UltraSound
| UltraSound | |
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| Developer: | Advanced Gravis Computer Technology, Ltd. |
| Released: | 1992-10-?? |
| Type: | Sound Card |
| Slot: | ISA |
| Icon: |  |
| Platforms: |  •  •  |
UltraSound is a sound card made by Canadian company Advanced Gravis Computer Technology, Ltd. It was the first widespread PC sound card marketed with wavetable technology (while the card used sample based synthesis). This was the first card in the UltraSound series, which consisted of about a dozen models.
Contrary to the AdLib, it was used in games shortly after release - Star Control 2 (DOS), released in November of 1992, probably was the first.
Contents
Technical details
While the card was marketed having wavetable synthesis, it actually used samples.
GF1
The first cards used the ICS11614 (GF1) chips, which were derived from the Ensoniq OTTO soundchip. Effects like chorus and echo are not supported, use of more than 14 sounds at the same time will result in sample drop (19kHz at the maximum 32 polyphony). The chip doesn't support ADPCM, so the samples have to decompressed prior to moving it into the memory.
AMD Interwave
The Interwave chip was developed as a response to the Sound Blaster AWE 32 card from creative. It can address a maximum of 16 MB of memory space, cards using this chip could be expanded to 8MB (as many of them had a built-in sound rom). The chip also compatible with the CS4231 codec used for mixing in earlier products, and is designed for the ISA bus with Plug & Play capabilities.
Games
Image Gallery
The first sound card in the series (Ultrasound Classic).
Emulation Status
The UltraSound is fully emulated in DOSBox.
Links
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravis_Ultrasound - Wikipedia.
