elianda wrote:

Port 220, IRQ 5,7, DMA 1 must not be used by any other card. GUS should be at default settings: 220 5,11,1, 1 […]
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Port 220, IRQ 5,7, DMA 1 must not be used by any other card.
GUS should be at default settings: 220 5,11,1, 1

also works with GUS:
- Ultrasound IRQ / Midi IRQ: 11/5, 11/7, 7/5
- DMA 1 and 5 works - 3 does not
- Joystickport On
- call ultrainit
- BIOS PnP Settings: reserve IRQs 5, 7, 9, 11 for ISA (legacy)

see also
http://www.dosforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=60 … +control#p16512
(may require translation tool)

Perhaps the problems are simply model-specific, but I have a GUS PnP w/8MB installed in a 486 system alongside an AWE32 and MPU-IPC-T, and the "cracked," CD-compilation version of Star Control 2 works just fine (without needing to specify the /s:gravis parameter), using the same settings the OP mentions:

ULTRASND=240,3,3,11,7

Interestingly enough, the game did not care for my initial settings of 240,3,3,11,11, and would instead "hang" with a black screen upon startup.

If you use the "cracked CD" version, you need to rename STARCON2.EXE to something else like STARCON2.BAK and STARCON2.EXB to STARCON2.EXE. I think on real hardware you should try to keep your GUS and Midi IRQs separate. Fortunately the GUS can use high IRQs without the same difficulties as a Sound Blaster.

The default GUS settings and the default Sound Blaster 16 settings totally conflict with each other.

Great Hierophant wrote:

If you use the "cracked CD" version, you need to rename STARCON2.EXE to something else like STARCON2.BAK and STARCON2.EXB to STARCON2.EXE.

Eh, I didn't have to do that either. I'm using the same version, in any event, since the STARCON2.EXB file is present, and renaming/using it does then result in having to enter the copy protection codes.

Again, perhaps it's just the GUS PnP being nice and friendly, but I'm not able to relate to any of these issues, beyond the aforementioned, "black screen" problem. I'm not sure if that helps anyone going forward, but I suppose it might be something in the PnP's favor for anyone still looking to purchase a GUS.

Alright, I've tried the newer CD-ROM release and the sound drivers are much better indeed. The GUS resources are no longer hardcoded, and finally there are no more crashes with a Roland MPU-401 installed! 😁
I get corrupted samples with the GUS, although it's almost fixed by clearing the sample RAM before starting the game. What remains are sound glitches in the Load/Save menus, but I can live with that.

5u3 wrote:

Alright, I've tried the newer CD-ROM release and the sound drivers are much better indeed. The GUS resources are no longer hardcoded, and finally there are no more crashes with a Roland MPU-401 installed! 😁

So the CD-ROM edition (I assume you mean standalone, not a compilation) provides for some kind of sound configuration beyond a single command-line parameter? Nice.

I get corrupted samples with the GUS, although it's almost fixed by clearing the sample RAM before starting the game. What remains are sound glitches in the Load/Save menus, but I can live with that.

Hopefully I don't see any of that. I am not going to stop until I get SC2 working perfectly with a GUS Classic. As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason this shouldn't be possible. They both came out the same year, for Pete's sake, and SC2 is supposed to support the GUS natively.

Subjunctive wrote:

Hopefully I have similar luck. I've ordered what I believe to be an original SC2 CD (not a compilation):

http://www.mobygames.com/game/star-control-ii … eCoverId,14993/

Well, the CD arrived today, and it was a factory-pressed CD that looked exactly like that, but it turned out to be a cracked version. I don't know if that's just how it was being distributed at that point, or what. Anyway, it exhibited the same problem as the other versions of SC2 that I've tried. I also didn't see any sound configuration options beyond the /S: command-line parameters. I'd be interested to know exactly what release 5u3 was using.

Renaming starcon2.exb to starcon2.exe and running the game with copy-protection didn't help; in fact, it seemed to make the issue worse. The background music for when you're navigating through a solar system was hideously corrupted.

This problem never occurs when forcing the game to use the SB16, but of course the whole reason I got the GUS was because it renders tracked music so much better. When it works.

Maybe I need to add more memory to the GUS? I was already going to do that, but for other reasons. I find it hard to believe that SC2's music would push 256kb - it's not all that complex, especially the songs that are screwing up. I dunno. I may just put in another hard drive and do a clean format and see what happens.

Here's how I've been testing:

- Launch SC2, with or without /S:GRAVIS (it defaults to the Gravis anyway)
- Immediately navigate my ship to Mars
- Hear the music start, but with a sound effect replacing one of the music samples

Would anyone be willing to test this in their machine and tell me what they get? And what kind of GUS they have, and what their GUS settings are? I'm using a GUS Classic rev 2.4, at 240,3,3,11,7.

I guess I could also try the settings and tools from this thread that elianda linked:

http://www.dosforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=60 … +control#p16512

Silent Loon wrote:

I know this problem with the sound artifacts also.

My solution: With the tools GusDrive (with which one can use the memory of the GUS as RAM drive) before playing the sound map memory empty (to format), then should it disappear.

Google times Ultrasound GusDrive or look here: http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/soundconfig.html

Subjunctive wrote:

Well, the CD arrived today, and it was a factory-pressed CD that looked exactly like that, but it turned out to be a cracked version. I don't know if that's just how it was being distributed at that point, or what.

Isn't the Mindscape rerelease a starmap-less budget version? Mindscape is known for doing that with some older software, often offering AOL trial hours, maybe under a SmartSaver brand sometimes.

This is different to their past 1993 CD Challenge Pack with the bigass manual for copy protection 😀

Here is the utility that fixes most of the corrupt samples for me. Run it before starting the game.

Clearing the GUS's memory didn't work.

I also went back and disabled the SB16, and set the GUS to 220,1,3,5,11. No dice. At this point, I don't think any combination of port/IRQ/DMA will fix it.

The old GUS Digests mention a problem with OPTi chipsets (which my machine, an Aptiva, does have). They refer to a program, "OPTIFIX", contained within GUS0013.ZIP which is apparently impossible to find... anyone have it?

That's my last lead, short of trying a full reformat, about which I'm very skeptical. After that, I'll probably give up, maybe try the GUS in another machine I have sitting around.

Well!

I installed the GUS in a spare machine I had, a Gateway 2000 with a Pentium Pro 200 MHz and an Intel chipset. Installed MS-DOS from scratch, installed GUS drivers, installed SC2.

Same problem. Well, the music corruption sounded slightly different, but the symptom was the same.

So, I see a number of possible diagnoses here:

1. Pentium 133 MHz and Pentium Pro 200 MHz are too fast for SC2.
2. SC2 does not work with a non-PnP GUS Classic.
3. My GUS is defective.
4. My copies of SC2 (floppy disk version, CD-ROM version, various cracked versions) are corrupt or otherwise broken.

I don't have any older/slower hardware, like a 486 system, in which to test this GUS+SC2 combo. I would be willing to lend my GUS, via mail, to someone who would test it with SC2 on their machine(s). I'm also still curious as to whether anyone has OPTIFIX.EXE.

It's almost an academic curiosity at this point - just trying to identify hardware that will run SC2 properly. I've more or less abandoned the idea of getting it to work in my main MS-DOS machine, except through the SB16 which sounds like crap.

** Update: after looking through some more GUS Digests, it seems that SC2 always had problems. This makes me feel a little better:

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 11:25:00 -0400 (EDT) From: Brian Go <bgo@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca> Subject: Star Con II Problems Message-ID: […]
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Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 11:25:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Go <bgo@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Star Con II Problems
Message-ID: <Pine.3.05.9305191158.C6375-a100000@sciborg>

I forgot to mention this yesterday. I do run the 669 player before I play
SC2. The static problem disapears. I get garbled music. Random drum
beats, especially in hyperspace. I know what it is supposed to sound
like. It seems to work the first few times I enter Hyperspace, but then
the music just degenerates. Same thing happens with other scenes.

Date: Sun, 25 Apr 93 13:22:13 PDT From: "JAMES HARGRAVE" <D1140167@BCIT.BC.CA> Subject: StarCon II Message-ID: <9304252033.AA178 […]
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Date: Sun, 25 Apr 93 13:22:13 PDT
From: "JAMES HARGRAVE" <D1140167@BCIT.BC.CA>
Subject: StarCon II
Message-ID: <9304252033.AA17884@orca.es.com>

Hey, I remember reading something about a patch/fix for StarCon, can any one
send me any info on it? I have some weird/neato problems with it. Some times
when I'm playing the Super Melee the ships start making the wrong sound,
for example just the other day the human ship (when it fire's a missle) made
the sound(s) a Pkunk does when it is re-fueling.. it's not THAT anoying and
can sometimes be really funny but it would be nice to know if there is a way
to fix it.

Here is the utility that fixes most of the corrupt samples for me. Run it before starting the game.

i think the author of thist util is out of gus ... (page is in german)
http://www.secnetix.de/olli/verschenken/

I FIXED IT.
I FIXED IT.
I FIXED IT.

After all my scattershot, scatterbrained troubleshooting, IIIIII FIIIIIIXED IIIIIIIT.

Special appreciation goes to a Mr. Andrew Krenz, who posted his solution to the GUS Daily Digest on January 2, 1993:

http://www.gravisultrasound.com/files/UDD/vol … /1993-01-04.TXT

Anyway, next on the list was to try out StarControl II. Yep, one of the first things I noticed (ACK, why didn't I run elm?) was the problem everyone else said about how the GUS plays the wrong samples occasionally. It was pretty severe though, almost half the samples it seemed were the wrong ones. I quit the game and reconfigured the GUS to DMA 5, and not a problem since.

I'd thought I was through with fiddling with IRQ/DMA/port settings... but his description of his problem matched mine exactly. So, eh, what's one more tweak? I changed my GUS settings to 240,5,5,11,7.

FLAWLESS MUSIC AND SOUND. Star Control II and my GUS Classic have now embraced each other in the way they should. It's beautiful. And aaaaaah that tech-support rush of having finally fixed a persistent issue.

Thank you to the long-ago Mr. Krenz and thank you to everyone here for their assistance. I am so explosively happy right now.

Congratulations on fixing this annoying problem - SC2 is one of the few games where the GUS sound really outclasses all the other available options.

Meanwhile I've tried the CDROM version on my K6-3 machine with a GUS PnP, and it worked without any problems at all, even without clearing the RAM first.

sorry - but nothing is fixed Sir!

Still flawless sound with SC2 and GUS Classic only works with less than 1 Meg installed ... I checked your settings

512 kb installed -> works (but also with other settings)
1024 kb installed -> funny sounds