![]() With the GUS offloading all of the playback effort, game (and demo) developers had almost the entire CPU available for other uses. Lower CPU usage: The GUS was capable of mixing in hardware up to 32 independent voice streams at relatively high playback rates (~19 KHz at 32 voices and up to 44.1KHz at 14 voices), which was impossible for typical consumer 386 and 486 CPUs at the time. Noise floor: The GUS classic has a -85 dB noise floor significantly lower than the competing Sound Blaster and SBPro cards that produced noticeable hiss at high volumes. One Must Fall 2097 and Star Control 2 are two great examples where this quality difference is immediately apparent, with the games' 8-bit samples sounding much dirtier (or "fuzzy") when played via Sound Blaster versus Gravis UltraSound. ![]() Quality: the handful of games that took advantage of the GUS's hardware mixing capability were rewarded with greater dynamic range due to the GUS's sample interpolation or "Interwave" as they called it. Up to 32 of these independent voices could be managed and mixed simultaneously in hardware, unlike the competing Sound Blaster cards that provided two (left and right) PCM playback streams, which had to be generated in software. Samples of pianos or trumpets, for example, sound more like their real respective instruments. ![]() The Gravis UltraSound (GUS) was notable at the time of its 1992 launch by providing sample-based music playback (marketed as "wavetable") using real-world sound recordings rather than artificial computer-generated waveforms, or "FM" synthesis, as the basis of a musical instrument.
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