You DO NOT need to CLI2NOP patch Blood if you are running Windows XP! Just ensure you are using the fixPOPF fix (the "run with VDMSound" option without the music notes or typing "DOSDRV" in an NTVDM window). You will be unable to run Blood at anything above 640x480 and retain decent speeds. You will also need to reduce the sound quality to probably 22kHz and 6 voices 16-bit stereo. You can also try using GliDOS to play the beta 3dfx version of Blood -- it works in XP. 😀 Also make sure you are set up to use IRQ7 and not IRQ5, as Windows XP's crappy emulation is at IRQ5 and VDMSound is at IRQ7. 😀

Thanks snover, it works. It's a bit choppy, but it works! Do you know of any way to speed it up a tad? It's hard to play the game this way. If not, no problem. I'm just glad it works.

Originally posted by Comreak Thanks snover, it works. It's a bit choppy, but it works! Do you know of any way to speed it up a tad?

Audio? Video? Both?

For video, I think you may be stuck (unless you want to drop down to 320x200 resolution). For audio, you may want to tweak the audio settings. An unregistered user suggested the following:

Within VDMSound:
Drop dma polling to 2/5, changed output from Directsound to waveout, changed latency to 30ms.

Within Duke (or in this case Blood)
22khz, 8 voices, 16bit mixing

I tried these myself and found that audio performance had definitely improved (except I kept Directsound).

This is easier to do if you're using the GUI launcher. Just remember that if you do, you need the "brute force" work-around:

On your game's .VLP shortcut, get it's properties, click "Advanced", go to the "Troubleshooting" tab, "check" the "Custom Configuration" box and paste the following into the open text area:
[VDMServicesProvider.config]
fixPOPF = 1

The sound's ok, it's just the video that's too slow. I've tried lowering the resolution to 320x200 and I get this strange flashy thing going up and down the menus. I wish I could get a screeny of it to show you. The next resolution up (320x400 I belive) gives me this wierd split screen effect.

Originally posted by Comreak The sound's ok, it's just the video that's too slow. I've tried lowering the resolution to 320x200 and I get this strange flashy thing...

Make sure you're not using NOLFB when using 320x200 mode (it's not a VESA mode).

Sometimes a heavy drain from the audio can cause the video to lag. Also remember that for 640x480 or higher, NOLFB shuts off the Linear Frame Buffer video modes of your card which run faster (it trades speed for compatibility).

You can always try running without NOLFB to see if it works. 😀

I have a simlar problem to Comreak (I'm running the Shareware 1.11 version).

Example: On *any* level and even when running demos in the menu background, the game runs at normal speed for a few seconds then the game slows to a crawl momentarily (input lags, SFX stutters, Music tempo drops etc), then everything speeds up (faster than normal), then drops back to normal rate.

This pattern goes on at very regular intervals until I quit the game.

Now I've tried everything I can think of including all the suggestions mentioned on this page and others.

eg. VDMSound: (altered Sound/DMA buffers, used Wave output)
Blood.Pif: Set idle sensitivity to minimum.
Blood Setup: Change sound card type, mixing quality and num of channels.
Also tried reducing sound quality/accelaration in Control Panel and using the PITSET utility but nothing works!

**However this problem only occurs with SFX enabled, turn it off and the game runs perfectly (in VESA mode too with nolfb.com).

If this is a driver problem then I'm rather stuck as there aren't any updates from Creative for my model (CT4700), so I'm lumped with the generic WDM XP driver. Also I tried removing the VIA PCI latency patch to check for any improvement but it made no difference. Would altering some of my BIOS setup options make any difference? (Im thinking along the lines of Delay transaction, PCI latency, wait states, Read caching etc) or is this more likely to be a software OS related bug, as I don't have that many sound related problems in other games.

I'm running WinXP Pro SP1
VDMSound 2.0.4 Update 1
Creative SB PCI 128 (CT4700) Default WDM driver
ABIT KT7E (BIOS 3R)
Blood Shareware 1.11

Originally posted by Aspie_Boi **However this problem only occurs with SFX enabled, turn it off and the game runs perfectly...

Yep. That's because the way it processes sound is the source of the problem. If dropping to minimum quality didn't help, there is precious little left to do.

You could try CLI2Nop'ing the file for better performance, but that's guessing...

Your best bet is a dual boot with Win9x and running it there, but I'm betting you don't have a dual-boot setup since you didn't mention it.

Well I'll try CLI2NOP and see if that helps, thanks for the suggestion anyhow.

If it's a problem with how the game itself processes the sound, rather than anything driver/hardware related, why can Comreak manage to get decent FX performance with tweaking and I can't? (Since we're both running the same vers of OS/VDMSound/Blood).

*Note: I don't have a dual boot setup, but I do own an old Pentium PC with NT4/95/DOS7.0 partitions for older programs. So if all else fails (or games don't load on NTFS drives) I can fall back to the old machine, it's simply more convient for me to run as many of my programs as possible on my newer PC.

Originally posted by Aspie_Boi Well I'll try CLI2NOP and see if that helps,...

Just remember that CLI2Nop will decrease it's stability. I was able to get reasonable performance until just recently in BLOOD. I have no idea as to why there's been a drop in performance.

BTW, there's been some suspicions that DirectX9 has been interfering with the running of DOS games in general. Having said that, I have DirectX 8.1 and am experiencing recent slow-downs in BLOOD (although I'm not getting the massive speed-ups that you described).

If it's a problem with how the game itself processes the sound, rather than anything driver/hardware related, why can Comreak manage to get decent FX performance with tweaking and I can't?

Performance on NT-operating systems varies, but very few would claim it to be equal with that of DOS/Win9x. BTW, are you using MIDI for background music? Choosing SoundBlaster's FM for music will place an additional burden on the emulation.

I don't have a dual boot setup, but I do own an old Pentium PC with NT4/95/DOS7.0 partitions...

Well that's good. I prefer a dual-boot myself, but after XP has been installed, it's a major pain to set up.

Ah... got it!

Thx Cli2nop worked a treat I now have full sound, 640x480 mode and decent performance!

😁

Hrmmm. This still doesn't seem right. You shouldn't have needed CLI2Nop. Keep an eye out for other titles that work properly on other systems, but not on yours...

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

Hrmmm. This still doesn't seem right. You shouldn't have needed CLI2Nop. Keep an eye out for other titles that work properly on other systems, but not on yours...

What exactly does CLI2Nop do anyway?

Originally posted by Comreak What exactly does CLI2Nop do anyway?

It's hard to give a useful short description:
showthread.php?threadid=31

I would love the full version of this game.

I don't have a credit card or any other card for that matter to buy it online or second hand off the net.

Anyone know a store in Australia (Melbourne) that has this game, or does anyone here wish to sell me their copy (full version) second hand?

Originally posted by Gonz` I would love the full version of this game.

In the meantime:
http://www.planetblood.com/qblood/

Transfusion is their "Multiplayer Remake", the single player version is next up for a remake. IIRC, they also have permission for distribution of all the audio and video files. So they should have the excellent audio tracks from the original game as well.

Im having the exact same problems as Aspie-Boi does. The same slowdown then speed up pattern. I tried VDMsound with the various different setups listed here and it just makes it worse. When i run blood with sound enabled and VDMsound all i hear is a "gong" that keeps playing and the menu screen freezes. When i turn off the sound everything works normally with or without VDMsound. I tried CLI2Nop even though someone said it wouldnt make any difference with WinXp and they were right. As of now i can keep playing blood normally but the slowdowns and speedup always get me killed unless i turn off the sound and then everything runs just fine. Oh and can anyone tell me how to use NOLFB.COM, i hear it fixes the garbled screen whenever higher resolutions are used. Thanks in advance.

850MHZ
640MB RAM
ati radeon 9000 pro
winxp

You NEED TO ENABLE FIXPOPF. Please search the forums for it. Try it. If it still hangs, let us know.
Also, Paul (GliDOS) has created a GliDOS version that will run with Blood. Blood does weeeeird stuff with the Glide display mode. No real 3D at all. However that won't help if you can't get it running normally for the most part.

Well i tried lowering sound quality (8 voices, 22khz) WITHOUT VDMsound and everything went smooth (except that its sounds pretty bad now but at least it works). So sound is taken care of, but i still would like to see if i can run it at higher resolutions, i got NOLFB from ken silvermans website i just dont know how to use it. Oh and i tried GliDOS and it looked really good but i just dont feel like spending $10 to get rid of the spinning logo, maybe when i have money. Thanks btw.