impulsetracker/ReleaseDocumentation/IMPULSE.FAQ

*** PLEASE take the time to check quickly through this document BEFORE ***
*** you write to me. If the answer to your questions lies within here, ***
*** do NOT expect a reply at all.                                      ***

This document is currently incomplete.

1. Getting Impulse Tracker working.
 1.1 Requirements to run IT
 1.2 Insufficient memory messages
 1.3 "Mix data not allocated"
 1.4 Video characters scrambled
 1.5 Impulse Tracker often hangs
 1.6 Files won't load/take a long time to load!
 1.7 Impulse Tracker doesn't support my soundcard!
 1.8 The sound breaks up/computer slows down when playing songs!
 1.9 Microsoft Windows and Impulse Tracker

2. Using Impulse Tracker
 2.1 Loading external samples

3. Miscellaneous
 3.1 What are these CACHE.ITS and CACHE.ITI files??
 3.2 Distribution sites.

4. Future versions of Impulse Tracker - Not written yet

1.1 Requirements of IT

        ------------------------------
        NOTE WIN95 USERS -> READ LATER
        ------------------------------

        Impulse Tracker requires a 386+ PC and > 500k of memory. Impulse
        Tracker uses EMS memory. To setup EMS memory, use the following lines
        in your CONFIG.SYS file:

                DEVICE=<path>\HIMEM.SYS
                DEVICE=<path>\EMM386.EXE RAM H=255

        Do *NOT* have "NOEMS" or "FRAME=NONE" on the same line as EMM386.EXE

        Also shove these lines in, if they're not already there:

                DOS=HIGH,UMB <--- just to get yourself a little more memory
                STACKS=0,0 <--- Some computers require this to prevent crashing

        I cannot guarantee that IT will work with QEMM, but Leszek Clapinski
        wrote to me with this advice (thanks!):
        In your config.sys, use:
         DEVICE=<path>\QEMM386.SYS DMA=64 HANDLES=255 FORCEEMS
        Then use "IT -P2"

        I recommend that you also devicehigh and Load-high (LH) as many
        possible drivers, so that you have more conventional memory to play
        around with.

        -----------
        Win95 Users
        -----------

        If you are a Win95 user, you're probably best off not having HIMEM.SYS
        *OR* EMM386.EXE in your CONFIG.SYS file. If you *do* have EMM386,
        make sure you do NOT have "noems" as a parameter.

        Win95's internal EMS handling routines *DO* automatically provide
        the optimum environment for IT, so you should be able to ignore the
        settings given above.

1.2 Insufficient memory messages

        If you get Insufficient Memory messages at the soundcard
        initialisation, read section 1.3

        If you do not have enough conventional memory, the program will
        exit to DOS almost immediately. If you *JUST* have enough conventional
        memory, then there may not be enough memory left over to load the
        sound driver(s) ( -> No sound card detected )

1.3 "Mix Data not allocated" messages

        All non-wavetable cards require extra *conventional* memory to be
        allocated in order for them to run appropriately. The amount requires
        differs between the drivers and depends also on the mixing speed (the
        higher the mix speed, the more memory required). If you get this
        message, try to free up some conventional memory.

1.4 Video character's scrambled

        Some video cards (esp Matrox cards) did not follow the VGA register
        standard correctly. Impulse Tracker tries to detecting whether
        you have such a card, but if this is not successful, run IT /v2
        for Matrox compatibility mode.

1.5 Impulse Tracker often hangs

        Impulse Tracker may not operate securely in anything other than
        DOS and Windows 95 (these are the two systems that IT has been
        extensively tested on) - QEMM/Command shells (eg 4DOS/NDOS) have
        been known to cause errors in many situations.

        Aside from these, if Impulse Tracker hangs on you, please write to
        me immediately, with a full description of what happens/how you can
        make it happen. (Including the version of IT that you use!)

        If you get a blank screen when you run Impulse Tracker, try using
        command line parameters to specify your soundcard and port/irq/dma.
        The autodetect procedures seem pretty reliable, but there's a chance
        that they may be interfering/interacting with unexpected hardware.

1.6 Files won't load/take a long time to load!

        Some music modules are actually compressed with a program called
        MMCMP. Under normal conditions, these files can be decompressed
        automatically, under the following situations, they _cannot_:

         1) You do NOT have EMM386 loaded - the decompression routines
            require EMS memory, so if you do not have EMS, you cannot
            load these files.
         2) You are running Impulse Tracker through Windows 3.xx -
            Windows 3.xx prevents programs from doing certain things...
            including the setup routines that the decompressor requires
            to run - so these files cannot be loaded under Windows 3.xx

        These files will take longer to load, as they are compressed and are
        decompressed to disk first.

1.7 Impulse Tracker doesn't support my soundcard!

        There may be two reasons for this:
          1) Impulse Tracker really doesn't support your soundcard.
          2) Impulse Tracker supposedly does support your soundcard but
             you can't get it to work.

        1) Solution: Convince your soundcard manufacturer to send me a sound
           card to play with AS WELL AS all the programming information.
           Alternatively, find a soundcard that Impulse Tracker *DOES*
           support - you can pick up some decent soundcards really cheaply.

        2) First of all, check that you have enough memory. If you have
           a low amount of FreeMem once you load Impulse Tracker, it probably
           means that there wasn't enough memory to load the sound driver file
           which will automatically cause a detect failure.

           Unfortunately, not all 100% compatible (esp "100% SBPro compatible")
           soundcards are REALLY 100% compatible. If the drivers do not detect
           your soundcard, then try specifying full command line parameters.
           If it still doesn't work, then I'm sorry - there's nothing I can do
           about this. Hassle your sound card manufacturer to make decent
           eqiupment.

           Impulse Tracker uses SB cards in a different *MODE* of playback
           from most programs so that they are more efficient and also so
           that they can operate in the background of Windows 95. So just
           because your soundcard works in another program, it doesn't mean
           that it's 100% compatible. (this is for all of you who may think
           "But this card works in other programs, why doesn't it work in IT?")

           For Sound Blaster cards, make sure you have the BLASTER environment
           variable set in order for IT to detect your card reliably
           (SB16/AWE32 excluded, as these use hardware routines).

1.8 The sound breaks up/computer slows down when playing songs!

        (This section only deals with software mixed cards, ie. almost
         every soundcard except native GUS, Interwave and EMU8000)

        Sound output from the computer requires HEAVY computation - up to
        64 thousand calculations per second PER NOTE playing. If your computer
        is unable to keep up with this, the sound will have very obvious
        chunks in it and your computer will slow down noticeably.

        Solutions:
         1) If you're running Impulse Tracker under windows, you may find
            that running it from a DOS bootup provides a SIGNIFICANT increase
            the capabilities of your computer in this respect (3x faster
            in DOS than Win95 for me)
         2) Limit the number of notes you can have simultaneously via the
            command line (/Lxx) - eg. "IT /L32" will limit playback to
            32 simultaneous notes maximum.
         3) Lower the number of calculations required per second per note.
            This is done by changing the "mixing speed" via the command line:
            eg: "IT /m32000" will cause 32000 calculations per second per note
            to be made. "IT /m22000" will cause 22000 calculations per second
            per note to be made. Check drivers.txt to find the range of
            mixing speed values that your soundcard can manage.
         4) Get a faster computer :)

1.9 Microsoft Windows and Impulse Tracker

        Microsoft Windows 3.xx and Impulse Tracker is a definite no-no.
        I do NOT guarantee ANYTHING under this configuration. I probably
        also will not fixup any problems that occur in Impulse Tracker
        that only occur under Windows 3.xx

        Microsft Windows '95 and Impulse Tracker *SHOULD* work fine.
        If no sound card can be detected under Windows '95, check first that
        you have no other program using your soundcard (or another DOS window
        still open that used your soundcard).

        Only certain soundcards can play in the background of Windows '95 for
        technical reasons. Please read the relevant section of DRIVERS.DOC
        for your soundcard.

        Some people have found that Impulse Tracker will hang after a few
        minutes under Windows '95. Disabling virtual memory may solve this
        problem. To disable Virtual Memory, right click on My Computer,
        Properties, Performance, Virtual Memory and check the "disable" box.

2.1 Loading external samples

        To load in another sample so that you can use it in your composition,
        go to the sample-list page (F3), then press "Enter". You will be
        taken to the "load sample" screen, where you can test out and select
        samples from a wide variety of formats. This includes:
          .IFF, .WAV, .S3I, .ITS, .RAW, and TX Wave .Wxx formats.

        You can even load samples DIRECTLY OUT of other modules. In the sample
        loader, navigate to a drive/directory which contains modules, and you
        will see that they can opened as 'libraries.' So far, support for
        external sample loading from modules is available for:
          .MOD, .MTM, .S3M, .XM, .669, .PTM, .FAR and of course, .IT

        .PAT and .KRZ instruments can also be loaded as sample libraries at
        the moment.

3.1 What are these CACHE.ITS and CACHE.ITI files?

        Whenever you load a sample or instrument, Impulse Tracker has to
        load all the files to find out their contents, to determine
        parameters such as sample format, bit fields, etc. CACHE.ITS and
        CACHE.ITI are files created by Impulse Tracker so that on subsequent
        usage, this information can be loaded almost instantaneously from
        a single file, rather than having to reload all the information
        again.

        These may be deleted without disrupting program usage, but they will
        be recreated when you attempt to load samples/instruments from the
        directory.

3.2 Distribution Sites

        To get the latest versions of IT on the web, check out:

        USA Site                - Shawn Mativetsky (Shawn202)
                                  http://www.noisemusic.org/it
        UK Site                 - Andi Simpson (Imminent)
                                  http://www.mixbbs.demon.co.uk
        Spanish Site            - Javier Gutierrez
                                  http://www.musica.org/impulse
        Music and Tracking Site - Matthias Ziegs (MAZ)
                                  http://www.maz-sound.com
        IT Resource Central     - Matthew Gardner
                                  http://www.unidev.com/~logic/music/it

        Please don't write to me to become a distribution site - the sites
        above should be sufficient, and I don't think it is necessary to
        have BBS distributions since the use of the internet has become
        so widespread.