From ejrasiel@mailbox.syr.edu  Thu Dec 15 23:44:25 1994
Return-Path: <ejrasiel@mailbox.syr.edu>
Received: from mailbox.syr.edu (mailbox.syr.EDU [128.230.1.5])
          by mailhost.WI.LeidenUniv.NL (8.6.9/FHM-1.20-M) with ESMTP id XAA27537
          for <aria@wi.leidenuniv.nl>;  Thu, 15 Dec 1994 23:44:16 +0100 (MET)
Received: from hydra.syr.edu by mailbox.syr.edu (8.6.9/SUM-V8-1.0)
	id RAA05413; Thu, 15 Dec 1994 17:45:46 -0500
Received: by hydra.syr.edu (5.0/Spike-2.0)
	id AA19397; Thu, 15 Dec 1994 17:46:34 +0500
Message-Id: <9412152246.AA19397@hydra.syr.edu>
To: aria@WI.LeidenUniv.NL
Cc: ejrasiel@mailbox.syr.edu
Subject: thought and questions on Aria
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 15 Dec 1994 13:07:01 EST."
             <199412151703.MAA50817@tequesta.gate.net> 
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1994 17:46:24 -0500
From: "\"\"Ethan J. Rasiel\"\"" <ejrasiel@mailbox.syr.edu>
content-length: 3389

Hi folks, this is my first posting to this list since I joined last week. I
have accumulated a bunch of questions and such so I will just through them
out at you.

1) I heard about this "midi passthrough" idea.  Apparently I can just stick
a wire in my joystick port connecting 2 holes, run a tsr, and get General 
Midi sound in dos games??  If it is that simple, why wasn't this functionality
included from the beginning?  I was very disappointed upong getting my card
last summer that the wavetable sound only worked in windows and in the 
occasional game with native support.  When using this method, is it still 
possible to get digital sound? That is, can I select both midi and soundblaster
in games and get both wavetable sound and digital sound at once?

2) I recently downloaded the "sb201" dsp emulation patch.  It puzzles me in 
a few ways.  First, is it 2.01 or 201?  That is, have there been 201 versions
of this patch, or 2 major versions and a few minor upgrades?  And I have
heard the Aria described as having "excellent" dos emulation (without this
patch).  Was that wrong?  Personally, I found the dos emulation to work well
for the majority of games, and to work poorly for some.  With the patch,
some work beter, and some still don't work right.  For example:

Mortal Kombat - before patch - music fine, no voices (Scorpion wins), fx
(kicks, punches, etc) are replaced with snare-like drum sounds that sound 
terrible.  
		after patch - voices work now (yay) but fx still are wrong.
has anyone with an aria tried Mortal Kombat?

Indycar Racing - works perfectly without patch.  With patch, the digital
"For Papyrus, I'm Al Page, and This...is Indycar Racing" goes away.

Duke Nukem 2: music fine.  sound effects all sound wrong.  patch changes
nothing.

By the way, I used to have a Sound Blaster 1.5 so I know exactly what all these
games are supposed to sound like.

Rise of the Robots - Music cuts out after about 10 seconds and never comes
back.  Haven't tried with patch.

Wing Commander III Demo - sound cuts out for about 2 seconds every 5 seconds
during the movie part.  Very annoying.  Patch no effect.

I have had problems in windows with digital sound.  It usually works fine but
when I tax the system a little by trying to play a sound (or for ex. a mod
file) in the background, the sound gets very distored and stays that way
until I pause and unpause the file.  A Cd-rom called rap, rock, and roll,
which basically lets you mix songs on a mixing board, works fine for the 
individual sounds, but when I mix them together they get badly distorted.

Has anyone tried Aria on a Win 95 beta?  Will there be 32 bit drivers for
it when it comes out?

Nascar Racing - no sound at all, until I go to quit - the music kicks in
on the credits screen.  Haven't tried with patch yet.

Armored Fist - music but no sound.  Haven't tried with patch yet.

I have a midi keyboard and am thinking of getting some software and a cable
to hook up the keyboard to my soundcard.  Does this work well with Aria,
and can anyone recommend a good place to get either the cable or the
software?

When using the playwave utility that comes with the card, if I try to
play 44 hz samples they only play at 22 hz.  They play fine in windows.
I didn't see any way of forcing a speed from the command line.  

That's all for now, any comments would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Ethan

