garyglitta wrote on 2023-01-07, 01:01:

most recently a GUS extreme - basically a GF1 + ESS audiodrive in one. Pretty awesome card for a retro gamer imo, coupled with a roland SCC1 it gives pretty much the perfect setup for any DOS era game you might want to play.

A GUS Extreme + Roland card (SCC-1 or MPU-401AT + wavetable) is IMHO the ultimate DOS sound card setup.

I tried this combo in my 486 DX2/66 setup and everything worked perfectly. It was the one of the best/smoothest experiences I've had with sound cards under DOS.

Back in the day I used a Sb16 + yamaha wavetable. A friend had a GUS back then, but he mostly hated it because on shitty SB compatibility.

I have a 1MB GUS and PNP model now in the collection (somewhere) but still prefer and SB + midi.

I will tell what it’s like NOT to own one cause I don’t.
I had an opportunity to purchase a used one some years back at the cost of $200 but I did not buy one.

What I really want is an Orpheus and Wave table X2-GS.

So I would rather spend my money on that.
At least it’s NEW.

I have a Sound Blaster X3 at home on a modern computer and the Audio Quality out of it is Amazing compared to old
ISA and PCI sound cards. So I am pretty sure I will never get that type of Sound Clarity out of old Sound cards.
So I am NOT going to waist my time and Money trying to.

My Goals are to Build Affordable Best compatibility computers for DOS Game play. I don’t do Audio recording.
I just play DOS Games on Retro computers.

So I build my Retro computers based on what version of DOS or Windows I plan on running and that dictates what games I plan
On playing.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2023-01-07, 11:57:

I have a Sound Blaster X3 at home on a modern computer and the Audio Quality out of it is Amazing compared to old
ISA and PCI sound cards. So I am pretty sure I will never get that type of Sound Clarity out of old Sound cards.

While it's true that a lot of older cards aren't that great when it comes to sound quality (especially older Creative Labs cards), there are some brands/cards (including the GUS) that have good signal-to-noise ratio.

I know there are some one-off tests of cards like the GUS re: noise levels, but it might be interesting to do a broad comparison to see how they perform relative to each other. And especially versus newer cards like the Orpheus.

I always thought, at least during the DOS ISA era, the Turtle Beach Mutisound offered the lowest noise and best SN ratio.

The problem is, no games supported it, and I don't think it had any SB-compatible mode at all. So, it was highly "useless" for any gaming, in spite of its excellent audio engineering qualities.

Not to sound like I'm bragging, but I love my GUSes ( 3 Interwave based ones, one GUS Max and one classic) and have done so since the 90s, but other than demo scenes productions, trackers and a few select games (Jazz Jackrabbit, Star Control, Epic Pinball, OMF 2097, etc), the GUS doesn't really have that much to offer in this age of relatively affordable GM/GS legacy hardware and softsynths .

SBOS sucks .
MegaEM can be decent when it works, but it can be a pain .

IMHO, like 3dfx hardware, reality does not really live up to the legend for Gravis hardware .

My perspective is that of someone who has ben hoarding both 3Dfx and Gravis hardware since the 90s, just because .

darry wrote on 2023-01-08, 03:48:

IMHO, like 3dfx hardware, reality does not really live up to the legend for Gravis hardware .

At least early 3dfx cards were more useful than a GUS overall even during its heyday, their drivers were the most optimized ones for slower computers.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-01-08, 16:23:

darry wrote on 2023-01-08, 03:48:

IMHO, like 3dfx hardware, reality does not really live up to the legend for Gravis hardware .

At least early 3dfx cards were more useful than a GUS overall even during its heyday, their drivers were the most optimized ones for slower computers.

From a gaming perspective, a standalone GUS was never that great, but combine a GUS with Sound Blaster clone and you had a good thing going, IMHO. MegaEM for MIDI was decent and rather reliable in its later iterations (it could even work with protected mode games if your GUS rev was 3 or newer ). This was the preferred setup for pretty much all GUS owners that I knew back in the day.

If one was a demo scene fan, the GUS was very useful indeed. Mine got a lot use that way .

Another thing to keep in mind is that 3dfx hardware become affordable rather quickly while style being pretty much the fastest and best looking (image quality) 3D accelerator in the consumer segment at launch (and stayed a very strong contender for a while).

In contrast, the GUS was never "the best" at anything except hardware mixing. It was never really good at sound blaster compatibility and while it had a decent patchset and patch caching ability, it had no real FX engine (until the Interwave based ones came about, and that sounded rather cheesy, IMHO). The Roland SC-55 was much better for MIDI (albeit only ROM based) and had a great FX engine . However, the SC-55 cost 795$ US (list price) in 1992 according to [1], whereas a GUS was 199$ US (list price) (street price as low as 130$ US) according to [2] at around the same time. Also, were there many other GM compatible alternatives in 1992 in the GUS' price range that at least provided some degree of sound blaster compatibility and General MIDI support ?

IMHO, that made the GUS quite useful and affordable, at least until Creative Labs mostly caught up .

[1]
https://books.google.ca/books?id=a2YTCyIAwwIC … 20sc-55&f=false

[2]
https://books.google.ca/books?id=RjY3gFmnC8UC … rasound&f=false

darry wrote on 2023-01-08, 17:39:

From a gaming perspective, a standalone GUS was never that great, but combine a GUS with Sound Blaster clone and you had a good […]
Show full quote

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-01-08, 16:23:

darry wrote on 2023-01-08, 03:48:

IMHO, like 3dfx hardware, reality does not really live up to the legend for Gravis hardware .

At least early 3dfx cards were more useful than a GUS overall even during its heyday, their drivers were the most optimized ones for slower computers.

From a gaming perspective, a standalone GUS was never that great, but combine a GUS with Sound Blaster clone and you had a good thing going, IMHO. MegaEM for MIDI was decent and rather reliable in its later iterations (it could even work with protected mode games if your GUS rev was 3 or newer ). This was the preferred setup for pretty much all GUS owners that I knew back in the day.

If one was a demo scene fan, the GUS was very useful indeed. Mine got a lot use that way .

Another thing to keep in mind is that 3dfx hardware become affordable rather quickly while style being pretty much the fastest and best looking (image quality) 3D accelerator in the consumer segment at launch (and stayed a very strong contender for a while).

In contrast, the GUS was never "the best" at anything except hardware mixing. It was never really good at sound blaster compatibility and while it had a decent patchset and patch caching ability, it had no real FX engine (until the Interwave based ones came about, and that sounded rather cheesy, IMHO). The Roland SC-55 was much better for MIDI (albeit only ROM based) and had a great FX engine . However, the SC-55 cost 795$ US (list price) in 1992 according to [1], whereas a GUS was 199$ US (list price) (street price as low as 130$ US) according to [2] at around the same time. Also, were there many other GM compatible alternatives in 1992 in the GUS' price range that at least provided some degree of sound blaster compatibility and General MIDI support ?

IMHO, that made the GUS quite useful and affordable, at least until Creative Labs mostly caught up .

[1]
https://books.google.ca/books?id=a2YTCyIAwwIC … 20sc-55&f=false

[2]
https://books.google.ca/books?id=RjY3gFmnC8UC … rasound&f=false

Indeed, I mentioned the actual usefulness of the GUS on my first post in this thread. Mine worked very well with MegaEm for MIDI stuff.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-04-15, 22:15:

I mainly enjoy it for hearing tracker music and watching demoscene stuff (they do some clever programming despite the lack of user interaction) where that sound card was loved too much for its capabilities.

Lacking real Sound Blaster support it wasn't that useful in games except for MIDI playback. However, there were some which properly took advantage of the GUS such as Jazz Jackrabbit and Zone 66 (which has a totally different music) where in slower machines it gave high sound quality without decreasing the performance.

Not much to add from my perspective as I agree with what most users have already said.

I never owned a GUS back in the day but was always curious to find out how it performed with certain games & demo's that did support it. I kept an eye out for a while as I wasn't going to pay the exorbitant prices on eBay but, was fortunate enough to find a Compaq Ultra-Sound (GUS PnP clone) for about $65.

I finally managed to get this card to work properly after numerous times of flashing between the Compaq EEPROM & the GUS EEPROM and, copying over files from the original GUS PnP Pro (to enable GUS classic compatibility). At some point, I even thought that the card was faulty. Fortunately, I know my way around DOS based systems but, I can imagine how frustrating this must have been for some novice users back in the day.

Similar here. I was very young in the 90s and wasn't completely aware of the PC scene.

But even if I was, the GUS was out of reach, anyway.
Not just because of money, but my 286 PC alone was too weak for it.
All the V86 tricks wouldn't have worked.

I had been a happy PAS16 owner, though.
And like the GUS, the PAS16 was a rival to the Sound Blasters.
So I kind of could relate to the other "underdogs" out there.

Both cards were quite advanced for its time, had clean audio and a focus on music creation.
There even was a MOD player that shipped with the PAS16 disks.

Anyway, I often wondered what these "GUS" settings in games and demoscene productions were good for.

Looking back, the GUS feels strangely familiar.
It somehow feels like a sister to the Super Nintendo (SPC-700) or Amiga.

Edit: And let's don't forget MOD4WIN, of course. I had read its help file over and over and learned about its GUS support.

Also not an owner but those other options in dos game setup always intrigued me.
HighTreason's PAS video talked me out of getting one, It's not a bad card but don't really offer much over SB Compatible cards to justify the price.
I'll always want a GUS, but it would only be a few Epic Megagame titles I play that take advantage of it and for those few titles and even less time I spend playing them I can't justify the price.
I have splashed out a few MIDI devices as it's commonly used but seems like I'll be stuck with Creative and its clones forever for sound

I use a
Sound Blaster Pro 2.0
Sound Blaster 16
Media Vision PAS-16
Turtle beach Monte Carlo

In my 386 and 486 and 586 computers and they work fine.
Some make a little noise on boot up but not much.
Most don’t make noise and produce clear audio.

chinny22 wrote on 2023-01-09, 16:49:

I'll always want a GUS, but it would only be a few Epic Megagame titles I play that take advantage of it and for those few titles and even less time I spend playing them I can't justify the price.

There's a patch by @keropi for all the Epic Megagames titles which makes them sound quite good on a SB16.

chinny22 wrote on 2023-01-09, 16:49:

I have splashed out a few MIDI devices as it's commonly used but seems like I'll be stuck with Creative and its clones forever for sound

The PicoGUS project is getting closer and closer to reality. The current, early version will already play a lot of stuff. When completed it will be an emulated, hardware version, a more or less functional GUS alternative, giving all of the meaningful benefits, for a cost price of comfortably under $50.

PicoGUS: ISA sound card emulator with Raspberry Pi Pico (Gravis Ultrasound, AdLib, MPU-401, Tandy, CMS)
https://github.com/polpo/picogus

Not only that, but other modules are being developed to allow further (non-GUS) features. It'll be for people like you and me for whom real GUS's aren't an option. I'm starting my build soon, when components finish arriving. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the most exciting ISA bus projects ever.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-01-09, 19:13:

chinny22 wrote on 2023-01-09, 16:49:

I'll always want a GUS, but it would only be a few Epic Megagame titles I play that take advantage of it and for those few titles and even less time I spend playing them I can't justify the price.

There's a patch by @keropi for all the Epic Megagames titles which makes them sound quite good on a SB16.

Yeh I've no real problem with soundblaster but the games were designed with GUS in mind, kind of like say Doom and a SC55, sure other midi modules sound good, maybe even better, but back of your mind you still want the "authentic" sound like the developers intended.

Shreddoc wrote on 2023-01-09, 20:56:

chinny22 wrote on 2023-01-09, 16:49:

The PicoGUS project is getting closer and closer to reality. The current, early version will already play a lot of stuff. When c […]
Show full quote

The PicoGUS project is getting closer and closer to reality. The current, early version will already play a lot of stuff. When completed it will be an emulated, hardware version, a more or less functional GUS alternative, giving all of the meaningful benefits, for a cost price of comfortably under $50.

PicoGUS: ISA sound card emulator with Raspberry Pi Pico (Gravis Ultrasound, AdLib, MPU-401, Tandy, CMS)
https://github.com/polpo/picogus

Not only that, but other modules are being developed to allow further (non-GUS) features. It'll be for people like you and me for whom real GUS's aren't an option. I'm starting my build soon, when components finish arriving. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the most exciting ISA bus projects ever.

Cool! I knew about the Argus project but this one escaped me somehow, and as you say bit closer to my budget, thanks for the heads up!

Sound from my PC was only built-in PC speaker from 1991 to late 1995 or even early 1996. I upgraded from 286 to 486slc to 386DX to 486DX2 to Pentium-90 and never added a sound card. You can image my priorities 🤣

So sound department wasn't/isn't very high on my list and I never had something special. My first sound card was SB16 Value. Can't remember the exact model anymore. Had it till I upgraded it to SBLive in 2000 and later to SB Audigy. I still have the Audigy in my retired primary desktop PC built in 2011 and lasted till last year. So this is my background - boring 🤣

It was this forum that got me more interested in different sound cards... over the years I've managed to get all the "cool" stuff - even several GUS cards... but due to time constraints I've never really taken the time needed to appreciate them - like many many other components... Maybe sometime in the future...