NBlood thread

[nukeykt]

NBlood - is an open source port of Blood using EDuke32 engine
Some features i'd like to highlight:
-High accuracy. NBlood can play 1.21 internal demos accurately
-Multiplayer(not quite stable atm)
-Software & OpenGL(polymost) renderers are available
-CD audio, accurate FM OPL3(SB/AdLib) emulation
-DEF/HRP support

Latest release version: v1.01(04-18-2019)

Download: https://nukeykt.retrohost.net/
Source code: https://github.com/nukeykt/NBlood

[Dimebog]

Congratulations, its a magnificent release! Time to do some testing.

[Fil]

A bit dry for such a juicy thread =)

Great news, thanks so much!

[Daedalus]

-High accuracy. NBlood can play 1.21 internal demos accurately

This is a magnificent accomplishment. I haven't personally had a chance to look into such things just yet myself, but by all accounts the project sounds faithful and like it has tremendous potential.

It won't be for some time still, but expect extreme coverage and in-depth scrutiny from me in the future regarding this offering. If it's truly as authentic as I've been told it is, it is well deserving of exposure and praise - even honourable mention and articles on this site.

[Umnir]

So, as someone who has fallen off the wagon a while ago this is eazy peazy to get working with just the original GoG copy for instance?

[Dimebog]

So, as someone who has fallen off the wagon a while ago this is eazy peazy to get working with just the original GoG copy for instance?

Yes, you just unpack the two files into your BLOOD directory and run nBlood.exe. GOG version is fine, they didnt fuck up or exclude any original files.

EDIT: The FS version does exclude original cutscenes but there is the full OUWB download in the "extras" section.

[Umnir]

So, as someone who has fallen off the wagon a while ago this is eazy peazy to get working with just the original GoG copy for instance?

Yes, you just unpack the two files into your BLOOD directory and run nBlood.exe. GOG version is fine, they didnt fuck up or exclude any original files.

Thanks! The nBlood seems like a nobrainer!

[Nilvah]

Got this running with my old CD.

Currently A/Bing Fresh Supply and this.

[Daedalus]

Do let us know about your experience when you've had some play.

[Fil]

Alrighty, seeing as the 'official' port turned out to be a huge fluke, I finally jumped ship to NBlood, and it is marvellous.

My report with questions, suggestions and tiny bugs. I can imagine most of them have probably been stated before.

- First of all, it is glorious.
- Setting it up was easy enough. I made a new folder, followed the instructions and it worked right out of the box
- After setting it up, I uninstalled my Fresh Supply as well as my GoG Dosbox one.
- Strangely, uninstalling the GoG DB version, which was located in another directory entirely, also removed my Cryptic Passage from NBlood. Reinstalling the GoG one put it back. Not sure why that is. It also puts a 'dosbox' folder in my autoload box in NBlood which is a bit annoying. So it seems like there's a certain link between the two even though they're in different folders?
- Perhaps related to that, I had CD music going on, even though I didn't set that up in NBlood.
- Loading mods is awesome. Although it would probably just be a smidge better if it would search for modname.ini instead of blood.ini
- A petty complaint, but I feel it would probably look a tad prettier if Cryptic was handled as a mod instead of game, so you could have just the one custom game selection.
- Cutscene sound is a lot more quite than the original. Too quiet, really.
- I'm aware they've been omitted for some time, but it would be sweet if you could get logo.smk and gti.smk before the game again
- Furthermore, if you'd ever consider a custom leader for yourself in there, hit me up, I'd be happy to provide an animation for it.
- Is the smk support lifted straight out of the original? I'm just wondering wether or not widescreen cutscenes would be an option now. iirc, there was a newer version of Smacker that worked better (bigger movies, better compression, etc), but it was not compatible with Blood which required the version that came with it.
- NBlood needs an icon. It's weird having an eDuke icon in my Blood folder. Or is it reference to 'Nuke'YKT perhaps?

In any case, these are all small issues, and NBlood is a tremendous effort which requires a standing ovation from the entire community.

[mouth]

NBlood is great, it really is. Very close and feels faithful to OG Blood.
I still have to try out BloodGDX though. That one's supposed to be the most faithful port yea? It's based on the alpha source code and seems to do demos and AI 100% accurately.
Anyone compared BloodGDX to NBlood?

[Daedalus]

I'm by no means an expert on the technical front of each, but one might view it as both being highly accurate, but GDX's developer is more liberal with his implementations, and NBlood is extremely conservative.

GDX has some cool convenience features which NBlood shirks on due to their approach.

However, a big quality difference between the two is the visual authenticity. From what I have seen, NBlood faithfully reproduces the visual beauty of Blood with all its subtle elements, where GDX unfortunately does not. GDX's colour and shading reproduction is not precise, and it often just looks ugly or wrong at times.

Others will be able to give a more technical explanation as to why this is, but in short, for now:

NBlood - most accurate
GDX - less visual accuracy, more customization

[mouth]

I'm by no means an expert on the technical front of each, but one might view it as both being highly accurate, but GDX's developer is more liberal with his implementations, and NBlood is extremely conservative.

GDX has some cool convenience features which NBlood shirks on due to their approach.

However, a big quality difference between the two is the visual authenticity. From what I have seen, NBlood faithfully reproduces the visual beauty of Blood with all its subtle elements, where GDX unfortunately does not. GDX's colour and shading reproduction is not precise, and it often just looks ugly or wrong at times.

Others will be able to give a more technical explanation as to why this is, but in short, for now:

NBlood - most accurate
GDX - less visual accuracy, more customization

Excellent points. One of the reasons why I always stuck to the original with DOSBox are all the differences and changes. But now I'm having fun playing NBlood and FS, since I've started getting nasty screen tearing/flickering with all my Build games in DOSBox after upgrading my hardware. Should check out solution for that. Mental note.

[Dimebog]

FS is abysmally inaccurate to BLOOD. NBlood provides the most authentic experience - I'd even go so far to say it's 1:1 to DOS BLOOD. Especially when you select "software" renderer instead of "polymost". You even get that skewy sprites and distorted viewport effect when you aim up and down using software mode. Input is extremely responsive and performance is flawless. MIDI music reproduction in NBlood is somewhat inaccurate and somewhat broken and that should be looked into, along with QoL improvements for loading user-made addons without having to rename or replace files.

GDX doesn't reproduce colours and shading properly but other than that the mechanics are on point. Mouse input does not feel very smooth at all but that seems to be a problem not all people have or notice. It features additional options like custom difficulty system and user-made content works in a much more plug-and-play fashion. Multiplayer is slightly worse optimized compared to NBlood but this is somewhat anecdotal.

The only appeal of FS other than people having paid for it and desperately wanting it to be good, is support for up to 8 people in a single game. Too bad that game is not BLOOD but a KEX engine total conversion that manages little more than to load original assets (well, most of them) and appear like BLOOD at first glance. Even if they ever fix all the fatal bugs, the game is still never going to feel anything like the real thing, since the authors never intended to replicate physics nor do I think they would be competent to undertake such a task.

In summary, NBlood is your best choice at the moment for both single and multiplayer and with the upcoming updates and improvements, I believe it will cement its position as the most superior BLOOD port available.

[mouth]

Especially when you select "software" renderer instead of "polymost".

That's exactly how I have it set. Polymost and all those "real 3D aiming" (not NBlood related) options are shiaaat.
I know FS is inaccurate as hell, but part of the fun for me is comparing it to NBlood and OG. As much as it's inaccurate, I still don't consider it to not be fun. One thing it does good - k + m controls. It does this better than other ports IMO, and better than Shadow Warrior Redux.