and I still get the same error.  When I upgraded my
motherboard I didn't change anything in my software configuration
(except re-run optimize).  Anybody know WHY this message comes
up, or how to fix the problem?  I tried using EMM386 and that
works, but EMM386 sucks to say the least.

Thanx,
Jon Cossin
jcossin@pmsa28.pms.ford.com

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

Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 16:44:01 -0600
From: Terry Lee <terry@uivlsi.csl.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Megarace

I didn't see Megarace in the G-List.  Does anyone have it working
with a GUS?  Thanks!

Terry Lee
terry@uivlsi.csl.uiuc.edu

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

Date: Mon, 16 Jan 95 13:02:20 PST
From: scott@mirage.nsc.com (Scott McCoy)
Subject: Q. What is Gravis "Gamepad?" (digital joystick)

Hello Mr./Mrs./???. GUS-General (and John Smith ;-)

  I've heard that Advanced Gravis makes a digital joystick (the "GamePad?")
for use with PeeCee's. I have been surfing for the last 30 min and have not
been able to come up with the desired info on this device.

  I'm looking for a description of their gamepad and/or a company contact.
Yeah, I looked at the ftp site archive.orst.edu... but the stuff directly
from Gravis is not there...

ftp> pwd
257 "/pub/mirrors/archive.epas.utoronto.ca/pub/pc/ultrasound/gravis/bulletin"
is current directory.
ftp> dir
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
total 1
-r--r--r--  1 ftpadmin info          946 Oct 15 00:26 00Index
226 Transfer complete.
72 bytes received in 22 seconds (0.0031 Kbytes/s)

  Any Help appreciated.

Scott McCoy.

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 14:47:27
From: "N.J.Cook" <N.J.Cook@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Quarantine - my trouble persists........

>From: tjakobs@mswe.dnet.ms.philips.nl (THEO_JAKOBS TEL.62667)

>I Had the same problem. What You have to do is set the DMA channel to 1,
>because quarantine uses 8-bit dma (I think)..
>PS. I think It wouldn't hurt if you also set the IRQ to something like 7 or
5.

Dear Andre,
    I have tested your advice about the low dma but still no joy so I'm
sending this message to ask if you could send me a copy of your
configuration files - i.e. the ones which allow Quarantine to work on
your system - config.sys, autoexec.bat ?
    I realise that this is a bit of a chore, but my system is not
with me at university, so I must try anything by phoning my 15 year
old brother at home.
    The basic details of my system are: 486DX-33, 4 Meg ram, normal
bus, trident svga card, Gravis Ultrasound (v3.7) with 1 Meg ram.
    If, with your help, I still can't make it work, then I'll get my
brother to get his money back - but I'd much rather have a working
game.
    Thanks for any help you can give me.

                    Nick Cook
<N.J.Cook@Sheffield.ac.uk>

P.S. I tried to contact you directly but the university's mailer couldn't
     cope with your address.

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 13:16:32 +0100 (NFT)
From: "Michael Dorn Wiwi (bis SS97)" <dorn@rzaix340.rz.uni-leipzig.de>
Subject: Searching for some GUS

Hallo Gusers!
I ve got the following problem: I got my GUS on a trip to the US this
spring for $125 and now back in Germany some of my freinds (5) would 
like to get one, too. The Prob is, that the GUS here in Germany costs
DM 300.- (MAX: DM 450.-), which is about $150. I mean in the meantime
prices should have dropped, right?
Is there anybody out there who s got an idea where to get five at an 
acceptable price? Or maybe someone of you once to join the AWE and doesnt
need the GUS anymore (I feel sorry for these guys)
Contact me on dorn@rzaix340.rz.uni-leipzig.de

Thanks in advance
Michael

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 11:22:08 +0100
From: TOMAS ANDERSEN <TOMA@oleg.hiof.no>
Subject: Tie-fighter

I got a GUS MAX two days ago, and I really looked forward to test it
on one of my favourite games => Tie fighter...
I know that I have to run the megaem prg. (megaem -sboff) and then run
the emuset that came with tie-fighter, but I still can't make the 
game to work...  I got an error message that told me I needed more 
emm, so I installed QEMM and tried again... this error disappeared,
but another error message came up... something about files=30...
no matter what I set the FILES= in config.sys (or is it autoexec.bat)
I get the same error... I have a DX2-66, 420Mb Seagate, on board vesa
1Mb and a GUS MAX 1Mb... + a Sony 2x CD-rom...  I have tried to run 
tie fighter on a friend's machine and it works fine.. he has a GUS 
512k.. (approx. 1 year old).. can someone help... 

PS.. Do I have to configure anything to tell my machine that my GUS
is upgraded to 1Mb...?

Tomas Andersen

**************************************************
Tomas Andersen            Student at HIO
Sollih|yda 8              Electronics/Computers
1783 Halden               Tlf: (+47) 69180082
NORWAY                    Email: toma@oleg.hiof.no

   >>> Also known as Yoghurt/Spaceballs <<<
**************************************************

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 03:03:20 EST
From: dth2@lehigh.edu (Dave Horoschak)
Subject: UltraMax & Windows v3.11 Problem

I am having a problem installing my Ultrasound Max.  I set it up, using all of
the default setting, except using 240 as the base address and using DMA 5 for
record & playback.  Everything works great in DOS, but when I run Windows, my
wallpaper comes up and then the system locks up.  I have to reset.  I am using
v3.57 of the drivers.  I have a generic 486DX2/66, Diamond Stealth 32 video
card, and Windows for Workgroups v3.11.  I have tried many different DMA, IRQ,
and address configurations, including 8-bit DMAs, but I still get the same
problem.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 - Dave


 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    Dave Horoschak  -aka-  dth2@lehigh.edu
                        Chief engineer of WLVR 91.3 FM.
               Treasurer & Project Engineer - Lehigh Formula SAE
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 95 11:16:29 EST
From: cornoiu@monu1.cc.monash.edu.au (Mr AC Cornoiu)
Subject: What is the new GUS card - ACE ??!?!

Haya to all on the mailing list.
I was recently informed by the people at gravis that a new card is in the
works,
and should be released soon. I understand it will be only GUS compat, and
have no SB compatibility whatsoever. If anyone has any more info on this
please inform me (educate me) and maybe it would be of some interest to other
subscribers. Specs and such would be great. Thanks in Advance
Andrei

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 95 7:57:33 EST
From: "Jamie Stafford-Evans" <Stafford-EvansJ@Radium-VS1.Hanscom.AF.MIL>
Subject: Windows Drivers, AVI's, CD's

Hiya:

Why is it I can't get a happy medium  between the buffer levels, CD's, and AVI

files with the GUS Windows drivers?  

I currently have the playback level set to around 2800 which allows great 
playback of sound when using things like Cinemania '95 CD or Monty Phython's 
Complete Waste of Time CD but causes jumpy AVI playback.  If I kick the 
buffers down to about 1400 I get great AVI playback but all kinds of garbled 
sound on the aforementioned CD's.

Is there not a happy medium here (I can't find one)?  Is Gravis ever going to 
rectify this problem?  It's ridiculous to have to change the buffers every 
time I want to use one or the other - Please Help!

Thanks!

PS - I am using the latest drivers - 3.59

\\//   Jamie Stafford-Evans
//\\   E-MAIL:  Stafford-EvansJ@Radium-VS1.Hanscom.AF.Mil

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

Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 15:37:55 -0500
From: ba384@freenet.carleton.ca (Peter Kowalski)
Subject: Would like some info...

Can somebody please e-mail/post the following information:

Current (non-beta and released beta) version of the INSTALL disks for the GUS
MAX, 

Current (non-beta and released beta) version of all related software (SBOS,
Mega-EM, Miles, etc.)

Information about SBOSMAX which I read about earilier...
and any other info regarding the GUS MAX.

Also, If possible, explain or direct me to a detailed faq about the
operations of the miles drivers.  I know how to use them,  but want get a
better understanding of their functionality.

oh, and if possible, some news about whats happening with warcraft and
sound would be nice...

E-mail me at ba384@freenet.carleton.ca or post. thanks.

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

Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 21:42:04 +0100
From: v9110138@is1.bfu.vub.ac.be (Rademakers Tanguy)

Is the SoundBlaster MidiBox in Any way compatible with the GUS MAX ?

v9110138@vub.ac.be

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

End of GUS Daily Digest V18 #16
*******************************
