This voice driver supports Creative Labs' TextAssist DecTalk program. You must have a Sound Blaster AWE32 card or SB16 with the ASP or CSP chip, and the TextAssist program installed for this driver to work.
Note: The TextAssist program is not a part of Aurora for Windows. It is part of the software package provided when you purchase your Creative Labs SoundBlaster card. If you have purchased a "Value Edition" SoundBlaster card, or a clone card, you will most likely not have the TextAssist program, and will either have to obtain it, or choose another speech synthesizer like the Aurora Realvoice.
Note: This driver requires version 1.10 or higher of the TextAssist program. You can check which version you have by looking at Help|About in the TextAssist control panel. If you have a version prior to version 1.10, you will need to contact Creative Labs about getting an updated version of TextAssist.
Note: If you have Windows 95 or above, you must obtain TAWSWGUP.EXE from Creative Labs World Wide Web site http://www.creaf.com to upgrade your TextAssist program to
version 1.3. Follow the instructions for installation. Quit all Aurora programs, rename the file CTSFRAME.DLL in your AWIN3 directory CTSFRAME.BAK and restart your computer.
Note: The name of this voice driver has changed from version 1.x to version 3.0. This means that you will get an error message "Unable to locate selected driver" and you will need to re-select and re-setup the SoundBlaster TextAssist DecTalk voice.
Voice
Select the voice TextAssist should use.
Perfect Paul - Standard male voice
Huge Harry - Deep male voice
Frail Frank - Breathy male voice
Doctor Dennis - Alternate standard male voice
Beautiful Betty - Standard female voice
Rough Rita - Deep female voice
Uppity Ursula - Alternate standard female voice
Whispering Wendy - Breathy female voice
Kit the Kid - Child's voice
Volume
Set the volume of the voice.
Strip [ ] brackets
This option should be checked in most situations. Advanced users may disable this if you wish to program DecTalk commands manually. Custom initialization, prefix and suffix strings in AURORA.INI are not affected by this setting.
Note: Unchecking this option may cause TextAssist to act erratically if you attempt to say anything that contains the [ or ] characters.
See Also