Sound Wizard Module Player v1.41 by Sound Wizards
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³ Module Player V1.41 (c) 1994,1995 by Lord Excess of Sound Wizards Int. ³
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Index for SWMP V1.41
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I. General
II. Utilisation
III. Features
IV. Support
V. System Requirements
VI. Optimisations
VII. Thanks and Greets
VIII. History
IX. Copyrights, Restrictions
X. Info Addresses
I. General
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Sound Wizards Module Player (SWMP) is on the one hand quite a
pretty module player with lots of extraordinary capabilities
and on the other hand a software development kit that gives you
access to the world of module files. Basically the drivers were
coded in pure assembler what makes them running very stable and
provides a maximum of speed.
II. Utilisation
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If you want to know how to link the drivers into your code,
take a look at C.DOC, PAS.DOC or ASM.DOC. Here comes the
description of the demo player.
SWMP.EXE is a command line player, i.e. you have to specify
modulefiles (sound files with extension .MOD) after you've
typed in the name of the player, for example:
C:\SOUND>SWMP TECHNOLO.MOD RELAXING.MOD
This will first play Technolo.Mod, which has to be in the
current directory (or else you have to add a path), and after
that continue with Relaxing.Mod. If you specify only one file
on the command line, the player will return to DOS when
finished playing. If multiple files are selected, SWMP will
play all files in order and then restart with the first one
(demo mode). While playing you can use the following keys:
ESC: Quit player
SPACE/RETURN: Start next song
CURSOR UP/DOWN,+,-: Change volume settings
CURSOR LEFT/RIGHT: Change song position
If the player refuses to play back a sound file, then the file
specified is either not of MOD-type, there is not enough memory
available or (in case you own a GUS) the DRAM size is too low.
A setup program is available if you start the player without
command line parameters. In most cases the automatic hardware
detection should work, but if you encounter any errors try to
setup the player with the correct configuration.
III. Features
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- SWMP plays any 4,6 or 8 channel modules, no matter if 15 or
31 samples. All effects of ProTracker 2.3A/3.01 except of the
SetFilter- and InvertLoop command are implemented, including
extended speeds. I'm not going to list all compatible trackers
and effect commands, because this would take up pages...
- Sample length is no more reduced to 64KB !!
- GUS specials: - *CORRECT* loops
- calculated volume settings
- UltraClicks (tm?) removed
- SDKs are available for C, PASCAL & ASSEMBLER.
IV. Support
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Currently the following sound devices are supported:
- any SoundBlaster compatible card
- any SoundBlaster Pro compatible card
- Gravis UltraSound
I have made the experience how much easier it is to program
the GUS and how much better the results in quality are,
therefore I'm not going to support non-wavetable cards in
future releases. GUS really sounds best as things are now.
V. System Requirements
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Of course you need at least one of the soundcards listed
above. The PC-Speaker option is not available. In my opinion no
sound at all is better than this. Secondly your CPU has to be a
80386 or above, because the new startup code uses the 386
instruction set (the drivers only need a 80286).
VI. Optimisations (coder's stuff)
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Note: This affects only the SoundBlaster drivers.
Primarily I've optimized the drivers for size and sound
quality. Instead of the ultra high speed block scaling routines
I 'only' used the normal high speed linear scaling procs. But
these are such tuned that you only notice a difference on 16MHz
machines. The result is a much smaller use of memory at
runtime.
VII. Thanks and Greets
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Many thanks to all my encouraged beta testers! First of all I
have to mention Oliver Eugster, having always time for a little
test and putting his schoolwork aside. Many thanks also to
Martin Schrer for reading and correcting the documentation.
Greets go out to the cool guys at GRAVIS (Brad Craig) !
A lot of thanks to all musicians composing these cool mods.
The two sound files located in the main archive were done by
Sound Wizards members.
Hi Brian Klug. Thanks for the bug report in V1.3 !!!
VIII. History
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Version 1.3 contains a bug in the SDKs. When trying to load an
invalid file the drivers don't return correctly. This bug has
been fixed. A second change has been made in the startup code
of SWMP.EXE because VIRSTOP incorrectly assumed that there was
a FISH-6 virus in it, what is definitely not true.
The PASCAL section of v1.4 is not fully compatible with TP7.
Therefore I added the complete source which should also work
with future releases of TP. Two minor bugs in the C SDK are now
past, too (UMB strategy, hardware detection). I also modified
the C source slightly to avoid problems with future compiles.
IX. Copyrights & Restrictions
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This software is freeware. It may not be used in a commercial
way without permission. But you may copy and use it as long as
you do not modify the contents. In other words: If your sofware
will be freeware too that's ok. Further I'm not liable for any
damage this product could cause.
All mentioned Trademarks and Copyrights are registered by
their respective owners.
If you are using the drivers in your code, a credit would be
nice.
X. Info Addresses
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In case you have any comments or questions concerning this
player or SOUND WIZARDS in general, here are our addresses:
LORD EXCESS: AXEL:
Beat Rigazzi Sound Wizards
Sandackerweg 3 Reinacherstrasse 4
3363 Obernz 4147 Aesch
phone: +41-(0)63-614981 phone: +41-(0)61-7512287
e-mail: rigazzi@iamexwi.unibe.ch fax: +41-(0)61-7512287
last but not least:
This piece of work is dedicated to my girlfriend Daniela, the
most beautiful girl of the world !!!
Lord Excess in Dezember '95
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