From: gting@fraser.sfu.ca (Gabriel Sii Kuok Ting)
Subject: GUS: Got it today....!
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 05:46:55 GMT

Here I am, joining the throngs of Vancouverites who rushed to Software Alley
to grab the first batch of Ultrasounds to hit the market. Talked to the owner 
of the store who said that some guy from Norway ordered something like 20
GUS's from them - someone from Internet, that's for sure.

Well, having spent the last 5 hours or so fooling around with the board, I
must agree with Darren: this board HAS potential. As if the specs aren't 
impressive enough, Gravis HAD to colour their board red in a sea of green
cards. Interesting to note also that Gravis has opted to fit the boards
with 70ns chips as opposed to the 100ns we heard of earlier. But it's still
256k... :(

Good things aside, we HAD to be perfectionists and pick out the bugs, no? My
main gripe has to do with the SBOS emulator. The first two games I tried
out on the new GUS made me feel like throwing the card out the door. I was
prepared to post a scathing reply to all those who hyped up the card to no
end. Wing Commander 2 was virtually unplayable with the SB emulator. At least
on my 386dx-25 /w 4Mb RAM.(Could this be what all the 486'ers have been 
looking for to slow down the game??) No doubt the sound was mighty impressive,
hundreds of times better than my old SB, but the SPEED of them game.....
ARGH!! Haven't seen such jerkiness and overall slowness of a game since I
last played a VGA game on my old XT. Help, I need my paper bags...!!
Stunts was not much better, although the game suprisingly picked up speed
further on into the game. But still nowhere near the old speed with the SB.
That aside, the other games I tried worked almost flawlessly. Prince of Persia
worked like a charm as did a few other games I tried: Gods, Speedball 2 to name
a few. Ultima 7? Well..... the intro slowed down tremendously, but the actual
game itself was okay. Like, how much slower can you make the game run anyway?
:) THe part where the guardian speaks in the intro is a good example. The
graphics seem to run away from the sound, and all semblance of coordination
between jaw movement and speech was lost. Sound was lagging behind and at 
times, you could even hear echoes...

Now, to answer a few of the previously unanswered posts. The joystick port on
the card does support ports 200h and 201h, and has a speed compensating driver
for faster systems. For the SB emulator, Gravis does recommend a 386sx-16 or
higher if you're playing digitised audio. Like I said, even my dx-25 had 
trouble keeping up with it. 
The two pieces of software that Gravis had trouble with are Hare Raising Havoc
and JetFighter 2. Both these games are "not supported" by the SBOS driver.

Gripes aside, I do like the card. The way the instruments were simulated
by the card in SB emulation mode really gave a new dimension to the game,
although certain "emulations" produced pretty wierd results. In Gods, for
example, the usually loud explosions were subdued, almost inaudible while the
strings intro in Origin's FX games were really impressive. Can't wait for
the new batch of games which support the GUS's native mode to come out. EA,
are you listening?


Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard