GUS Problems

[PixelCrunch]

Hey, Pixel here. Sorry if i lurk alot, but i've been doing alot of other stuff lately.

Now, i'm using GZDoom v. 3.7.1 (yay lack of OpenGL 3.0 existence on my PC), and i've recently watched LGR (Lazy Game Review) review the Gravis Ultra Sound MIDI Card. He said that it was quite revolutionary for the time and Midis could be played back, but with a lack of hardware Reverb, it could play, although it would sound dry. I thought "Ok, maybe i could get some Wave-based DOOM gaming going on". But when i turned it on, it sounded TERRIBLE. What i mean is that the instruments were ok, but HALF of them were missing. I tried all the settings built in (Memory Size: 256k, 512k, 1MB, ect.) But i would get the same half-assed midi (And i mean that literally, as half of the instruments were missing). So can someone tell me what to do to get this GUS Emulation to sound "good"?

Thanks, and please respond!

-PixelCrunch

P.S, i would also like to know if a Roland MT-32 emulation option exists for GZDoom, as that card, as i heard, has also great MIDI production.

[dpJudas]

As someone that owned a GUS in the 90's, games using GUS' adlib emulation were hit and miss. For some songs I liked the GUS version better, for others it was quite terrible. I can't remember any actual sounds missing though - it was more a question of the wave instruments not being a good match.

What the GUS aced at was MOD style music - i.e. games like Star Control 2. That's because the card basically could just play 8 (or was it 16?) channels of wave samples along with some volume/pan ramps. In short: games made to use the GUS would sound far superior, and for games that wasn't (like Doom) the opposite was usually true.

[PixelCrunch]

That's because the card basically could just play 8 (or was it 16?) channels of wave samples along with some volume/pan ramps.

To answer your question, it was 32 Channels of sound.

[dpJudas]

Okay, 32 it was then. In any case, I don't think the GUS was a particular good MIDI card mostly because the games of that age had their midi designed around being played by an adlib/soundblaster card, which I believe included Doom.

The primary reason this card was revolutionary was its ability to play many samples at high quality with no CPU time spent on it. Basically it was the first PC sound card that gave PC users something to shoot back with against Amiga users of the time, that until then had the best audio in town. But it came at the price that earlier synth based games sounded less good.

Note that I never tried the GUS integration in GZDoom, so I can't say how that compares to what it was like to play Doom with a GUS card back then. There are a lot of better options for better sound quality, but I guess some people got used to the weird sample choices of the GUS midi instruments. At least that's the only reason I can see for why GUS is explicitly supported. It wasn't the best sound option back then for Doom for sure.

[Graf Zahl]

That device was originally meant to replace the external Timidity++, but Randi mucked around with it so much that in the end it sounded too different. WildMidi was supposed to do the same, but some update also changed the quality too much.

Now that the original Timidity++ synth is fully integrated I agree that these two synths do not make much sense anymore but you know how it goes: Some people still use them and would complain. But of all the available synths they are the most useless ones because they are too similar to Timidity++ while sharing none of itts flexibility.

[PixelCrunch]

Isin't there some sort of patch or something that can make the GUS, you know, not sound literally half-assed?

Also i'm looking for a patch that can give GZDoom Roland MT-32 Support, too.

[wildweasel]

Also i'm looking for a patch that can give GZDoom Roland MT-32 Support, too.

MUNT exists, but it will not sound correct unless you can find a way to remap it into the General MIDI instrument layout. On a real MT32, you'd do this by loading a special MIDI file Roland provides (MTGM.MID), but I do not know of a way to do this with the MUNT driver.

Some willing soul could see about porting in the Super MUNT GM stuff from foo_midi, but I'm not aware what the license is for it, and it is of course yet more things that need maintaining, in addition to GZDoom needing the MT32 ROM files in order for it to function.

[Graf Zahl]

Isin't there some sort of patch or something that can make the GUS, you know, not sound literally half-assed?

The main problem is that the entire thing is literally half-assed. It is not a real GUS emulation but an altered version of the original Timidity (non-++) altered to sound closer to a real GUS.
I wouldn't hesitate to just remove it, because I have yet to find any scenario in which it performs better than Timidity++.