Sound, Music & MIDI Collection 2

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MEGA-EM VERSION 1.00B005 (Beta) USERS MANUAL Copyright (C) 1993 Jayeson Lee-Steere CONTENTS. 1. Legal Information 2.1 Introduction 2.2 System Requirements 3. Installation 4. Mega-Em Usage 4.1 Loading Mega-Em and Configuring the Emulation. 4.1.1 Overview 4.1.2 MEGAEM.EXE Command Line Options 4.1.3 EMUSET.EXE Command Line Options 4.1.4 The Default Options Files 4.2 Configuring Software For Use With Mega-Em. 4.3 A Step by Step Example. 5. Compatibility Problems With Various Software 4.1 Software that requires 386 protected mode and can not run under a memory manager. 4.2 Microsoft Windows in Enhanced Mode. 4.3 Specific software with known compatibility problems. 4.3.1 Hardball 3, Winter Games, Summer Games etc. 4.3.2 Strike Commander. 4.3.3 Terminator 2029 (and possibly Wayne Gretsky Hockey 3) (Roland). 4.3.4 Gateway (Roland). 4.3.5 SBOS and UltraMID. 4.3.6 Falcon 3 and 386MAX. 4.3.7 The Incredible Machine (General MIDI) 4.3.8 The Seventh Guest (Roland) 6. Solutions to Commonly Encountered Problems. Mega-Em Users Manual Copyright (C) 1993 Jayeson Lee-Steere Page 2 1. LEGAL INFORMATION. This software and documentation are protected by copyright law, with all rights reserved. Copyright is held by the author, Jayeson Lee-Steere. This software is provided as-is. Jayeson Lee-Steere makes no warranties, express or implied, and does not warrant that the software will be fit for any particular purpose. Jayeson Lee-Steere will in no event be liable for loss of profits, nor incidental or consequential damages. You use this software at your own risk. This software may not be modified, disassembled or reverse engineered in any way, except by the author, Jayeson Lee-Steere. Mega-Em may be distributed in unmodified shareware form freely, provided no charge is made for it, with the exclusion of BBS (Bulletin Board System) service charges. Shareware vendors may NOT charge any fee for distributing this software. Users are entitled to use Mega-Em free of charge for a trial period of thirty days. If the user wishes to use Mega-Em beyond this trial period, he/she must register Mega-Em. Mega-Em may not be distributed in registered form by and means or form. This includes distribution of the file REGISTER.CFG and registration numbers. Registration entitles the user to non-exclusive rights to use Mega-Em indefinitely. Registrations are non-transferable and non-redeemable. All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Read the file REGISTER.DOC for information on how to register Mega-Em. Mega-Em Users Manual Copyright (C) 1993 Jayeson Lee-Steere Page 3 2.1 INTRODUCTION. Mega-Em is a software program which allows you to emulate sound devices other than those present in your system. Currently Mega-Em is limited to emulating Roland sound devices using a Gravis Ultrasound (GUS) sound card. However Mega-Em has been designed for expansion. If enough interest is shown regarding some other form of emulation, it will be added. For example Sound Blaster emulation through the Ultrasound card is already planned. The major driving force behind the development of Mega-Em was the need for widespread game support which could take full advantage of the power of the Ultrasound card. While SBOS is a technically brilliant piece of software, it does not realize the full potential of the Ultrasound. Emulating a the music part of an Adlib/Sound Blaster card just doesn't offer the 'raw materials' to work with. Hence Roland sound devices were chosen for the primary device to be emulated. Most importantly they are heavily supported in games software. Secondly they are MIDI devices, and most people would agree that the Ultrasound does an excellent job of playing MIDI files. Secondly, for the most part, they have a fixed number of instruments (less than 200). In contrast the FM chips of the AdLib/Sound Blaster are capable of producing thousands of different sounds. If you have heard a Roland Sound card, you will probably find that the output of Mega-Em sounds very different from one of these. However Mega-Em was not designed to duplicate the sound of Roland Cards. It was designed as a means of adding support to the Ultrasound Card. That is what MIDI is all about: compatibility between different systems. Mega-Em Users Manual Copyright (C) 1993 Jayeson Lee-Steere Page 4 2.2 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS. Mega-Em currently requires the following to function correctly: A 386 or better AT class personal computer. A hard drive. A Gravis Ultrasound card (or no sound output). An Expanded Memory Manager, such as EMM386.EXE, QEMM386 or 386MAX. Approximately 64k of free Expanded Memory (EMS). Mega-Em uses no low DOS memory (i.e. Memory in the 1st megabyte). NOTES: Future versions of Mega-Em may support other sound devices. Adaptec SCSI users MUST read section 4.1.2 of this manual. 3. INSTALLATION. To install Mega-Em to your hard drive do the following. Step 1. Make and enter a directory where you wish to install Mega-Em. For example if you wish to install to the directory C:\MEGAEM, type the following: C: <ENTER> MD \MEGAEM <ENTER> CD \MEGAEM <ENTER> Step 2. Unzip the Mega-Em distribution archive into this directory. For example if the archive is on a floppy disk in drive A:, you would type: PKUNZIP A:\MEGEM* <ENTER> Step 3. It is now recommended that you add the Mega-Em directory to your path. Only experienced users should try other methods such as creating aliases for all the executables. To add this directory to your path do the following: Edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT file (in the root directory of your boot drive) using a text editor. eg: EDIT AUTOEXEC.BAT <ENTER> Look for a line that starts with PATH= or SET PATH=. eg: PATH=C:\DOS;C:\ULTRASND Add the directory name to the end of this line. For the above example the line should look like this: PATH=C:\DOS;C:\ULTRASND;C:\MEGAEM Save the file. Reboot your computer. Mega-Em is now installed and ready to use. Mega-Em Users Manual Copyright (C) 1993 Jayeson Lee-Steere Page 5 4. MEGA-EM USAGE. 4.1 LOADING MEGA-EM AND CONFIGURING THE EMULATION. 4.1.1 OVERVIEW Mega-Em consists of two main parts. The first being the MEGAEM.EXE executable which must be loaded first to provide your system with emulation capability. This program should be considered a driver: just loading this alone will not allow you to emulate anything. The second is the EMUSET.EXE executable which allows you to turn any emulation on or off, and control which devices Mega-Em will emulate (e.g. MT-32 or Sound Canvas). For example, first load MEGAEM.EXE by typing: MEGAEM [options] <ENTER> Valid MEGAEM.EXE options are listed in section 4.1.2, and are optional. Assuming there were no problems, you should see INSTALATION SUCESSFULL printed on the screen, and the resident driver portion of Mega-Em will now be in memory. In most cases you should be able to leave MEGAEM.EXE loaded indefinitely, switching emulation on and off as needed with EMUSET.EXE. You can uninstall Mega-Em from memory at any time by typing MEGAEM /U. Now when you wish to run a program requiring emulation, type: EMUSET [options] <ENTER> Valid EMUSET.EXE options are listed in section 4.1.3, and are optional. Mega-Em will now be configured for the emulation you specified, and you are ready to run your software. Note that when emulation is active and using a Gravis Ultrasound Card, Mega-Em hides the Ultrasound from any other programs. Be careful to disable emulation by typing EMUSET OFF before running any 'native' Ultrasound software. In addition it is recommended that you run EMUSET between running different software programs, as this will reset Mega-Em internally. Confused? Read on. There is a step by step example in section 4.3 4.1.2 MEGAEM.EXE COMMAND LINE OPTIONS The following options can be added to the MEGAEM.EXE command line. As can be seen all options should be preceded by a '/', but can also be preceded by a '-', or just separated by a space. /H or /? Display the MEGAEM.EXE help screen, which is basically a shortened version of this section of the manual. /U or /F Uninstall Mega-Em from memory. Can also be referred to a removing or freeing Mega-Em from memory. This option should normally only be used with no other options on the command line. Mega-Em Users Manual Copyright (C) 1993 Jayeson Lee-Steere Page 6 /Rx Specifies the output device for Roland emulation. Default is /R2 (Gravis Ultrasound Card). /R1 No output device. This option will make no sound. It will however display numbers or a line at the top of the screen when Roland music commands are received by Mega-Em. Primarily for identifying emulation compatibility problems with software. /R2 Gravis Ultrasound Card. Much better sound quality than the /R1 option. /REG Register Mega-Em. You will be prompted to enter your Registration information. This will only need to be done once, unless you reinstall Mega-Em to your hard drive or make major changes to your hardware (e.g. new hard drives, motherboard, computer, etc). It is not dependent on any changes in your software configuration. Registering Mega-Em guarantees further developments to Mega-Em and also allows you to use Mega-Em beyond the short demonstration period. See REGISTER.DOC for details on how to register. /P Enable Adaptec (or compatible) SCSI controller protection. IMPORTANT: Adaptec SCSI users must read this. Failure to read and understand this option may result in loss of data on SCSI drives. If you are not using an Adaptec SCSI device ignore this option. Mega-Em requires special consideration when used with some Adaptec SCSI devices. Many Adaptec SCSI controllers are factory set to operate at an I/O base address of 330 (hex). Check your controller manual, if your controller is not set to this address, you do not need to use this option. If you can change the base address of your card, it is recommended that you do so and avoid using this option. What's the big deal you ask? Well unfortunately 330 (hex) is also the default base address for the Roland MPU-401 MIDI interface (i.e. Roland sound devices). This means any software attempting to access a Roland card will instead access the SCSI controller, resulting in the controller crashing, and possible loss of data. In addition, without the /P option, Mega-Em will consider any SCSI drivers to be Roland software, stopping the SCSI controller from getting any commands, resulting a guaranteed system crash. Mega-Em overcomes the problem by distinguishing between Roland and SCSI software. Any software loaded into the low 640k memory area BEFORE Mega-Em, and any software in the ROM BIOS/High Memory area is considered to be SCSI software. Any software loaded into the low 640k memory area after Mega-Em is considered to be Roland software. Mega-Em Users Manual Copyright (C) 1993 Jayeson Lee-Steere Page 7 This is far from ideal. You must never load any SCSI software which accesses the controller directly into low memory after Mega-Em (including AFDISK.EXE). More importantly you must never load any Roland software into High Memory, or before Mega-Em. If you do not correctly understand what this option does and are using an Adaptec SCSI device, please do not use Mega-Em until you do understand. 4.1.3 EMUSET.EXE COMMAND LINE OPTIONS The following options can be added to the EMUSET.EXE command line. As can be seen all options should be preceded by a '/', but can also be preceded by a '-', or just separated by a space. /H or /? Display the EMUSET.EXE help screen, which is basically a shortened version of this section of the manual. /OFF Turns emulation off. The default is to turn emulation on. For example just typing EMUSET <ENTER> will activate the emulation, with default options. Typing EMUSET /OFF <ENTER> will then disable any emulation. /SC Emulate a Roland Sound Canvas (General MIDI device). The default is to emulate a Roland MT-32/LAPC1. In most cases this option will give better performance than the MT-32 emulation, however only a limited amount of software has direct support for Sound Canvas/ General MIDI. /Vxx Specify the number of Ultrasound voices used for emulation output. The valid range for xx is 14 to 32, with the default being 22. Using a larger number of voices increases the number of simultaneous notes that can be played, but also lowers the output sampling rate and hence the sound quality. 4.1.4 THE DEFAULT OPTIONS FILES. Since many users will use some options all of the time (such as /P), Mega-Em supports the ability to make these default. For both MEGAEM.EXE and EMUSET.EXE you can create a single line text file containing options you would like to be automatically added to the command line. The files should be named MEGAEM.OPT and EMUSET.OPT respectively. For example if you want always use the /P option, create a single line text file called MEGAEM.OPT in your Mega-Em directory, where the first line reads: /P These text files can be created with any text editor, including the EDIT program supplied with DOS 5 or DOS 6. Mega-Em Users Manual Copyright (C) 1993 Jayeson Lee-Steere Page 8 4.2 CONFIGURING YOUR SOFTWARE FOR USE WITH MEGA-EM. Software programs are configured for different sound devices in many different ways. Some will attempt to auto-detect sound devices and use the best one it finds, others will prompt you during the running of the program. Most common is the use of a setup program, usually called SETUP, INSTALL or CONFIG. Others require you to delete a configuration file, after which you will be able to change the configuration. For the correct procedure for a specific program, you should consult the program's manual. Ok, I know how to configure my software, now what? Well first make sure Mega-Em is loaded and emulation is on. If the program is of the type that auto-detects, just run it and it should detect the devices you are emulating. If you are prompted to select sound devices, select the ones you have set up your emulation for. But there is too many options there. What do I pick? For the Roland MT-32 emulation you should look for 'MT-32' or 'LAPC1'. Some software just has 'Roland' as an option. This usually refers to the MT-32. For the Roland Sound Canvas emulation you should look for 'Sound Canvas', 'SCC1' or 'General MIDI'. Remember that if you select this option you must run EMUSET /SC <ENTER>, otherwise Mega-Em will by default emulate a MT-32. If you have the option of MT-32 or Sound Canvas, in most cases selecting Sound Canvas will give better performance. Now the program is asking for my sound card settings. What should they be? If prompted for a MIDI interface, you should select Roland MPU-401. If prompted for a base address, you must select 330 (hex). If you a prompted for an IRQ setting, you should select IRQ 2/9. You should now be ready to run your software. Always remember to load Mega-Em and turn emulation on before running the software. Many programs will crash if set up for a music device, and are then unable to locate it. Mega-Em Users Manual Copyright (C) 1993 Jayeson Lee-Steere Page 9 4.3 A STEP BY STEP EXAMPLE. This example assumes you have already installed Mega-Em on your hard drive. In addition, it is assumed you have consulted you program's manual and it states you configure your sound options with a program called INSTALL, and the program is run by typing START <ENTER>. Step 1. Load MEGAEM.EXE by tying MEGAEM <ENTER>. If you need to use any options type MEGAEM options <ENTER>. Step 2. Turn on emulation by typing EMUSET <ENTER>. Many programs will only allow you to select sound devices it can detect. Step 3. Load you program's installation program by typing INSTALL <ENTER>. Step 4. Answer any prompts until you are prompted to select a sound device. Assume you are given the following options: AdLib Sound Blaster Roland MT-32/LAPC1 Roland Sound Canvas Roland MT-32/LAPC1 with Sound Blaster Roland Sound Canvas with Sound Blaster Step 5. In this case you should select 'Roland Sound Canvas' as it will probably give the best performance. Note that currently you can not select 'Roland Sound Canvas with Sound Blaster' unless you have a real Sound Blaster card installed in your computer. Mega-Em can not be used in conjunction with SBOS, and does not emulate a Sound Blaster at this time. Step 6. Complete the rest of the prompts from the installation program. If prompted whether or not to save the configuration, select YES. Step 7. Since in this example 'Sound Canvas' has been selected, you must run EMUSET again with the /SC option. i.e. EMUSET /SC <ENTER>. Step 8. Load your program by typing START <ENTER>. That's it. Note: You should not have to configure your program again. Just make sure you have loaded Mega-Em and turned on Sound Canvas emulation by typing EMUSET /SC <ENTER>. Mega-Em Users Manual Copyright (C) 1993 Jayeson Lee-Steere Page 10 5. COMPATIBILITY PROBLEMS WITH VARIOUS SOFTWARE. 5.1 Software that requires 386 protected mode and can not run under a memory manager. 5.2 Microsoft Windows in Enhanced Mode. 5.3 Specific software with known compatibility problems. 5.3.1 Hardball 3, Winter Games, Summer Games etc. 5.3.2 Strike Commander. 5.3.3 Terminator 2029 (and possibly Wayne Gretsky Hockey 3) (Roland). 5.3.4 Gateway (Roland). 5.3.5 SBOS and UltraMID. 5.3.6 Falcon 3 and 386MAX. 5.3.7 The Incredible Machine (General MIDI) 5.3.8 The Seventh Guest (Roland) 5.1 SOFTWARE THAT REQUIRES 386 PROTECTED MODE AND CAN NOT RUN UNDER A MEMORY MANAGER. A few high-end games use the 386 protected mode to achieve superior performance. Since many of these require full control of the system they will not operate if the system is already in protected mode, such as when a memory manager is loaded (excluding HIMEM.SYS). Mega-Em uses the power of 386 protected mode for its emulation, and hence the aforementioned games are not compatible with Mega-Em. Examples of known games which exhibit such problems are COMANCHE, ULTIMA 7 and LINKS 386 (PRO). The only current solution is to use SBOS to emulate a Sound Blaster, or if the game supports the use of standard AIL (Miles) drivers, use the AIL drivers from Gravis/Forte. Note that the AIL drivers used by ULTIMA 7 are not standard. 5.2 MICROSOFT WINDOWS IN ENHANCED MODE. When Microsoft Windows is run in enhanced mode it uses an undocumented interface to communicate with Extended Memory Managers. While Windows will run correctly in enhanced mode with Mega-Em loaded, upon exiting to DOS the system will crash. To prevent this from happening, Mega-Em is designed to detect when Windows tries to enter enhanced mode, offering the user the option of using standard mode, or exiting to DOS. Note that while Mega-Em is still active under standard mode Windows, the Roland drivers supplied with Windows 3.1 do not function. In future revisions of Mega-Em, this problem may be corrected, provided some form of documentation for the interface used can be sourced. 5.3 SPECIFIC SOFTWARE WITH KNOWN INCOMPATIBILITIES. 5.3.1 HARDBALL 3, WINTER GAMES, SUMMER GAMES etc. These games all appear to be written using the same 'games engine', and probably all exhibit the same problem on a few system configurations. With Mega-Em loaded, the game misses some key presses, resulting in keyboard play being difficult if not impossible. Please note that this problem has only occurred on 386 systems using early versions of QEMM 6. Possible solutions are using a joystick to play the game, or trying a different memory manager. Mega-Em Users Manual Copyright (C) 1993 Jayeson Lee-Steere Page 11 5.3.2 STRIKE COMMANDER. While Strike Commander will run under Mega-Em, its sound drivers operate in protected mode, preventing Mega-Em's emulation from functioning. Any future games from Origin (Wing Commander III ???) that use a similar system will also fail. One potential solution would be to use Gravis/Forte's AIL (Miles) drivers as Strike Commander uses the AIL interface. Unfortunately the standard drivers do not work, again due protected mode difficulties. A similar argument holds for the Ultima 7 AIL drivers. 5.3.3 TERMINATOR 2029 (AND POSSIBLY WAYNE GRETSKY HOCKEY 3) (Roland). Terminator 2029 will crash shortly into the game when run under Mega-Em with Roland emulation on. The exact reason is currently unknown, however it should be noted that it is not an incompatibility with the sound drivers. When Terminator 2029's sound drivers are used with other software, Mega-Em functions perfectly. Fortunately, Gravis/Forte's AIL (Miles) drivers work with these games, and provide similar performance to what could be expected from Mega-Em. This problem may be corrected in future versions of Mega-Em. 5.3.4 GATEWAY (Roland, Adaptec SCSI protection). When Gateway under Mega-Em with Roland Emulation and Adaptec SCSI protection active, the SCSI controller protection may fail. Consequently the hard drive(s) will cease to function correctly, and effectively cause the system to crash. If you do run gateway and it crashes, just reset your computer. The controller should then function correctly again. In addition, because of the way Gateway uses the computer's interrupt controller, Mega-Em's Ultrasound playback routines will be muted. This problem may be corrected in future versions of Mega-Em. 5.3.5 SBOS AND ULTRAMID. If you are using Mega-Em to emulate some other card through an Ultrasound card, you must not load either Mega-Em, SBOS or UltraMID into memory at the same time. Doing so results in the programs' trying to use the Ultrasound at the same time, resulting in impaired performance, and possibly a system crash. This should not prove to be a problem since all three programs can be removed from memory to allow the loading of one of the others. To remove Mega-Em from memory type MEGAEM /U. To remove SBOS from memory, type SBOS -F. To remove UltraMID from memory, type ULTRAMID -F. Mega-Em Users Manual Copyright (C) 1993 Jayeson Lee-Steere Page 11 5.3.6 FALCON 3 AND 386MAX. When using 386MAX as your memory manager, you may have difficulties using Falcon 3 with Mega-Em. Problems range from notes that play continuously, system crashes and general system instability. Other high performance software may also give difficulties with Mega-Em when using 386MAX. There is currently no solution to the problem. Locating the exact cause of intermittent problems such as these is extremely difficult. However no such problems have occured when either EMM386.EXE or QEMM386 is used as the memory manager. 5.3.7 THE INCREDIBLE MACHINE (General MIDI). You may find that Mega-Em produces no output when The Incredible Machine is configured for General MIDI (i.e. Mega-Em is configured for Sound Canvas emulation). This should not be a major problem however, since The Incredible Machine works correctly if you select MT-32 as your sound device. 5.3.8 THE SEVENTH GUEST (Roland). User reports indicate that Seventh Guest is not compaitible with Mega-Em. You should however be able to use the Gravis/Forte AIL (Miles) drivers sucessfully with this game. 6. SOLUTIONS TO COMMONLY ENCOUNTERED PROBLEMS. PROBLEM: When using Mega-Em with an Ultrasound, the music sounds choppy or there is a lot of static and clicks. SOLUTION: Many systems allow the ISA bus clock speed to be increased beyond the standard speed of 8 MHz. The Gravis Ultrasound is designed to conform to the standard, and will not work reliably on systems with high bus clock speeds. You should be able to reduce the bus clock speed in one of CMOS setup menus. The CMOS setup is usually accessable by rebooting your computer.