ESS Technology, Inc

Windows95 Driver Version 4.05.00.0187

Date: 2/09/1998

Future driver updates can be downloaded from
ftp.essservice.com/outgoing/platform

platform is a hidden directory.

The followings are the new features and/or improvements in this new 
release.

Driver #187	Date: 2/09/98
- Enhanced analog playback/record performance. On ESS' 4-layer reference 
  board, playback and record SNRs are improved by 4dB, respectively.
- Turn off Reverb/Chorus as default (it was on in previous releases).
- Resolved the footstep sound missing issue at the game Jedi Knight when
  the "3D Accelerator" is checked in the Display Setup.
- Add an option to turn off joystick support in DOS and Windows.  This is
  needed to avoid legacy resource conflict with some special joystick 
  like Thrustmaster's CH-F16 Combat Stick, which comes with an ACM card 
  with 2 joystick ports.  Joystick could be disabled by following the 
  prcedure below:
  1) In the file MAESTRO.INF, Joystick support is disabled by uncommenting
     the following line: 
	 HKR,,JoyDisable,1,01,00 ; disable joystick in DOS & Windows.
	;HKR,,JoyDisable,1,01,00 ; enable joystick in DOS & WIndows.
  2) Use the "setup.exe" utility to uninstall driver and reboot.
  3) Driver is reinstalled and the new MAESTRO.INF file will be loaded.
  4) Joystick support is disabled. 

Driver #185	Date: 1/30/98
- Resolved missing sound issue when the "A3D Enable Mode" is checked
  in the game "Jedi Knight" 1.0.
- Resolved driver installation issue at Videologic's Caliban combo card.
- Resolved clicking sound issue at the game "TigerShark".
- Resolved clicking sound issue at the game "SimCopter 1.01.

Driver #181	Date: 1/21/98
- Support 4Meg wavetable samples. The default WT sample size is 2MB 
  during boot-up. The user can then dynamically change to 4MB samples 
  by going through Control Panel | System | Device Manager | Maestro
  Wave/Wavetable Synthesis Devices | Audio Settings sequence. 
  NOTE: system reboot may be required when 4MB is chosen in order to 
  request 4MB system memory space from the OS.

- Enhanced Q3D 3D positoinal game coverage and support for A3D 
  API interface.

- Flexibility to customize label name in the mixer volume control
  in MSTROWT.INF file.  The instructions are listed below.

- Support ViA 82C586B chipset with TDMA mode.

- Add PC Beep volume control in the mixer volume control.

The followings are the known limitations or issues.  
These issues are planned to be resolved in future releases.

- There is noise in some MIDI playback when the reverb/chorus effect is 
  on (Bach's Bradenburg Concerto # 3.mid). 

- Rebooting system with Chorus & Reverb enabled causes noise 
  when the system returns to Windows (intermittenly).

- For systems with SiS chipsets 5582, 5597 or 5598, legacy DOS games
  in native DOS mode are not fully supported by Maestro due to the 
  limitation in these single-chip SiS chipsets, which don't support 
  Distributd DMA, PC/PCI DMA or Transparent DMA.

- The Rage3D digital joystick from ThrustMaster is not compatible  
  to this driver/hardware.  

NOTE: 

- To upgrade or uninstall the driver automatically, please use
  the "setup.exe" utility in the driver release.
- To change the "DOS Game" support level, please use the "setup.exe"
  utility in the driver release.
- To customize mixer label name, please change both the volume long and
  short name inside the double quotation marks in the MSTROWT.INF file. 
  Be aware of the character size for volume long name can not exceed 64 
  and the character size for volume short name can not exceed 16. Mixer 
  driver will use the volume long name as the default mixer source lable 
  name.  The following is an example:

  HKR,Config,Source0Long,,  "Mixer Volume Long Name goes here"  ; Mixer Volume Long Name
  HKR,Config,Source0Short,, "Mixer Short Name"                  ; Mixer Volume Short Name

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