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ElBrunzy wrote on 2020-06-24, 03:02:

Gravis Ultrasound was best used to play amiga music on pc. I think everyone that walk the extra mile to get a GUS do want to mak […]
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Gravis Ultrasound was best used to play amiga music on pc. I think everyone that walk the extra mile to get a GUS do want to make sure he listen to a module player that use the actual hardware.
So I started a list of player that use the GUS. Now I have to check out if they really use the gf1 or if they are just soft.

capacamod 3.14 +hard -soft
DMPC 2.6 ?hard ?soft
FAR Music System v1.00.5 ?hard ?soft
Galaxy Music Player 2.12 ?hard ?soft
Gusmod 2.11 ?hard ?soft
Inertia Player 1.22 ?hard ?soft
Jaleo 0.67h ?hard ?soft
JMP 1.00 ?hard ?soft
MusicDiscPlayer MDP V1.1 ?hard ?soft
Morgul Player 1.49 ?hard ?soft
Mpxplay v1.61 ?hard ?soft
Open Cubic Player 2.6.0pre6 ?hard ?soft
P669GU0.EXE ?hard ?soft
PMP v2.31 ?hard ?soft
TTA669 ?hard ?soft
ULTRA TRACKER I.VI ?hard ?soft
WOWII Version 2.0á ?hard ?soft
XTC-PLAY 0.97 ?hard ?soft

I will test each player over time and precise the board. If anyone feel like to contribute, any input is welcome.

Fast Tracker, Scream Tracker and Impulse Tracker, for example, as well as all other trackers could be used as players (I know I did). A lot of them supported the GUS as well .

darry wrote on 2020-06-24, 03:26:

A lot of them supported the GUS as well .

The question is not just if they supported GUS for playback, but if they actually used it for mixing instead of software.

jmarsh wrote on 2020-06-24, 03:39:

darry wrote on 2020-06-24, 03:26:

A lot of them supported the GUS as well .

The question is not just if they supported GUS for playback, but if they actually used it for mixing instead of software.

I know, but that is what the OP wants to verify . I am just providing some more "players" to add to his list of "players" to check for hardware mixing support .

I would hazard to guess that a majority of those that supported the GUS did use its hardware mixing abilities. At least the ones I have used used mentioned or bragged about the hardware mixing on GUS in the manual .

If the software is sufficiently old, it is very easy to determine if a software uses hardware mixing or not. Software mixing was always done without interpolation in the early days because a 486 couldn’t cope with > 16 channels and achieve the same quality as a hardware mixing device. If you use a player that does do software interpolation, you can also load a 32 channel XM with bright samples and compare, a GF1 chip will playback 32 channels at only 19 kHz and is easily distinguished from software mixing routines (or a GUS pnp using Interwave mode)

I was here to post my first update to the list and I was surprised but your enthusiast, it's unexpected but very appreciated. Of course I found that sometime it's not easy to determine if a player have just added gus output support to it's software mixing routine, since old player would not support modern format like xm or it.

I was also considering adding other OS, like mod4win, but that would also add alot of module player that rely on the OS for output playback. Maybe I will eventually trim down the list to the player that only support gus hardware mixing so that would make sense then.

@Darry: I really like your idea to add tracker as well, I just did not think about that. But I remember a saying back then that goes "if you want the best fidelity of a module reproduction, you better listen to it on the tracker it was made". Of course tracker are less convenient to listen to music than players, but I compare it to putting on a vinyl to listen to a music instead of starting an mp3 playlist. So I will definitively add trackers to the list, I just need time to gather a list... How dare you have forgotten 669 tracker and farandole composer ? 😉

@digistorm: I was also looking for that kind of way to determine if a player was using, the problem is that older player dont tend to support XM and some S3M that use more than 16 channels are uncommon and I'm not sure of them implementation. Maybe I will try to do one myself that would highligh interpolation, any suggestion about how to do that ? I was also thinking about compiling a svn of dosbox and adding some log to the gus code, like the # of channel used, but I would prefer the 32channel mod alternative first.

If you are creating your own test module, just take some noisy sample like a crash cymbal or a power snare with lots of reverb. Play it back at a very low pitch or resample it in Scream Tracker if you know how to do that. If the playback routine uses the GF1 chip it will generally sound much more muffled and soft as compared to those early players that didn’t do interpolation. Also, for example in Cubic Player that does support interpolation, if you have a software routine you can turn it off and it will sound harsh. With a hardware routine such a function will have no effect, it will sound exactly the same.

ElBrunzy wrote on 2020-06-24, 03:02:

metal 0.25 : REMOVED I can't even find that thing anymore

Check here: https://files.scene.org/view/resources/music/ … rs/metal027.zip
THat's the latest version I've been able to find. Once I'm through my current playlist I'll update my local copy (0.2pl5).

It may not play all formats, and it has ~0 user interface, but sound quality is definitely better than anything else I've tried for the files it does support. Particularly voice samples are much less painful than in OpenCubic or Capa.

/Eirik

Thanks Itning, I had lost metal 0.2pl5 by a manipulation error and I could not find it back. I searched quite a bit to get it back but was unsuccessful, so I'm quite grateful for you post.

I did put it as a hardware player because in the doc and command line it's question of sending sample to the gus ram. Indeed they mention about using the gus in a different way to produce some effect like surround and reverb. While I'm not a fan of such effect and usually defeat them even when there is dedicated hardward (like chorus/reverb on a awe32) I appreciate their effort to bring the sound on a gus somewhere else. They are not that really verbose about this different method, or maybe they are referring to how they made a format parser ? I agree they sound a bit different than other player, but I'm not going to say I prefer it. Also modules that rely on effects like amiga chip tunes sound odd, and out of tune. For instance L.F.F. by 4mat really do not sound right. Maybe it work best with more natural music ? What is that module with voices you are referring to ?

Wow, my Player is in the list. 😀 (Mod Master)
I may add support for the interwave if I find one.
(Ebay prices justed rized suddenly, all GUS are more than 300€)

You can also add the File format supported, and replay quality. 😀

ElBrunzy wrote on 2021-03-26, 03:41:

Thanks Itning, I had lost metal 0.2pl5 by a manipulation error and I could not find it back. I searched quite a bit to get it back but was unsuccessful, so I'm quite grateful for you post.

I did put it as a hardware player because in the doc and command line it's question of sending sample to the gus ram. Indeed they mention about using the gus in a different way to produce some effect like surround and reverb. While I'm not a fan of such effect and usually defeat them even when there is dedicated hardward (like chorus/reverb on a awe32) I appreciate their effort to bring the sound on a gus somewhere else. They are not that really verbose about this different method, or maybe they are referring to how they made a format parser ? I agree they sound a bit different than other player, but I'm not going to say I prefer it. Also modules that rely on effects like amiga chip tunes sound odd, and out of tune. For instance L.F.F. by 4mat really do not sound right. Maybe it work best with more natural music ? What is that module with voices you are referring to ?

I'll try to dig out some examples. You're right that not all tunes sound/play right, but isn't that the case with all players? I remember back in the day I knew quite well which tunes (sometimes even which musician) would work best with which player; iplayer, cp, ft2, dmp .. I can't remember half of them. Is there a list/ranking somewhere? :)

There was an aweplay or somesuch as well, I remember I was stoked to find it after I got my AWE32 back then. But sadly it was buggy both in terms of playback and stability, and it refused to work right in OS/2. Then I got a GUS and .. well.

N-Play does also do HW mixing on the GUS: http://www.prodatron.net/nfactor.htm

Hi,
Just saw that you forgot my other player, USMPlay. 😀
https://demozoo.org/sceners/48554/

https://files.scene.org/search/?q=u_smp

Hi, thank you guys for taking the time to add some players to the list. Also providing source location greatly help me.

@Rawit : What make you say that N-Play do HW Mixing on the GUS ? The documentation or interface is not verbose at all on that matter. The maximum sample it manage before complaining about "out of memory" seem to be around 1024kb so that's a sign that it could use hardware mixing, but could also be another limitation. That's why I'm curious about your inducement of claim.

@FreddyY : I'm sorry but I dont think I will add library to the list. If I add your, I would feel that I should also add all the others, and why not trackers, musicdisk or demos. So even if some players interface are so minimal they feel like a lib demos, I decided to cut the line at standalone players for now. Does your Mpx player use USMPlay routines ? Maybe I could mention that in the list ?

ElBrunzy wrote on 2021-12-18, 19:49:

@FreddyY : I'm sorry but I dont think I will add library to the list. If I add your, I would feel that I should also add all the others, and why not trackers, musicdisk or demos. So even if some players interface are so minimal they feel like a lib demos, I decided to cut the line at standalone players for now. Does your Mpx player use USMPlay routines ? Maybe I could mention that in the list ?

I don't know mpxplay.

Reading your list I made the confusion between mpcplay and mxmplay that is a ligrary as well 😀

@FreedyV: No idea why I wrote Mpx Player 🤪, I meant "does your Mod Master player use USMPlay routines?". The reason MXMPlay made the list is that the library came with a compiled player as an example... I see it seem to be the case of your player as well, I'll take a look at it ASAP and add it to the list.

Yes there is a command line player 😀
For your info, USMPLay is one of the most .XM accurate players 😀

Mod Master is different, it work in real mode on 8086, USMplay is in Assembly 32Bit

@ElBrunze N-Play uses the routines from Digitrakker as stated in the readme. Digitrakker uses hardware mixing (from the manual):

This list contains all output-frequencys for every number of active channels. This list can't be edited, when GUS is choosen as sound-device.

But to test it I should try to create some simple tracker songs with a looping test tone. One with 1 channel in use, another with 32 channels in use so that the sample rate drop is audible.