Ah...I'm late to the pinned comment party! Here are the links ya need to get the card. Buy Thy card: www.tindie.com/products/kdehl/gravis-ultrasound-gus-pnp-replica/
Note that this card uses the AMD Interwave chip, not the original Gravis GF1. Though it should be compatible, I've heard it isn't always fully, and may sound somewhat different (and better, given that the GF1 has a slower clock and outputs samples at a rate less than 44KHz if more than 14 voices are used). I don't think many people bought the Interwave cards back in the day, as by then, everyone was using SB AWEs and the like.
A large part of GUS hype was that the card had pretty good amp and output filter, especially compared to many SB clones that flooded the market. From what I remember, the best way to use SB emulation mode was to load up a big beefy General Midi soundfont and play games set for SB + midi instead of OPL2.
Not just a good output filter, but the sample interpolation itself was done on HW properly. Sound Blaster relied on the programmers of the games to do their own sofware mixing, which never used any kind of proper high quality sample interpolation. That's why there's a massive difference in sound betwen GUS and SB of the same era.
@@krakulandia Ah that explains it, I was wondering just there why did output quality of the GUS sound better than equivalent times SoundBlasters, or even newer SoundBlasters. Probably they also took more care in isolating the circuits from disturbance from surrounding electronics ? I have a memory of GUS having a really clean line output, but that was 25 years ago so not sure :)
@@Sakari_369 As far as I can remember, GUS had every aspect of sound generation done better than SB. Less noise leakage, proper interpolation of samples, and at least equally good output filter (aka antialias filter). And the whole playback and mixing in general was done on hardware.
I had a real GUS back in the day and used to listen to s3M, 669, mod, tracks for hours! Also loved using miles drivers to get gus to work with a good number of non native games as well.
Not long until 2k, Mr. Storm! Then before you know it you'll be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Rees and co! I never had a GUS growing up, but that card sounded absolutely fantastic! It's incredible how many great options were available back then to make your games sound different. Games with tracker-based music sound so much clearer! Not quite as fussed on the wavetable, but at least it had it!
Haha yeah just about 9 subs to go, but I'm just glad a few people enjoy watching the videos I make. Also...I agree the tracker stuff sounds incredible on this! Going back to a Sound Blaster for One Must Fall sort of feels like throwing a blanket on the speakers.
Its hard to explain why tracker music is so good isn't it? Its definitely a lost art these days and something about the limitations imposed give it an unmistakable sound.
Compelling option if you want a solid card. Personally, I went for the PicoGUS for my 486 DX2/66 earlier this year. Much cheaper, but it's not perfect. If you can live with the slightly higher pitch situation, then it's very good for the price. Plus, I soldered it myself from a kit, doubling up on its pleasure.
I've tested PicoGUS vs. a real GUS and there is no pitch difference. I've just uploaded a short comparison video to my channel if you want to hear how close it is.
I've watched Ian's very new video and I agree now, something is definitely up only with second reality, probably because the SB compatibility was lower priority for them, I'm guessing.
I wonder if there are any clones of the GUS ACE - that would combine with e.g. a Sound Blaster or other board and presumably require fewer system resources for the GUS side...
Damn that song by Elwood just sounded so clean and smooth, bringing out the strength of the GUS mixing hardware or whatever in that board that resulted in the sounds being mixed in such a distinctly and beautifully smooth, clean way. Compared to Sound Blaster Awe32 even, the digital sound and even the wavetable in that just sounded more "dirty" in a subconscious way when compared to the GUS. Maybe it's something with the filters or how the hardware was better built in terms of electronic noise also, not sure, what do you think ?
Great video! I never owned or knew anyone with a GUS back in the day, so I'm in a similar boat. My only experience with them has been in the last couple of years. Really quirky cards, but amazing capabilities and sound quality when used in the right scenarios and with properly supported games. Pairing them up with a SB or compatible seems to be the way to go for modern-day use. Haven't tried to do this yet but may give it a shot one of these days. Oh and I laughed pretty hard when I heard the SBOS emulation the first time 😆
The video transitioned before the point it could be heard, so I was curious whether this (and, presumably the rest of the original GUS line) can play the ADPCM effects in Duke Nukem II via SBOS. The FM emulation may be total trash, and Roland emulation trash that got successfully recycled into something different, but I haven't noticed the digital SB emulation get much detail.
I never got the GUS bug though it was right in the sweet spot of tech nostalgia as someone who graduated HS in 1994. I own an original GUS card with a fully populated RAM bank that came with a lot of hardware I picked up before COVID and I've still never slotted into a machine.... which will probably end up on eBay before the end of the year. It was generally a hard to use solution given it's bad digital sound compatibility and the fact that it launched alongside the General MIDI standard... it was the first really affordable sample vs FM synth solution for PC gamers that allowed huge customization choices vs the typical "pro" music hardware or more expensive licensed patchsets that came with more expensive cards. It was the "everyman" on-ramp to better PC audio with the same General MIDI compatibility warts that the AWE32/64 cards had... but a general lack of digital audio compatibility with the Sound Blaster standards that usually required a two-card solution leading to huge resource configuration complexities putting it out of reach for many non-enthusiasts.
Demoscene adopted GUS as standard to almost all of their production they did during mid to late 90s. I also bought GUS with maxed our RAM. A great purchase. Loved it. I didn't play that much games, but occasionally when I did, the games did seem to support GUS properly.
A friend of mine has one of these, I cheaped out and bought an ESS Audiodrive instead. Could not tell the difference and the ESFM sounded far better than the SBOS Adlib attempt. GUS is, was and always be over hyped. Cool video though.
I'm looking to cover some ESS Audiodrive cards in the future actually, its probably one of the best budget options now and then for DOS games. The GUS is definitely a bit of a novelty in some ways and is a bit tricky to configure. However, tracker based music sounds quite a bit nicer with the GUS in my opinion. That said if I was strictly a DOS gamer I would rather daily drive a ESS Audiodrive or a Sound Blaster 16 because they "just work" with anything.
@@DOSStorm I won't lie, I did envy that Gus - it was very cool! Especially if like me, you were a 16 year old nerd in 1997... Alas the GUS cost thousands at a time when I paid a few hundred for my ESS. Using Cubic Player in DOS you could enjoy MIDI playback with GUS patches on any soundcard. My ESS eventually made way for AWE64 value.
@@Rouxenator It sounds like you were dealing with a weird market, the GUS cards in the US were generally cheaper than many competing cards like the Sound Blaster AWE32, etc... with the original GUS pricing out between $100 and $130 US. Tracker music is great but for most DOS gamers the GUS was capable of genuinely enhancing the audio experience in many popular shareware titles from Apogee, ID Software, Epic, etc.. ESSFM in Native mode was "better" FM synth, while it's Legacy mode was "mostly" but not 100% compatible with a true Yamaha OPL FM chipset. I think the ESS cards are overrated given how cheap and easy to find the real Yamaha OPL3-SA PnP chipsets are. Pair one up with a Serdaco Dreamblaster S2 and you have a pretty amazing budget retro sound solution for with 100% Yamaha FM compatibility plus a solid General MIDI wavetable capability. The GUS is an interesting bit of tech nostalgia but I don't see it being worth even the price of the replica stand-alone cards for anyone but the most hardcore nostalgia seekers... what made the card so compelling was that it was first at a lot of things (it came out BEFORE the Sound Blaster 16 and the same time as the General MIDI standard) at a consumer friendly price point with reasonably good and well balanced soundfont options. Today you can buy a vastly superior solution in something like the Serdaco X2GS which can slot into any retro soundcard with a wavetable header and/or a modern PC via the USB-MIDI port and customize soundfont choices and synth params to your hearts content, for around $100 US.
"Kinda how bad the OPL Emulation is". There is no OPL Emulation, its an FM to MIDI thing (and I remember some other Games not to sound too bad on my GUS MAX)
Good point. That makes sense for it to be a Midi conversion since the sound isn't bad it just never really knows the right instruments to use. The documentation for the Ultrasound seems to always refer to it as "emulation" though even if that probably isn't entirely accurate.
Ah...I'm late to the pinned comment party! Here are the links ya need to get the card.
Buy Thy card: www.tindie.com/products/kdehl/gravis-ultrasound-gus-pnp-replica/
Note that this card uses the AMD Interwave chip, not the original Gravis GF1. Though it should be compatible, I've heard it isn't always fully, and may sound somewhat different (and better, given that the GF1 has a slower clock and outputs samples at a rate less than 44KHz if more than 14 voices are used). I don't think many people bought the Interwave cards back in the day, as by then, everyone was using SB AWEs and the like.
Yeah that is what the prepgame.exe is for. It supposed to patch the game is be compatible with the interwave chip, but it only works some of the time.
Or even the elwood track again with Impulse...
Awww man, Dead Lock was one of my favorite tracks! Really missing my old DOS rig now!
You should check out modarchive.org/ ! They have tons of tracker tunes you can play through your browser.
A large part of GUS hype was that the card had pretty good amp and output filter, especially compared to many SB clones that flooded the market.
From what I remember, the best way to use SB emulation mode was to load up a big beefy General Midi soundfont and play games set for SB + midi instead of OPL2.
Might be a good topic for another video....
Not just a good output filter, but the sample interpolation itself was done on HW properly. Sound Blaster relied on the programmers of the games to do their own sofware mixing, which never used any kind of proper high quality sample interpolation. That's why there's a massive difference in sound betwen GUS and SB of the same era.
@@krakulandia Ah that explains it, I was wondering just there why did output quality of the GUS sound better than equivalent times SoundBlasters, or even newer SoundBlasters.
Probably they also took more care in isolating the circuits from disturbance from surrounding electronics ? I have a memory of GUS having a really clean line output, but that was 25 years ago so not sure :)
@@Sakari_369 As far as I can remember, GUS had every aspect of sound generation done better than SB. Less noise leakage, proper interpolation of samples, and at least equally good output filter (aka antialias filter). And the whole playback and mixing in general was done on hardware.
Cool thanks for the detailed sharing of info, definitely an interesting card@@krakulandia
I had a real GUS back in the day and used to listen to s3M, 669, mod, tracks for hours! Also loved using miles drivers to get gus to work with a good number of non native games as well.
Not long until 2k, Mr. Storm! Then before you know it you'll be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Rees and co! I never had a GUS growing up, but that card sounded absolutely fantastic! It's incredible how many great options were available back then to make your games sound different. Games with tracker-based music sound so much clearer! Not quite as fussed on the wavetable, but at least it had it!
Haha yeah just about 9 subs to go, but I'm just glad a few people enjoy watching the videos I make. Also...I agree the tracker stuff sounds incredible on this! Going back to a Sound Blaster for One Must Fall sort of feels like throwing a blanket on the speakers.
@@DOSStorm Awesome news! Glad to see your success.
TIL Toxic rain... lovely tune!
Elwood's tracks will of course always be classics.Dead lock really brings me back
Its hard to explain why tracker music is so good isn't it? Its definitely a lost art these days and something about the limitations imposed give it an unmistakable sound.
Compelling option if you want a solid card. Personally, I went for the PicoGUS for my 486 DX2/66 earlier this year. Much cheaper, but it's not perfect. If you can live with the slightly higher pitch situation, then it's very good for the price. Plus, I soldered it myself from a kit, doubling up on its pleasure.
Those are neat. It seems like a nice idea to have the versatility of an emulated GUS and SB on the same card.
I've tested PicoGUS vs. a real GUS and there is no pitch difference. I've just uploaded a short comparison video to my channel if you want to hear how close it is.
I've watched Ian's very new video and I agree now, something is definitely up only with second reality, probably because the SB compatibility was lower priority for them, I'm guessing.
I wonder if there are any clones of the GUS ACE - that would combine with e.g. a Sound Blaster or other board and presumably require fewer system resources for the GUS side...
Damn that song by Elwood just sounded so clean and smooth, bringing out the strength of the GUS mixing hardware or whatever in that board that resulted in the sounds being mixed in such a distinctly and beautifully smooth, clean way. Compared to Sound Blaster Awe32 even, the digital sound and even the wavetable in that just sounded more "dirty" in a subconscious way when compared to the GUS. Maybe it's something with the filters or how the hardware was better built in terms of electronic noise also, not sure, what do you think ?
Great video! I never owned or knew anyone with a GUS back in the day, so I'm in a similar boat. My only experience with them has been in the last couple of years. Really quirky cards, but amazing capabilities and sound quality when used in the right scenarios and with properly supported games. Pairing them up with a SB or compatible seems to be the way to go for modern-day use. Haven't tried to do this yet but may give it a shot one of these days. Oh and I laughed pretty hard when I heard the SBOS emulation the first time 😆
Yeah I think the end game for me is a SB16 and a GUS in the same system! It's probably slightly painful to set up, but it sounds like a good time haha
The video transitioned before the point it could be heard, so I was curious whether this (and, presumably the rest of the original GUS line) can play the ADPCM effects in Duke Nukem II via SBOS. The FM emulation may be total trash, and Roland emulation trash that got successfully recycled into something different, but I haven't noticed the digital SB emulation get much detail.
I never got the GUS bug though it was right in the sweet spot of tech nostalgia as someone who graduated HS in 1994. I own an original GUS card with a fully populated RAM bank that came with a lot of hardware I picked up before COVID and I've still never slotted into a machine.... which will probably end up on eBay before the end of the year. It was generally a hard to use solution given it's bad digital sound compatibility and the fact that it launched alongside the General MIDI standard... it was the first really affordable sample vs FM synth solution for PC gamers that allowed huge customization choices vs the typical "pro" music hardware or more expensive licensed patchsets that came with more expensive cards. It was the "everyman" on-ramp to better PC audio with the same General MIDI compatibility warts that the AWE32/64 cards had... but a general lack of digital audio compatibility with the Sound Blaster standards that usually required a two-card solution leading to huge resource configuration complexities putting it out of reach for many non-enthusiasts.
Demoscene adopted GUS as standard to almost all of their production they did during mid to late 90s. I also bought GUS with maxed our RAM. A great purchase. Loved it. I didn't play that much games, but occasionally when I did, the games did seem to support GUS properly.
A friend of mine has one of these, I cheaped out and bought an ESS Audiodrive instead. Could not tell the difference and the ESFM sounded far better than the SBOS Adlib attempt. GUS is, was and always be over hyped. Cool video though.
I'm looking to cover some ESS Audiodrive cards in the future actually, its probably one of the best budget options now and then for DOS games. The GUS is definitely a bit of a novelty in some ways and is a bit tricky to configure. However, tracker based music sounds quite a bit nicer with the GUS in my opinion. That said if I was strictly a DOS gamer I would rather daily drive a ESS Audiodrive or a Sound Blaster 16 because they "just work" with anything.
@@DOSStorm I won't lie, I did envy that Gus - it was very cool! Especially if like me, you were a 16 year old nerd in 1997... Alas the GUS cost thousands at a time when I paid a few hundred for my ESS. Using Cubic Player in DOS you could enjoy MIDI playback with GUS patches on any soundcard. My ESS eventually made way for AWE64 value.
@@Rouxenator It sounds like you were dealing with a weird market, the GUS cards in the US were generally cheaper than many competing cards like the Sound Blaster AWE32, etc... with the original GUS pricing out between $100 and $130 US. Tracker music is great but for most DOS gamers the GUS was capable of genuinely enhancing the audio experience in many popular shareware titles from Apogee, ID Software, Epic, etc.. ESSFM in Native mode was "better" FM synth, while it's Legacy mode was "mostly" but not 100% compatible with a true Yamaha OPL FM chipset.
I think the ESS cards are overrated given how cheap and easy to find the real Yamaha OPL3-SA PnP chipsets are. Pair one up with a Serdaco Dreamblaster S2 and you have a pretty amazing budget retro sound solution for with 100% Yamaha FM compatibility plus a solid General MIDI wavetable capability. The GUS is an interesting bit of tech nostalgia but I don't see it being worth even the price of the replica stand-alone cards for anyone but the most hardcore nostalgia seekers... what made the card so compelling was that it was first at a lot of things (it came out BEFORE the Sound Blaster 16 and the same time as the General MIDI standard) at a consumer friendly price point with reasonably good and well balanced soundfont options. Today you can buy a vastly superior solution in something like the Serdaco X2GS which can slot into any retro soundcard with a wavetable header and/or a modern PC via the USB-MIDI port and customize soundfont choices and synth params to your hearts content, for around $100 US.
I miss my GUS Max with 1MB upgrade... Iplayer, Ultra-tracker, Impulse tracker, Cubic player, Maz-sounds...
I also had fully maxed out GUS Max. I used it for making tracker music and watching demoscene productions. Great times :)
What is the name of first module in trackers section ?
Toxic Rain by Radix : modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=117300
@@DOSStorm Thx
1:31 someone needs to reverse engineer & develop an FPGA/ASIC of this.
I miss a better finish, solid capacitors and a nicer PCB.
"Kinda how bad the OPL Emulation is".
There is no OPL Emulation, its an FM to MIDI thing (and I remember some other Games not to sound too bad on my GUS MAX)
Good point. That makes sense for it to be a Midi conversion since the sound isn't bad it just never really knows the right instruments to use. The documentation for the Ultrasound seems to always refer to it as "emulation" though even if that probably isn't entirely accurate.
This video made me realise i was a spoiled brat in the 90s
How dare you use a GUS and not play Descent and Duke Nukem 3D
Damn you're right I should have inculded that! Seems almost like a crime not to.
Voh-gone-z ;)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogon
Haha oops.
@@DOSStorm Great video, DOS Storm... I think I need to pick one of these cards up!
@@RonsCompVids Go for it. If you ever wanted to try out a GUS I think its pretty nifty!