First post, by guruman
Here we go again!
I'm now trying (desparately!) to get BLOOD working using 'real' DOS - DOS 7, anyway (Windows 98 direct-to-command-prompt).
I'm using my One Unit : Whole Blood cd, v1.21.
Problem 1: Win2000 system, with an NTFS system partition. No dual-boot for you!
Workaround: Install second hard drive. Format with FAT32. Use a boot floppy to start Win98, load DOS-level drivers and switch control to the FAT32 partition COMMAND.COM. Inelegant, but works!
Problem 2: The program will *not* install under DOS. The DOS installer sucks. It gets stuck on the .SMK files. It claims not to be able to find them, although they are right there in the \MOVIE folder, and the Windows installer can find them just fine!
Workaround: Use the Windows installer to install the game to my main Win2000 drive, then copy the folder to the FAT32 DOS partition and update the BLOOD.INI file to point to the correct DOS-mode CD drive.
Problem 3: Getting the SBLive! working.
I found a site that basically said, if you can figure out what your sblive! resources are (0xD000, IRQ10, although Win2K seems to think it's IRQ 18?!?) you can edit a file called CTSYN.INI and use the DOS-level component of the Win9X SBLive! drivers (SBEINIT.COM) to make the card work.
With the settings set to D000 and IRQ10, the emulator loads but
SETUP.EXE won't recognize the hardware.
Workaround: Disable sound for the sake of getting the game going.
Problem 4: The game won't load! Every time I try to play it, I get:
src\demp.cpp(510): File error #11 loading demo file header.
WTF? Can anyone shed some light on this mystery?