blood doesn't work on xp sp2 - no errors

[load]

Hey, I followed every step & did everything correctly BUT when i double click blood.vlp, it starts the pre-game stuff up and then the dos box just dissapears! No errors of any kind just nothing

Any ideas?

[DeM0n]

Man, I feel your pain. I had to format my HD and re install everything and downloaded all these windows fixes. Then I downloaded blood and VDMsound and now it'snot working anymore. Same problem. Getting either blank screen or it stops at "Loading VDMLoader.dll"

[Lord Molder]

Man, I feel your pain. I had to format my HD and re install everything and downloaded all these windows fixes. Then I downloaded blood and VDMsound and now it'snot working anymore. Same problem. Getting either blank screen or it stops at "Loading VDMLoader.dll"

Is that on SP2 as well?.....if so there must be some service introduced in the service pack that is screwing with things..... ....people have had way too much trouble with SP2 and running Blood for it to be coincidence.

Here`s the original XP services list...
http://www.dead-eye.net/WinXP%20Services.htm

What do you have in SP2 that ain`t on there?......i`m probably looking up the wrong skirt but it`s worth a look.

[DeM0n]

I'm just running SP 2. I never bothered to get SP 2. The download was way too big lol. It must be one of the updates I downloaded for XP that disables VDLoader or something like that.

I'll try it again later maybe I did something wrong but I doubt that.

[load]

Unfortunately I don't think getting rid of SP2 is going to be an option. Mostly for security reasons...

Im in the process of trying to get Virtual PC working for a version of DOS that I have, but its being a pain. Then, ill have to get the sound card to work with virtual PC which will be even more of a pain

[Lord Molder]

Unfortunately I don't think getting rid of SP2 is going to be an option. Mostly for security reasons...

Im in the process of trying to get Virtual PC working for a version of DOS that I have, but its being a pain. Then, ill have to get the sound card to work with virtual PC which will be even more of a pain

Could always duel boot Windows 98......

[Ephemeral]

This may be related to a problem with windows' own config.nt. I quote from an earlier post (in this thread) of mine:

I had this problem for a long time. it was hard to find out, but it is easy to change. It has nothing to do with java or anything. It is just that the vdms settings get overridden by config.nt in your systems32 folder. In this file, find the last line, which says "files=20" and change it to "files=40". Thats it!

To be able to see this file you have to change the folder options in control panel. Check "Display the content of system folders", select "Show hidden files and folders", uncheck "Hide extensions for known filetypes", uncheck "Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)".

Please try it, it seems to me that many problems with blood not working at all are related to this, but most people don't ever find that out, because vdmsound doesn't give an error message.

[load]

The value was already set to 40

Is there anything else I can try?

[DeM0n]

The value was already set to 40

Is there anything else I can try?

Install Windows 95/98 and boot that up instead of WinXP to play Blood and such.

Or, format your HD and reinstall everything without SP2

And I can't forget the line of a friend whom I was talking to about this problem on MSN.
I tld him about the updates for WinXP and how they can kill VDMsound so he said
"Looks like they are moving more and more towards the NT technology"

So yeah, maybe install Windows 98 as a secondary OS might help

And btw you might get an error message, just uncheck the "Close DOS window on exit" in the properties.
When I tried to run a DOS application on winxp with updates it said "Spawn Error"

[Lord Molder]

I`ve been suggesting dual booting that for donkey`s ages (indeed,earlier in this thread)...but no-one ever want`s to do it.... ...i`m computer illiterate and still managed to pull it off. It`s handy for all the old games that have hissy fits on XP (System Shock 2,for example)....and for" Building" (pardon the pun) levels for Blood,etc....it`s worth it if you are right into DOS progs and games.

[DeM0n]

I`ve been suggesting duel booting that for donkey`s ages (indeed,earlier in this thread)...but no-one ever want`s to do it.... ...i`m computer illiterate and still managed to pull it off. It`s handy for all the old games that have hissy fits on XP (System Shock 2,for example)....and for" Building" (pardon the pun) levels for Blood,etc....it`s worth it if you are right into DOS progs and games.

Yeah I remember you saying that
I'd do the dual boot method...but lol, where to get a Windows 98 nowadays? And not to mention, where to get Win98 compatible drivers for your hardware?
I haven't seen a Win98 driver for my GFX so far :/

But yeah, main problem, where to get a Win98 for cheap nowadays?

[Ephemeral]

Mmh.
It could be just hardware related... When I had my old motherboard, there was no way I could ever play Blood in WinXp. With the new motherboard (well, it is not really new, but it is less buggy), I tried again out of boredom, and Bingo! it worked.

Anyway,

The value was already set to 40

just to be extra sure, you really looked for config.nt in the windows folder, right? The config.sys in VDM Properties is a completely different thing.

You could try logging:
1. Use VDM to log. Go Properties->Advanced->Troubleshooting. Enable all options of "diagnostic log" and make sure the log file is being saved in the current directory (press "Choose File..."). Any errors will be logged to VDMS.log.
2. The second way of logging is to "pipe" the text output to a file. To do so, open properties (of the .vlp file), press "Change..." (next to "DOS command line"), and in the "Arguments:" section add " >error.txt" (without the quotes) and run the shortcut. This will generate an error log of Blood (instead of an VDM error log). It could look like this:

Using Setup file: BLOOD.CFG
src\loadsave.cpp(694): File error #11 loading save file header.

Post your results here, if you like.

Another thing: Which version of VDMSound are you using? 2.10 beta never really worked well for me, so if you are using that version you could try to downgrade to 2.04(update 2).

Otherwise, set up dual boot...

[Lord Molder]

I`ve been suggesting dual booting that for donkey`s ages (indeed,earlier in this thread)...but no-one ever want`s to do it.... ...i`m computer illiterate and still managed to pull it off. It`s handy for all the old games that have hissy fits on XP (System Shock 2,for example)....and for" Building" (pardon the pun) levels for Blood,etc....it`s worth it if you are right into DOS progs and games.

Yeah I remember you saying that
I'd do the dual boot method...but lol, where to get a Windows 98 nowadays? And not to mention, where to get Win98 compatible drivers for your hardware?
I haven't seen a Win98 driver for my GFX so far :/

But yeah, main problem, where to get a Win98 for cheap nowadays?

Good point i spose...the last time i did it i had an FX5600...so i`m not sure if GF6 cards have Win 98 drivers...i know i tried some Win 98 drivers on my X800 and they nearly cooked it!!...either that or the temp monitor was buggy as...i never tried again after that. I got my Win 98 from a comp swap meet. But see if Ephemeral can`t help you first...he seems pretty cluey...hopefully he can figure out what`s causing your problems... i would only bother with dual booting if you wanted to build levels on the editor and run older DOS games,some of which you might have to slow down your cpu for as well...it never ends!!....

[guest]

why won't those damn monolith bastards just release an XP patch ?

[Lord Molder]

why won't those damn monolith bastards just release an XP patch ?

Probably too busy working on F.E.A.R and mission pack. Maybe they need the source code?....