True Patch Gold Edition -- DIRECT DOWNLOAD LINK

[mooseh]

Is there more than just the odd two or three nudity skins from you?

[Tessera]

Is there more than just the odd two or three nudity skins from you?

The True Patch has nothing to do with nude mods. It is simply a patch to fix the bugs in the plain-vanilla game.

If you have any inquiries regarding my various adult gaming mods, then please post those inquiries up in the appropriate area of this board (in the "Tessera's Mods" section).

[Drazgar]

*cough* I think he was looking for something similar to some mega-mod ...

[Tessera]

Same answer: those inquiries do not belong within this topic. The True Patch has
nothing whatsoever to do with my mods. It is an entirely separate entity.

Patches are patches, and mods are mods. The TPG makes no changes to the
original game, therefore it is not a mod. It simply fixes bugs and nothing else.
The TPG is a true patch, in every sense of that term. Hence its name.  

Inquiries about my mods belong up in the "Tessera's Mods" section of this board.
Please confine any and all discussions about my mods to that area.

[Tessera]

Copied over from the members-only area of this board....

thought XP mode addressed those issues.

"XP mode" is simply a software-based emulator built into Windows 7. It won't have any effect upon how your hardware handles DirectX 8 games, because the problem is in fact a hardware-based issue. In any case, there is no need to run VTMB in Windows XP mode... not if you have the True Patch installed. The current version of the TPG allows VTMB to run just fine on later versions of Windows (both 32 and 64 bit versions).

Bloodlines in particular has a long history of not getting along very well with nVidia video cards. Which is kind of goofy when you think about it, because the original game shows an nVidia splash screen when the game is loading (complete with Velvet Velour taking a bite out of the nVidia logo). I've played Bloodlines on all sorts of video cards over the years and for whatever it's worth, I've always had the least amount of problems when it was running on an ATI (AMD) Radeon video card.

A possible reason for this might be because the original Source engine... the exact same engine that VTMB was built upon... was developed using ATI Radeon video cards. As a matter of fact, the first release of Half-Life 2, which used more or less the same engine as VTMB, had "Special thanks to ATI Technologies" or some such listed in the credits.

I'm not saying that an ATI Radeon card is the ONLY way to play VTMB, mind you. I'm just saying that the VTMB engine is very quirky and it seems to be rather fussy about its hardware requirements. For one thing, it definitely does not get along with most types of built-in motherboard audio chips. It works much better with a separate, dedicated audio card in the system. And as I've been saying, it likewise doesn't get along very well with several models of nVidia video cards. For whatever reason, VTMB seems to get along much better with ATI Radeon cards.

I don't know if any of the above info is related to the problems that you've been having, but I figured it would be helpful to you and/or anyone else who might be curious about VTMB's peculiar hardware requirements.


HARDWARE THAT VTMB "LIKES"
At least 4 GB of system RAM
ATI Radeon video cards
A dedicated, high-quality audio card (see following section for exception)
A fully defragmented hard drive
A dual-core or better CPU


HARDWARE THAT VTMB "HATES"
Slow CPU's (not an issue for most modern computers)
Less than 4 GB of installed system RAM
Built-in motherboard audio hardware
Creative Labs "SoundBlaster X-Fi" audio cards (or any other audio card based upon the X-Fi chipset)
Several models of nVidia video cards
Heavily fragmented hard drives (increases Source engine "stuttering")

[Tessera]

A new version of the TPG (with Hotfix #8) will be released very soon... probably before Christmas.


The next release of the TPG will contain a few additional repairs. All of them are minor,
but I finally collected enough tiny repairs to warrant the release of a new Hotfix.


Other changes which will be included within the next release of the TPG are:

(1) The Adobe Reader application will no longer be included within the True Patch Gold Edition package.

(2) The optional mods which were included within previous versions of the TPG will likewise no longer be included.


I'll post an announcement when the next version of the TPG is available for downloading. It should be ready very soon.

[MrBrooks]

This patch is great! Thank you so much.

[Tessera]

You're welcome.

Happy vamping. 

[BazYat]

Eeek, I'm getting a 404

[Tessera]

Eeek, I'm getting a 404

Oops... sorry. I forgot to update my OP when I released Hotfix #8.   

I have just updated the download link.

You can also download the True Patch directly from our Downloads page:

http://www.tessmage.com/download.htm

[BazYat]

Ahhh that'll explain it. Thanks Tess =3 Do I need a NoCD crack, or is one included?

[Tessera]

Ahhh that'll explain it. Thanks Tess =3 Do I need a NoCD crack, or is one included?

All you need is the True Patch Gold Edition. Install the game... install the patch... and you're done. You don't need any other patches or cracks or anything else. Just fire it up and play. This is why I named it "the Gold Edition." This single patch will take care of every possible issue, including a built-in NOCD function, as well as ensuring that Bloodlines is 100% compatible with all current versions of DirectX and all modern 64-bit Windows operating systems (and it will run just fine on 32-bit Windows, also).

Those of you who play on a widescreen monitor... which is pretty much everybody these days... will also need to run the VTMB ResPatcher utility after the game has been patched. Full instructions are included within the TPG package. You will also need to modify the desktop shortcut for VTMB, in order to force the game to run in widesceen after it has been ResPatch'ed. It isn't difficult, but you do need to pay attention when you are doing it. Lastly, you'll need to make sure that one of the lines within the config.cfg file is set properly, so that the game will default to running in anamorphic widescreen.

All of that may sound a little complicated -- but it isn't. For most people, it will take them all of five minutes to do all of that stuff. Keep in mind that Bloodlines was developed back at a time when almost nobody used a widescreen LCD monitor... most of us were still using 4:3 ratio CRT monitors back in 2004. So the game needs to be pushed a little, in order to get it looking as yummy as possible on today's video hardware.

And as always, if you're playing the Steam version of Bloodlines, then you MUST move the entire game out and away from your Steam folders BEFORE you patch it or do anything else. Full instructions on how to do so (it's easy) can be found within this forum. Bloodlines is not compatible with Steam... no way -- no how. I will not offer technical support to any Steam users who fail to follow this procedure.

[BazYat]

Cool, cheers =D

[Alerie]

Hello. I've been using the patch for a long time with no problems. Recently I've upgraded my Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, and now the game is crashing. I tried many options, running it with compatibility, as administrator...,  So I just came to the conclusion that the patch is not compatible with W10 
The game runs fine with clean install, no patch.
I just wanted to make sure you know it, in case you plan on releasing an update. Or maybe you have a solution?

See ya

[Tessera]

I just came to the conclusion that the patch is not compatible with W10  
The game runs fine with clean install, no patch.

Thank you for your input. I appreciate it.

However...

I don't have Windows 10... nor do I have any intention of installing it EVER... so I have no way of testing any possible compatibility issues between VTMB, the True Patch, and Windows 10. But if I had to take an educated guess, then I'd wager that the code changes that I made to vampire.exe and a couple of the DirectX DLL files might be clashing with some new bug in Windows 10. Mind you, that's just a guess... as I've said, I have no way to test it so that I can know for certain.

The fact that the TPG runs perfectly fine on every single previous version of Windows should tell us something: namely, that it is WINDOWS 10 which broke this game... not the True Patch. This is hardly unexpected, because every new version of Windows from Windows 2000 on upward has become increasingly bloated, buggy and downright shitty.

My suggestion is to get rid of Windows 10. Go back to using Windows 7, until a year or so from now... after Microsoft finishes working out all of the bugs in Windows 10. Anyone who installs Windows 10 so soon after its release is just asking for all sorts of trouble. I realize that MS is giving away Win10 for free (for now), and that seems very attractive to most people. But if I came to your house and offered you a free box of dog shit, would you take it..? Hey -- it's free! But no, you wouldn't take it -- because it's still dog shit.

Hopefully, I've made my point. So give it awhile... and just roll back to Win7 for now. That's my advice.

Otherwise, I guess you're on your own. As I said, I have zero interest in Windows 10 and so, I have absolutely no plans whatsoever to release any Windows 10 updates for VTMB.

[Cat]

My suggestion is to get rid of Windows 10. Go back to using Windows 7, until a year or so from now... after Microsoft finishes working out all of the bugs in Windows 10. Anyone who installs Windows 10 so soon after its release is just asking for all sorts of trouble. I realize that MS is giving away Win10 for free (for now), and that seems very attractive to most people. But if I came to your house and offered you a free box of dog shit, would you take it..? Hey -- it's free! But no, you wouldn't take it -- because it's still dog shit.

Never buy anything computer related on day one, hardware or software.

[Tessera]

Yeah, seriously... I've been hearing nothing but bad things about Windows 10. Not just from gamers, but all over the web people are bitching about it. Lots of bugs, including a ton of incompatibility issues. The geeky little control freaks at Microsoft are trying to ram this new, bloated and buggy OS up everyone's asses... just as they tried with Vista and Windows 8. Our best response, collectively, is to give MS the finger and JUST SAY NO to Win 10. I have not seen any evidence that Win 10 offers anything new and wonderful, as compared to Win 7. Win 10 also seems less secure to me, what with all of its inducements to move over to "cloud-based" apps and storage. Fuck that... I won't entrust my data to outside agencies. I especially do not trust Microsoft, given their miserable track record during the past decade.

If anyone is having troubles with Bloodlines or ANY of their games on Windows 10, and if those games were running just fine on Win7 or some other version of Windows, then don't report it to me... report it to Microsoft.

So I repeat: the best plan right now, so far as Win 10 is concerned, is to stay away from it for at least a year (or longer). MS is still supporting Windows 7 and they plan to do so until the year 2020 or whatever... so there's no hurry to switch to Windows 10 right now.

[DeadAmaranth]

Hi Tessera, just wanted to say I give infinite respect to you for your work on this patch for one of the best games ever made. It is a tragedy of boundless proportions that Activision did what they did to this masterpiece, but thanks to your hard work we get the chance to enjoy it as it was meant to be. Not gonna mention that other "patch"... My hat is off to you, and I hope people have taken and continue to take the time to express gratitude for everything you put into this patch. *bow -- FYI, I constantly praise this game to the uninitiated, and the second thing I mention is your patch, which I consider indispensable to enjoying the intended experience.

Any rate, just repeating what the poster above said. Game is completely unplayable with this patch when using Win 10. CTD right after clicking "new game". I imagine it will get hammered out, eventually. I'd report to MS per your suggestion, only I don't know what information exactly to give them. The crash log is Greek to me. I imagine you have it right and it's DirectX-related. You got any suggestions on what information is pertinent or on a good way to collate this stuff for MS? I don't agree with you about MS, btw, but that's neither here nor there, and I'm hoping as a fellow lover of this wonderful work of art, you might look past that and try to help a fan out even if you do think they're... misguided.

Thanks for everything that you do!