Fixing Blood Audio (Blood doesn't start after downloading)

Instructions for how to actually fix the sound effects in Blood. If your sound isn't playing or DosBox closes immediately after opening, this is the guide for you.

Overview

You just purchased and downloaded Blood on Steam, but when you launch the game from Steam, the DosBox window opens and then closes almost immediately. Or the game runs but you don't have sound. You tried following other guides to fix your sound but realized their authors didn't know what they were doing. You asked on the forum and got a useless response from a guy who's too trigger-happy with the DosBox FAQ. I'm here to actually help.

You can verify your sound is configured incorrectly by going to steamapps\common\One Unit Whole Blood\ and dragging SETUP.exe onto dosbox.exe. Select "Sound Setup" and then "Test Sound FX Card". If you get an error, your sound isn't configured correctly, and you can follow the rest of this guide to fix it. Following this guide should take less than 3 minutes if you know where the steamapps folder is and how to edit a text file.

Note I got the configuration settings that work for me from another guide, but that guide isn't formatted correctly and includes many mistakes and unnecessary changes, so I condensed into an easy, no-nonsense guide.

Edit BLOOD.CFG

From steamapps\common\One Unit Whole Blood, open up BLOOD.CFG in a text editor such as Notepad or Notepad++

34 lines down you should see something very similar to this, but with different numbers for some of the values.

FXDevice = 0
MusicDevice = 7
FXVolume = 220
MusicVolume = 200
NumVoices = 32
NumChannels = 2
NumBits = 16
MixRate = 44000
MidiPort = 0x330
BlasterAddress = 0x220
BlasterType = 3
BlasterInterrupt = 7
BlasterDma8 = 1
BlasterDma16 = 5
BlasterEmu = 0x620
ReverseStereo = 0

Replace the block in your CFG file with what I have here and save it. This reconfigures your sound settings in Blood. Don't stop here, we're not done just yet.

Edit dosboxBlood.conf

From steamapps\common\One Unit Whole Blood, open dosboxBlood.conf in a text editor such as Notepad or Notepad++.

100 lines down, under the header "[sblaster]", you should see a block of text very similar to this but with different numbers for some of the values:

sbtype=sb16
sbbase=220
irq=7
dma=1
hdma=5
mixer=true
oplmode=auto
oplrate=22050

Replace the text in your file with what I have here and save. This reconfigures the audio settings in DosBox.

Now try launching the setup.exe (via dosbox.exe) again and verify the sound is working. If so, start the game through Steam and you're probably good to go. If not, open setup again and try adjusting the video mode. If that doesn't fix it, I guess you're screwed.

Not too bad, eh?

Edit your controls

If you want to be a super badass like me and earn 1000 extra sex points which you can spend in real life on chicks (or dudes, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, sheep, whatever floats your boat*):

Open BLOOD.CFG again; 56 lines down you'll see a block of controls starting with Move_Forward = "W" and ending with RemoteBombs = "R"

Replace the first part of the block with this:

Move_Forward = "E" "KPad8"
Move_Backward = "D" "Kpad2"
Turn_Left = "Left" "Kpad4"
Turn_Right = "Right" "KPad6"
Turn_Around = "BakSpc" "N/A"
Strafe = "LAlt" "RAlt"
Strafe_Left = "S" "N/A"
Strafe_Right = "F" "N/A"
Jump = "Space" "/"
Crouch = "Z" "N/A"
Run = "LShift" "RShift"
AutoRun = "CapLck" "N/A"
Open = "V" "N/A"
Weapon_Fire = "LCtrl" "RCtrl"
Weapon_Special_Fire = "X" "N/A"
Aim_Up = "Up" "KPad7"
Aim_Down = "Down" "Kpad1"
Aim_Center = "KPad5" "N/A"
Look_Up = "PgUp" "Kpad9"
Look_Down = "PgDn" "Kpad3"
Tilt_Left = "Insert" "Kpad0"
Tilt_Right = "Delete" "Kpad."

(The remaining portion of the controls is excised because I didn't change any of them and the Steam Guides system is unable to render the rest of it correctly)

You are now super badass. Boba Fett has a photo of you as the wallpaper on his phone.

*Disclaimer: sex points cannot be spent on floatation devices nor used to float a boat

[faalbeer]

I'm already stuck at the 'edit blood.cfg' step. Mine seems to be a list of what video and audio bits to load for each level. My problem is that game is loud and nothing I can do seems to do anything about it. The in game volume settings seem to only affect the main menu.

[Trephs!]

didn't help me, still crashes while initializing sound system

[Cyrix]

Thanks, glad to help!

[Dirk Chiselfist]

You are my hero :)