Maybe some additions to the things mentioned in your blog (and my comments there):
- The GUS RAM keeps it's content on a cold boot (e.g. pushing the reset button). I noticed this when using the gus as ramdrive with gusdrive.
- Someone at pouet.net mentioned that the GUS PnP has a little bit different timing such that looping samples with long playback times could run out of sync (compared to the behavior on a GUS classic); I have not tested this, maybe this is in most cases not noticeable.
- You write in your blog Megaem uses EMS, I think correct is: It uses VCPI.
- It is worth to mention that Megaem emulation for GM/MT-32 can be loaded on top of a real hardware port (e.g. from a real SB). Then the emulation traps the access.
- Megaem creates a *.bnk file from the *.pat files according to the definition in the ini file on first run. For GM only games this could be exploited by using a custom ini that contains only instruments actually used (or even custom pats) (The bnk file is basically a 1 MB GM soundfont image for the GUS memory build from the ~6.5 MB pats)
- Cubic Player has a method to reduce sample size if the instrument samples of a tracker file does not fit within 1 MB (described in docs). This enables you to play even larger files on GUS in hardware, with a bit lower sample quality though.
- A lot of games bring their own ini files for Ultramid with instrument definitions.
- Use dynamic patch loading wherever possible

And don't forget to check out some demos.

Are they 8- and 16-bit IRQ and DMA?

I thought it was something like IRQ and DMA for digital sound, and IRQ and DMA for GF1.

Thought you guys might like this post by Maraakate over on neozeed's blog (the blog in general is truly awesome BTW):
http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/?p=4433

@ GH
ofcourse I read the blog entry a couple of days ago 😀

@elianda
thanks for the extra info, any recommendations on what demos to check?

@Stiletto
will read the article now, thanks

Great article, that guy certainly had his share of dead GUSes.... I guess these big full length ISA cards with discrete components are susceptible to damage.

I'm 2 for 2 with a SB Pro 2 and GUS Classic advertised on eBay as untested, so sure my luck will run out soon 🤣

Reading how many GUSes that guy had to go through to get a working one was depressing. I sometimes see them go for decent prices from places like Hungary or the Czech Republic or the Russian Federation, but they seem a bit too good to be true.

I got a GUS ACE in order to limit the difficulties. In that respect it works very well.

Great Hierophant wrote:

Reading how many GUSes that guy had to go through to get a working one was depressing. I sometimes see them go for decent prices from places like Hungary or the Czech Republic or the Russian Federation, but they seem a bit too good to be true.

Something tells me he's been taking too many risks in order to get a GUS, I personally wouldn't try to get anything like that from overseas unless there was no other option (looks surreptitiously at the cheap XR385 which came from China 😊 )

I got a GUS ACE in order to limit the difficulties. In that respect it works very well.

+1. And mine has survived 18-plus years of manhandling and poor storage conditions, yet still keeps going strong 😀

keropi,

you might find this interesting (a lot of the links are dead but you can still download some classic demo stuff):

http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained/demos … html#editorials

I got the card today and installed it, it works fine 😀
I used Elianda's driver pack from vogonsdrivers, I got the card working at 3,3,3,3 alongside my SB16 , games, players, midi from GUS all work.
I am wondering though, the SETGUS program added a device load line in my config.SYS calling ultrinit.sys . This file is not present though and from what I gathered (since the card work in my pc) the ultrinit.EXE from autoexec initializes the card .
Is the .SYS file an old one that got replaced from the .EXE ? SETGUS is kinda crappy, it did not even add the lines in order, the SET variable was after ULTRINIT and it complaint there is no GUS variable 😵

I think it does the same as ultrinit.exe.
Did you also got megaem working? It may require an old himem.sys (or qemm386 instead of emm386) if you have 64 MB or more RAM.

^ I haven't tried megaem... I have tried midi playback and did not bother more tbh... should I? it does display that it needs EMM386 btw

Yes Megaem needs VCPI so e.g. EMM386.

what exactly is the deal with megaem and ultramid? just 2 different standards? or ulramid is the native and megaem is an emulation attempt to make the card more compatible?

Ultramid splits the hardware resources e.g. voices of the card for use with music and digital playback for AIL games.
Ultramid can be loaded without EMM386, but takes some kB. Ultramid is no emulation, it is just an API.

Megaems main purpose is to emulate General Midi/MT32 through a virtual MPU-401 at port 330. This works even if there is some real hardware listening.
In addition Megaem provides the Ultramid API, while taking much less RAM.
It also has some Soundblaster emulation functionality, but I never used that part.
Run megaem -i for the interactive mode, or use -gm / -mt respectively.

Thanks Elianda, kinda swamping atm with all that software in your pack...
This turns out better than I expected tbh , I now wish this was an ACE 🤣 , so it only took half of the space and resources 😁

hm, I decided to give megaem a spin, I can't get it to run:

tried versions 2.07 , 3.03 and 3.10 - all display the same error ... any clues why?

As I noted already above there is a problem with EMM386 in combination with too much memory installed (>= 64 MB).
The solution is to either use HIMEM.SYS 2.77 which came with MS-DOS 5 or QEMM386 instead of EMM386.
The older HIMEM.SYS limits the memory EMM386 can use. This make Megaem work again.
QEMM386 does not have this problem and works with any amount of RAM present in combination with megaem.

ah, missed that part before... I did try to limit available XMS and EMS with the ramdisk trisk, it did not help.
I've never messed with QEMM before, is there a recommended version of it? DId a quick test with QEMM97 (version 9) , megaem works and it actually kills the MPU401AT at port330 🤣 🤣 🤣

It traps the port accesses and the GUS should play instead. So you can choose just by loading megaem to use GUS (for GM games without GUS support) without changing the games sound setup.

You may also try ProPats 1.5 or 1.6 that change the instrument samples used, which is basically the same as changing the soundfont for later cards.

Demos and MOD players (Cubic, XTC, Capamod...) usually support the GUS natively.

Keropi i'd recommend you to use no more than 32MB. I use a 32MB DIMM and that's quite enough to have no troubles with EMM386 and Mega-EM. It's more than enough for DOS also.