DRD Team

I installed DOSBox v0.73 and was able to successfully run Blood with sound & higher resolutions. The problem in higher resolutions is that parts of the screen flicker annoyingly. I read about a possible fix (by skipping frames), but decided to stick with lower resolutions that don't have the annoying flicker.

Damn! It would be schweeet if the source code for Blood was released, so that the game could be ported. LOVE that game!

I LIVE ...... AGAIN!

The two problems I have are that I have no sound, and changing the resolution from the Options menu has no effect. [Curiously, the Options menu => Video Mode submenu shows resolutions all the way up to 1400 x 1050, and while I can select any one of them, the change does not take effect. In other words, I'm stuck with the default 320 x 240 resolution.]

What error do you get when you try to launch blood? The original issue (that this fixes) is that the linear framebuffer VESA modes don't work in windows (You should get a error message like DPMI_mapPhysicalToLinear() Failed!).

I tried what you suggested, and still had no luck.

I went into Jonof's forums, and it seems that DOSBox may be a good alternative.

Fire up CMD.EXE, and use the CD command to get to the directory with the utility. run NOLFB and then use CD to head to your blood directory (or don't if it's where you put the utility), and then run Blood. You can't run it from explorer

Some years ago I downloaded a utility created by Ken Silverman (one of the guys who developed the Build engine) that supposedly allows Build games to be played in Windows; it's named NOLFB. I have never succeeded in getting it to run at all. Does anyone have experience with this utility, and if so, please share how you got it to run? The zip file included a .com file, which I used to try to run Blood.

Here is the .asm file, for what it's worth:
[spoiler=][code]
;NOLFB.ASM by Ken Silverman (http://www.advsys.net/ken) 09/21/2002
;
;NOLFB is a TSR that disables the linear framebuffer (LFB) in VESA 2.0
;(and above) BIOS. Doing this will make some DOS games (including BUILD
;engine games and other demos on my website) run under Windows NT/2K/XP.
;Programs will run slower without the LFB, but at least they work!
;
;Compiling info: This MUST be run as a COM file!
;I was able to compile NOLFB.ASM->NOLFB.COM by using utilities from Watcom C:
; >wasm nolfb.asm
; >wlink f nolfb.obj system dos com
;
;It should also be possible to compile with old versions of MASM/LINK/EXE2BIN.

.286
code segment
assume cs:code
org 256

start: jmp short tsrinit

veshandler:
;modify only the VESA set_video_mode calls...
cmp ax, 4f01h
je short myhandler

;pass interrupt to original VESA handler (doesn't return to NOLFB)
jmp dword ptr cs:oveshandler

myhandler:
;call original VESA handler first (returns to NOLFB)
pushf ;pushf allows you to call an interrupt handler like a 'far' call
call dword ptr cs:oveshandler

;do our modifications only if original VESA handler returns 'good'
cmp ax, 4fh
jne short oveserror

;clear flag that says LFB exists (bit 7 of VBE_modeInfo.ModeAttributes)
and byte ptr es:[di], 7fh
oveserror:
iret

oveshandler dd ?
programleng equ $+256-start

mystring db "NOLFB by Ken Silverman (advsys.net/ken) 09/21/2002",'$'

tsrinit:
pop ax ;throw away the return address with COM files

;dos_printstring.. please don't remove! :)
mov dx, offset mystring
mov ah, 9
int 21h

;dos_getvect
mov ax, 3510h
int 21h
mov word ptr cs:[oveshandler+0], bx
mov word ptr cs:[oveshandler+2], es

;dos_setvect
mov dx, offset veshandler
mov ax, 2510h
int 21h

;free environment block
[/code][/spoiler]