Anyone play Blood on Windows 7 64 bit?

[Aaronjw]

I'm trying to install Blood, an old game based of the Duke Nukem 3d engine, but it doesn't seem to want to work on my laptop with Windows 7. I can install it, but when I try to run the exe, it gives me a message saying: "The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need an x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher."
Has anyone gotten this game to run on a 64 bit system?

[Graf Zahl]

http://www.dosbox.com/

Blood is a DOS game. 64bit systems cannot run DOS programs directly from the desktop. Even most 32bit systems have serious problems today so it shouldn't come as a surprise that it no longer works at all.


And before you now say that M$ are lazy asses, for once it's not their fault. The CPU cannot switch into 16 bit mode anymore when running a 64 bit operating system.

[Grazza]

Yes, I recall that even with Windows XP, it was touch and go whether Build engine games worked.

If Windows 7 offers some options to emulate earlier Windows versions, you could try those, but as Graf indicates, Dosbox could well be your only option. If the performance is poor, remember that you can adjust the cycles to give it more processor time.

I would also suggest checking some Blood forums, but last time I did that, I only found very low quality sites.

[chungy]

Graf Zahl said:

And before you now say that M$ are lazy asses, for once it's not their fault. The CPU cannot switch into 16 bit mode anymore when running a 64 bit operating system.

This is incorrect. There is no Virtual 8086 mode while running in long mode (64-bit), so you can't run real-mode, but 16-bit protected mode applications will run fine (for example: running Chip's Challenge in Wine on 64-bit Linux). What Microsoft is guilty of is simply being unwilling to completely rewrite the DOS/Win16 subsystems so they would run (being that they were written in assembly, which is not a trivial matter by a long shot to port to 64-bit, it pretty much requires a full rewrite).

Also Blood is not a 16-bit game anyway, it's 32-bit (like Doom).

[Graf Zahl]

chungy said:

Also Blood is not a 16-bit game anyway, it's 32-bit (like Doom).

You still can't start it without the 16-bit DOS extender code so the end result is the same.

[Shaikoten]

PS: Dosbox is your friend :)

[Aaronjw]

Thanks for the info, and link.

@Grazza: I did try looking for some Blood forums, but couldn't find anything, like you said.

[caco_killer]

Unfortunately, Atari owns the source code for this game and they refuse to make it Open Source, so there will never be ports of this game for modern operating systems like Doom, Duke 3D, and Shadow Warrior.

[Technician]

Sadly Atari isn't a small independent company like iD or 3DReals. They really don't feel the need to immortalize their titles or appease the fan base. It's sad really.

[Mithral_Demon]

Like others said, DosBox is your best friend (bet).
I have to use Dosbox if i'm not on a Xp Computer to play some classics like Jetpack, Squarez, God of Thunder, and Hexxagon (And that is how it's spelled for a game).

Edit-
Cause infact, I run Win 7 Ultimate x64-bit.

[gravitar]

Blood launcher using Dosbox at the bottom of the page.

There are also lots of goodies for build engine games at the main page:
http://www.proasm.com/

[jh79]

Aaronjw said:

I'm trying to install Blood, an old game based of the Duke Nukem 3d engine, but it doesn't seem to want to work on my laptop with Windows 7. I can install it, but when I try to run the exe, it gives me a message saying: "The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need an x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher."
Has anyone gotten this game to run on a 64 bit system?

I know this is an old post but figured I'd respond for anyone else still having this issue. All did on my 64-bit system was copy the Blood CD to the hard drive, open DOSBox and mount the directory I copied the files to then run the install. It made a sub-directory for the installation so I just moved the folders to the main C:\ drive. Works like a charm. Oh and the reason I mentioned copying the files to the HDD, is I've read that lots of folks have issues with their disc drives in DOSBox just fyi. Good luck!

[Koko Ricky]

I run the GOG.com version in Windows 7.