262 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
262 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
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*** PLEASE take the time to check quickly through this document BEFORE ***
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*** you write to me. If the answer to your questions lies within here, ***
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*** do NOT expect a reply at all. ***
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This document is currently incomplete.
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1. Getting Impulse Tracker working.
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1.1 Requirements to run IT
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1.2 Insufficient memory messages
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1.3 "Mix data not allocated"
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1.4 Video characters scrambled
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1.5 Impulse Tracker often hangs
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1.6 Files won't load/take a long time to load!
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1.7 Impulse Tracker doesn't support my soundcard!
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1.8 The sound breaks up/computer slows down when playing songs!
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1.9 Microsoft Windows and Impulse Tracker
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2. Using Impulse Tracker
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2.1 Loading external samples
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3. Miscellaneous
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3.1 What are these CACHE.ITS and CACHE.ITI files??
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3.2 Distribution sites.
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4. Future versions of Impulse Tracker - Not written yet
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1.1 Requirements of IT
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------------------------------
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NOTE WIN95 USERS -> READ LATER
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------------------------------
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Impulse Tracker requires a 386+ PC and > 500k of memory. Impulse
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Tracker uses EMS memory. To setup EMS memory, use the following lines
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in your CONFIG.SYS file:
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DEVICE=<path>\HIMEM.SYS
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DEVICE=<path>\EMM386.EXE RAM H=255
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Do *NOT* have "NOEMS" or "FRAME=NONE" on the same line as EMM386.EXE
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Also shove these lines in, if they're not already there:
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DOS=HIGH,UMB <--- just to get yourself a little more memory
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STACKS=0,0 <--- Some computers require this to prevent crashing
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I cannot guarantee that IT will work with QEMM, but Leszek Clapinski
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wrote to me with this advice (thanks!):
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In your config.sys, use:
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DEVICE=<path>\QEMM386.SYS DMA=64 HANDLES=255 FORCEEMS
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Then use "IT -P2"
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I recommend that you also devicehigh and Load-high (LH) as many
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possible drivers, so that you have more conventional memory to play
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around with.
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-----------
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Win95 Users
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-----------
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If you are a Win95 user, you're probably best off not having HIMEM.SYS
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*OR* EMM386.EXE in your CONFIG.SYS file. If you *do* have EMM386,
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make sure you do NOT have "noems" as a parameter.
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Win95's internal EMS handling routines *DO* automatically provide
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the optimum environment for IT, so you should be able to ignore the
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settings given above.
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1.2 Insufficient memory messages
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If you get Insufficient Memory messages at the soundcard
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initialisation, read section 1.3
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If you do not have enough conventional memory, the program will
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exit to DOS almost immediately. If you *JUST* have enough conventional
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memory, then there may not be enough memory left over to load the
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sound driver(s) ( -> No sound card detected )
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1.3 "Mix Data not allocated" messages
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All non-wavetable cards require extra *conventional* memory to be
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allocated in order for them to run appropriately. The amount requires
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differs between the drivers and depends also on the mixing speed (the
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higher the mix speed, the more memory required). If you get this
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message, try to free up some conventional memory.
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1.4 Video character's scrambled
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Some video cards (esp Matrox cards) did not follow the VGA register
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standard correctly. Impulse Tracker tries to detecting whether
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you have such a card, but if this is not successful, run IT /v2
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for Matrox compatibility mode.
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1.5 Impulse Tracker often hangs
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Impulse Tracker may not operate securely in anything other than
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DOS and Windows 95 (these are the two systems that IT has been
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extensively tested on) - QEMM/Command shells (eg 4DOS/NDOS) have
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been known to cause errors in many situations.
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Aside from these, if Impulse Tracker hangs on you, please write to
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me immediately, with a full description of what happens/how you can
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make it happen. (Including the version of IT that you use!)
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If you get a blank screen when you run Impulse Tracker, try using
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command line parameters to specify your soundcard and port/irq/dma.
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The autodetect procedures seem pretty reliable, but there's a chance
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that they may be interfering/interacting with unexpected hardware.
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1.6 Files won't load/take a long time to load!
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Some music modules are actually compressed with a program called
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MMCMP. Under normal conditions, these files can be decompressed
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automatically, under the following situations, they _cannot_:
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1) You do NOT have EMM386 loaded - the decompression routines
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require EMS memory, so if you do not have EMS, you cannot
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load these files.
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2) You are running Impulse Tracker through Windows 3.xx -
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Windows 3.xx prevents programs from doing certain things...
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including the setup routines that the decompressor requires
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to run - so these files cannot be loaded under Windows 3.xx
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These files will take longer to load, as they are compressed and are
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decompressed to disk first.
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1.7 Impulse Tracker doesn't support my soundcard!
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There may be two reasons for this:
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1) Impulse Tracker really doesn't support your soundcard.
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2) Impulse Tracker supposedly does support your soundcard but
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you can't get it to work.
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1) Solution: Convince your soundcard manufacturer to send me a sound
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card to play with AS WELL AS all the programming information.
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Alternatively, find a soundcard that Impulse Tracker *DOES*
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support - you can pick up some decent soundcards really cheaply.
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2) First of all, check that you have enough memory. If you have
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a low amount of FreeMem once you load Impulse Tracker, it probably
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means that there wasn't enough memory to load the sound driver file
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which will automatically cause a detect failure.
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Unfortunately, not all 100% compatible (esp "100% SBPro compatible")
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soundcards are REALLY 100% compatible. If the drivers do not detect
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your soundcard, then try specifying full command line parameters.
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If it still doesn't work, then I'm sorry - there's nothing I can do
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about this. Hassle your sound card manufacturer to make decent
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eqiupment.
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Impulse Tracker uses SB cards in a different *MODE* of playback
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from most programs so that they are more efficient and also so
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that they can operate in the background of Windows 95. So just
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because your soundcard works in another program, it doesn't mean
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that it's 100% compatible. (this is for all of you who may think
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"But this card works in other programs, why doesn't it work in IT?")
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For Sound Blaster cards, make sure you have the BLASTER environment
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variable set in order for IT to detect your card reliably
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(SB16/AWE32 excluded, as these use hardware routines).
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1.8 The sound breaks up/computer slows down when playing songs!
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(This section only deals with software mixed cards, ie. almost
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every soundcard except native GUS, Interwave and EMU8000)
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Sound output from the computer requires HEAVY computation - up to
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64 thousand calculations per second PER NOTE playing. If your computer
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is unable to keep up with this, the sound will have very obvious
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chunks in it and your computer will slow down noticeably.
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Solutions:
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1) If you're running Impulse Tracker under windows, you may find
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that running it from a DOS bootup provides a SIGNIFICANT increase
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the capabilities of your computer in this respect (3x faster
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in DOS than Win95 for me)
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2) Limit the number of notes you can have simultaneously via the
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command line (/Lxx) - eg. "IT /L32" will limit playback to
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32 simultaneous notes maximum.
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3) Lower the number of calculations required per second per note.
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This is done by changing the "mixing speed" via the command line:
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eg: "IT /m32000" will cause 32000 calculations per second per note
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to be made. "IT /m22000" will cause 22000 calculations per second
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per note to be made. Check drivers.txt to find the range of
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mixing speed values that your soundcard can manage.
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4) Get a faster computer :)
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1.9 Microsoft Windows and Impulse Tracker
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Microsoft Windows 3.xx and Impulse Tracker is a definite no-no.
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I do NOT guarantee ANYTHING under this configuration. I probably
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also will not fixup any problems that occur in Impulse Tracker
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that only occur under Windows 3.xx
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Microsft Windows '95 and Impulse Tracker *SHOULD* work fine.
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If no sound card can be detected under Windows '95, check first that
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you have no other program using your soundcard (or another DOS window
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still open that used your soundcard).
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Only certain soundcards can play in the background of Windows '95 for
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technical reasons. Please read the relevant section of DRIVERS.DOC
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for your soundcard.
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Some people have found that Impulse Tracker will hang after a few
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minutes under Windows '95. Disabling virtual memory may solve this
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problem. To disable Virtual Memory, right click on My Computer,
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Properties, Performance, Virtual Memory and check the "disable" box.
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2.1 Loading external samples
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To load in another sample so that you can use it in your composition,
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go to the sample-list page (F3), then press "Enter". You will be
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taken to the "load sample" screen, where you can test out and select
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samples from a wide variety of formats. This includes:
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.IFF, .WAV, .S3I, .ITS, .RAW, and TX Wave .Wxx formats.
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You can even load samples DIRECTLY OUT of other modules. In the sample
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loader, navigate to a drive/directory which contains modules, and you
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will see that they can opened as 'libraries.' So far, support for
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external sample loading from modules is available for:
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.MOD, .MTM, .S3M, .XM, .669, .PTM, .FAR and of course, .IT
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.PAT and .KRZ instruments can also be loaded as sample libraries at
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the moment.
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3.1 What are these CACHE.ITS and CACHE.ITI files?
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Whenever you load a sample or instrument, Impulse Tracker has to
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load all the files to find out their contents, to determine
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parameters such as sample format, bit fields, etc. CACHE.ITS and
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CACHE.ITI are files created by Impulse Tracker so that on subsequent
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usage, this information can be loaded almost instantaneously from
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a single file, rather than having to reload all the information
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again.
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These may be deleted without disrupting program usage, but they will
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be recreated when you attempt to load samples/instruments from the
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directory.
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3.2 Distribution Sites
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To get the latest versions of IT on the web, check out:
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USA Site - Shawn Mativetsky (Shawn202)
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http://www.noisemusic.org/it
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UK Site - Andi Simpson (Imminent)
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http://www.mixbbs.demon.co.uk
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Spanish Site - Javier Gutierrez
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http://www.musica.org/impulse
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Music and Tracking Site - Matthias Ziegs (MAZ)
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http://www.maz-sound.com
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IT Resource Central - Matthew Gardner
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http://www.unidev.com/~logic/music/it
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Please don't write to me to become a distribution site - the sites
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above should be sufficient, and I don't think it is necessary to
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have BBS distributions since the use of the internet has become
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so widespread.
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