I error logged both games and according to vdms log, vdmssound ran the processes ok. For blood I got dma transfer period warnings but I presume this isnt critical? For sshock1 I didnt get any warnings or errors after the message that dos process cdshock.exe was running.
I 'removed' XP sp2 in add/remove programs and this didnt help and I dont think that this is the culprit.
Besides sp2, I have installed a few games and some dvd burning suites like Nero and DVDXCopy as well as WinIPAC for a new Slikstik joystick, also I enabled my trial period Norton Anti-virus software which I disabled in services and startup.
It must be something which got added and I read in the vdmsound faq that certain drivers using full direct io will cause vdmsound to fail, but I havent added anything like Sysoft Sandra and my system and system32 directories dont have anything new in them except for some securom dlls.

Looks like I may do a system back up onto my usb HD and reinstall 😒

Ok after spending time searching through the forums and it looks like I may need to search through files containing "Ke386", it sounds like it may be a hidden sys file acting like GiveIO.sys. Will post back here with the results.

w00t! Got it working
Did a search for Ke386 and found that I had 'portpro.sys' in my system32/drivers which somehow got installed since I played last, renamed it to portpro.bak and rebooted.

It really does pay to be patient and read all the forum threads first 😊

Thanks for these forums guys!

Good work! Most people don't bother searching....probably because they aren't used to searching forums.

You get a gold star!

😉

cheers! 😁 Man I hope they release the source code to some of these build games for someone to do a windows port.. Blood deserves it.

There are many people who have been attempting to get the source code released. In fact just recently I spotted a post over at 3drealms forums (I think it was 3drealms) where they were talking about contacting the current owners of the Blood license. Of course any requests coming from just a few people are bound to be ignored and online petitions don't really work that well for getting source code released. The best way would be to get everybody who cares about Blood to write snail-mail asking for the source to be released......that's if anyone has the time to organize such a huge project.