From: mig@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Meir I Green)
Subject: Re: PAS-16: Beware
Reply-To: mig@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Meir I Green)
Organization: Columbia University, New York
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 07:01:32 GMT

In article <1993Jan13.234038.12133@wixer.cactus.org> reaper@wixer.cactus.org (Keath Milligan) writes:
>I recently "upgraded" (not) from a Sound Blaster Pro to the Pro Audio
>Spectrum 16.  I bought the PAS-16 as part of the "Fusion CD/16" multimedia
>kit which included the sound card, a Sony CD-ROM drive, speakers and a few
>discs.  It was a good deal -- I thought -- then I tried to get it working.
>
>I'd like to encourage people considering the PAS-16 to look into the Gravis
>Ultra Sound or another sound card.
>
>Reason 1:
>
>The only significant feature that the PAS-16 offers over the Sound-Blaster
>is 16 bit sampling.  The PAS-16 and Sound Blaster Pro both use the Yamaha
>YMF262 OPL-3 FM synth chip -- therefore even if a piece of software were
>written specifically for the PAS-16 (you could count on one hand the number
>of major games that support the PAS-16 specifically) it's music and sound
>effects would be no better.  While a game COULD have nice 16-bit samples, I
>don't think you will see many that will because it takes up twice the space
>and just isn't that much better unless you're at some ungodly high bit rate
>like 44.1k.

Unless you want to record some cool startup sounds, yourself.

>Reason 2:  (this is an easy one to miss, but it's important)
>The PAS-16 requires that you load a special DOS driver called MVSOUND.SYS --
>eating up precious 1st-meg memory.  In order to run some games, such as Wing
>Command II, you may have to give up some functionality (such as your mouse
>driver).  This is a primitive architecture -- no DOS driver should be
>required.  Media Vision has promised to eliminate this driver in the future
>for Windows, but it hasn't happened yet.

If you happen to have a 386 or better and OS/2, the mvsound driver takes up
an insignificant amount of memory in the DOS box.  For the PCM functions,
you need to boot DOS, however the SB section has been great under OS/2!

The OS/2 drivers are another story, but the betas are now available on
ftp-os2.nmsu.edu.

>Reason 3:
>
>Installation of the sound card was an absolute nightmare -- among the many
>things the installation guide didn't feel was important enough to mention
>was that the volume level, by default, is virtually inaudible (even with
>the speaker volume turned all the up).  Despite having a FRESH installation
>of Windows 3.1, the PAS-16 install program consistently fails to recognize
>it as being Windows 3.1.  The settings for IRQ and DMA the install program
>generates will not work until you manually re-edit them.  Why have an
>install program at all if you have to go back and do it manually anyway?
>After two days of grief and reading all the supplied (and badly written)
>documentation cover-to-cover, I was FINALLY able to get the thing working.

I agree Windows setup was a pain.
But the auto DMA/IRQ is easier than most other cards.
Hmm...what are you running under Windows?
You didn't buy it for the DOS games!?

>Reason 4:
>The PAS-16's MIDI handling is not as good as the SoundBlaster Pro's.  I still
>have both cards and I've compared them.  The PAS-16 MIDI implementation is
>simply inferior -- the only way to get the Windows canyon.mid demo to play
>without sounding like notes are stepping on themselves is to disable most of
>the channels (and hence most of the music).  Even after extensive editing of
>my MIDI mapper setups and patch maps, the PAS-16 still doesn't show off my
>system as well as the SoundBlaster Pro.  Another minor problem with PAS-16
>MIDI is that when you are playing files using an external MIDI device and
>you stop the file in mid-note, the PAS-16 drivers leave the note blaring
>(the Sound Blaster drivers never did this).

I haven't had this problem at all.
Then again, I am not using windows, but WIN-OS2 3.1.

>Reason 5:
>The PAS-16 drivers, either the MVSOUND.SYS or one of the Windows drivers
>(who knows with all these redundant drivers) crashes periodically when
>recording or playing back samples -- again, the Sound Blaster never did
>this.

Never had this happen under DOS or OS/2.
Ever!  Then again, I don't know what you are doing with your "redundant
Windows drivers".

>Reason 6:  (this is the clincher)
>When I decided it was time to call MediaVision tech support; I was, after
>holding the line for about 20 minutes, asked to give a telephone number
>where I could be reached in a *FULL WEEK*.  "They're really backed up right
>now", the rude, gum-smacking receptionist-type tells me.  A WEEK.  That's
>technical support????  I thought crap like that went the way of the
>Commodore 64.

On this I agree 100%.
IBM tech support is phenominable and MV has been abominable.
However, I appreciate the fact that they are developing OS/2 drivers and
that I am able to contact the developer directly via *e-mail*.

>I'm faxing a copy of this to Media Vision for their reading enjoyment.
>
>Hey, I know things aren't always easy, but a consumer product should never
>be this much of a bitch.  I can set up my UNIX box (with networking and
>all) from scratch in less time than it took me to get this silly sound card
>working -- in fact, it only took me a few hours to get ISC system working
>the FIRST time I installed it and ISC is NOTORIOUS for being a pain.
>
>It took about 15 minutes to get my SoundBlaster Pro working when I first got
>it. I just plugged it in and it worked, go figure.

Well installing OS/2 definitely took more than 15 minutes, and I am never
going back!

As for MV, we shall see.
They will need to keep me as a customer by working on a couple of problems
and making new technology available to me at a good upgrade price.

>Apparently, I'm not the only one who has had trouble with Media Vision
>products:  In the latest issue of PC Mag. they have an article on the
>"Fusion CD" package (which is the same basic thing I bought except it comes
>with the PAS+ instead of the PAS-16).  PC Mag pretty much recounted the same
>installation nightmare I experienced.
>
>I'm keeping the PAS-16 until I decide to upgrade to a REAL sound card like a
>Turtle Beach Multisound.  But in the future, I'll be avoiding Media Vision
>products like the plague.
>-- 
>oooooo ooo o o  o            Keath Milligan            o  o  ooooo oooo oooooo
>oooo oo ooo  o   o   Prometheus Light and Sound, Inc.   o   o  o ooooooooooooo
>oooooooo o oo  o         Real/Time Communications        o    o o ooo oooooooo
>oooooo oooo ooo  o  internet: reaper@wixer.cactus.org  o   o  o ooo oo ooooooo

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* * * * * * == Meir I. Green == AmateurPkt N2JPG@W2XO.PA.USA.NOAM
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard