This guide is intended for improving Fresh Supply as much as reasonably possible, without delving into heavily modding the game, or getting into fixing fundamental differences or hardcoded quirks/anomalies that separate this KEX port accuracy and gameplay wise from other options out there.
(In the "Closing Notes" section I've recorded some of the specific main differences I've found in Fresh Supply compared to other ports like NBlood, for the curious)

Additionally, many of the suggestions in this guide are my own personal opinions, feel free to use your own judgement on preferential settings or suggested options.

This guide presumes you'll be using Windows as an operating system, as I am unfamiliar with Linux and cannot provide specific instructions for dealing with Fresh Supply's quirks and specific paths on Linux distros.

For extracting any .zip archives linked in this guide, I recommend using 7zip.[www.7-zip.org]
(The 64 bit/x64 version for the vast majority of users is the correct version)



With that information out of the way, let's get started.

First, the immediate glaring elephant in the room for Fresh Supply in my eyes:


This is due to Fresh Supply using a custom MIDI synth, in the form of a .sf2 soundfont file[en.wikipedia.org] and FluidSynth[en.wikipedia.org] for MIDI playback (Many DOS games such as blood had their music made in MIDI sequencers, and saved in MIDI compatible formats, for ease of playback at the time), which sounds MUCH different than what most users are likely expecting.

For playing through Windows, most users are likely expecting, or are already used to the infamous (Depending on who you talk to. The 'crust' of the low bitrate samples is kinda endearing IMO):
"Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" playback, the default MIDI synth which controls how Windows plays back MIDI music and how it sounds.

("GSWS" has been the default MIDI playback synth for Windows as far back as Win95 AFAIK. Some users may be used to/prefer the OPL3/AdLib sound, but I'm not aware of any good sound-a-like .sf2 soundfonts out there that mimic the 'sound' of those old yamaha chips)

The exact file of which can be found in the Fresh Supply's Install Folder:

(The path of which to the file depends on where you have Fresh Supply installed, how to find the path easily will be shown later in the guide)

The default file of TimGM6mb.sf2 is the one that ships with the game (A popular GNU licensed .sf2 soundfont, used for lots of programs), which can be found loose in the Fresh Supply files. However, it sounds way off compared to the music in most ports at least in my opinion.

If you're okay with how the music sounds out of the box in Fresh Supply, you can keep the soundfont AS IS and not change the soundfont file at all, and skip this section of the guide.

However, for more authentic music, that plays back more as originally intended, and for music that sounds much better in general, see below.

(Or optionally, use a different style of soundfont entirely, such as a SC-55 .sf2 soundfont, more info below)



https://musical-artifacts.com/artifacts/724/
(Mirror[archive.org] (Slightly different name but identical))

Download this .sf2 soundfont file from this website ("RLNDGM.SF2"), which is effectively Windows' own "gm.dls" MIDI synth from Windows\System32\drivers.

(Rather, the "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" converted into a .sf2 format, but with some extra fixes over other "gm.dls" to "gm.sf2" conversions out there on the internet, according to some known MIDI nerds[www.doomworld.com])

Additionally, some sites such as VGMPF[vgmpf.com] claim the game was composed for/with a Roland SC-55 (Commonly used for other FPS games of the era as well, like DOOM), so for technically* the most accurate sound, you can use a SC-55 .sf2 soundfont instead.
There's many high quality SC-55 .sf2 soundfonts online, but some of the best I've found personally are:

• EmperorGrieferus's SC-55 Soundfont[archive.org]
  (Compared to many others, definitely sounds the closest to actual hardware but not 100% accurate still)
  
• EmperorGrieferus's SC-55, 79mb version[archive.org]
  (A bit smaller filesize, and harder to find but IMO sounds better overall, may be a later version with improvements over the original.)
  
• Patch93's SC-55 Soundfont[archive.org]
  (Another high quality soundfont by a doomworld user, isn't as authentic to hardware but sounds great)

(Click "Show All" under Download Options, then download the .sf2 file)
Whichever soundfont you wish you use, download it, and rename it to remove any spaces (Needs no spaces in the filename for Fresh Supply usage, but otherwise rename it whatever you wish), then refer to the below section for installing.

(*Technically more authentic within reason, and soundfonts in general will never get to true hardware level SC-55 accuracy or 100% correct sound, they're just re-creations of the hardware sound, and never end up sounding nearly as good as the real thing. Sadly, Fresh Supply AFAIK doesn't support custom music files, or else I'd recommend the excellent Blood SC-55 Music Pack[sc55.duke4.net], which was recorded with real Roland hardware and sounds far better than any soundfont. Let me know in the comments if you know how to get the duke4 music pack working with Fresh Supply as a mod)






From your steam library, Right-Click on Blood: Fresh Supply, then "Manage > Browse local files".



From here, place the .sf2 file of your choice ("RLNDGM.SF2" or one of the SC-55 options) into Fresh Supply's root folder.

Next, boot up Fresh Supply and load in-game.
(If you've followed my other guide on how to setup NBlood to run natively with Fresh Supply through steam, you'll have to clear your launch options to get the original port to boot)



Once in-game, press the "`/~" (Grave/Tilde, the key below "ESC") key to open the console, and enter the following command:

For loading different .sf2 files, simply substitute "RLNDGM.SF2" with whatever alternate soundfont file you wish to use, which also needs to be located in the root \Blood folder.

• For the changed soundfont to apply, exit out/close out of Fresh Supply, and restart the game.

From here, boot into a episode (Such as the first episode, "The Way of All Flesh") and see if the music is different than before, signaling the soundfont applied correctly. Once this is done, Fresh Supply's config will remember the changed soundfont and will persist with using this separate soundfont as the new default.

For changing/reverting back to the original soundfont that shipped with the game (If you change your mind, or want to go back to default settings for whatever reason), use the following command in console:

I'm not really even remotely an expert on MIDI soundfonts/the standard in general, so if any of my explanations here are inaccurate, feel free to let me know or send corrections in the comments.

The default settings/options for Fresh Supply are kind of questionable, and some things are turned on most users probably won't even really want on. This section will go over what I personally recommend to change, but you may ignore these and set them to your own preferences.

Additionally, the settings I'll be adjusting will be attempting to mimic, or at least get as close as possible to my recommended settings in my other guide, and try to more closer match the feel of ports like NBlood. "Authentic" is also subjective, but these settings changes can't really perfectly match DOS anyway, especially with this port's limitations/quirks.

• Full 3D Aim Look: On (Technically less authentic compared to classic software rendering, but it's worth toggling on IMO for modern ports. Make sure this is "On" if you change your FOV above the default value of 74 if you don't want distortion/warped y-shearing)
  
  
• Auto Crouching: Off (Not sure why this setting even exists, maybe for entering vents as lazy as possible? Best kept off IMO)
  
  
• Auto Aiming: Off (Some weapons like the Tommy Gun's alt-fire are better with Autoaim on, but personally I recommend turning it "Off", for more precision/less misses due to Autoaim locking onto the wrong target)
  
  
• Auto Switch New Weapon: <On/Off> (Preference, but I recommend turning it "Off" due to the risk of blowing yourself up with newly equipped explosive weapons with the setting on)
  
  
• Crouch Toggle: Off (Crouch Toggle IMO in blood is actually pretty terrible, the most effective way to dodge/juke enemies while in the open in this game is via crouching and jumping like a madman, to throw off any hitscanner's CRUDUX CRUO aim (Higher difficulties like Extra Crispy, you'll probably still get swiss cheese'd anyway). Crouch toggling at least in my opinion makes this harder, so I recommend turning this off)
  
  
• Slope Tilting: Off (I have no idea why they'd ever default this to "On", it's pretty disorienting, and is really a vestigial leftover from classic DOS style no vertical look mouse aiming (Fresh Supply AFAIK doesn't have an option for that either) or keyboard aiming, no reason to default it to on for most people nowdays)

The default keybindings for Fresh Supply are at least usable, but here's some of my recommended changes (some of which from my NBlood guide):

(To unbind keys in Fresh Supply, select the keybind you want to change, then press the same key you want to unbind (e.g: If you want to unbind "F", click it to start keybinding, then press "F" again to clear the key. Many of these keys you'll ideally want to unbind the default first before changing keybinds)

• Crouch: "L_Shift" (Default is "C", for some reason. Can also do "L_Ctrl" if you prefer that for crouching, but I find shift works easier for frequent crouch usage)
  
  
• Run: "L_Ctrl" (Default is "L_shift". Again, down to preference but ideally the adjacent key (Shift/Ctrl). I recommend keeping "Toggle Auto Run" on ("Caps Lock" by default) bound, and immediately pressing that once in-game to always run by default, since blood is a game you generally ALWAYS want to be running)
  
  
• Previous Inventory: "Z" (Default is "R". Unbind or change: "Z" (Automap Zoom In). I recommend just changing both Automap Zoom In/Out to "+/-" on the keyboard or numpad.
  
  
• Next Inventory: "C" (Default is "Q")
  
  
• Use Inventory: "F" (Default is "M_Mid" (Middle Mouse). Unbind or change: "F"(Automap Follow Mode)
  With the rebound inventory keys and use key, it's IMO MUCH quicker to use items in combat w/o having to fumble for the specific use hotkey for each item (This keybind makes it considerably easier to do tricks such as extending diving suit duration by using it underwater))
  
  
• Quick Save: F6 (Default is "F2". This is to match NBlood's default button for quicksave ; Which is... not so quick in Fresh Supply, especially on large maps or custom campaigns like Death Wish)
  
  
• Quick Save: F9 (Default is "F3". This is to match NBlood's default button for quickload)

With these buttons the keybinds are pretty close to NBlood's defaults (Besides a few differences), and with the recommended inventory key changes, using inventory items is faster than before as well ("M_Mid" is still a decent bind for most people however, it's worth still keeping that bound).

The other sections such as "Configure Mouse" and "Configure Gamepad" are down to user preferences (I have yet to test Fresh Supply with a controller, but I'd be curious if the controller support is at least better than other ports)



There's no option in the in-game settings to change the .sf2/soundfont file, which is why the console command was required earlier. As for the other settings here, you can turn the CD music On/Off in this section as well if you prefer the CD music audio (Included with Fresh Supply).

• Show Crosshair: On (Some ports default this to off for some reason, even though crosshair is on even in DOS IIRC (Or can be turned on), no reason to really turn it off IMO)
  
  
• HUD Style: Minimal (Cleaner HUD, and also possible in DOS if you adjust the HUD enough. Can technically be a preference but I think most people are perfectly fine with Minimal, but if you like the massive beasts covering a quarter of your screen, you can do Full)
  
  
• Weapon Wheel: On/Off (A very divisive setting, some people like this, but a lot of old school gamers hate the weapon wheel, really what you use is down to preference, but personally I don't care for it and turn it "Off")
  
  
• Render Custom Voxels: On/Off (A new feature added in Fresh Supply, which adds Voxel "3D" objects (Like the Item Drops, Tombstones, etc. in vanilla blood) for other things not present in the original, such as: Buttons, Switches, Powerups, Props, etc. Obviously not authentic to the original game, but a nifty feature that me personally, I keep them "On" since I actually quite like them. They also make finding hidden secret switches/levers a bit easier, which may be a bit unbalanced)
  
  (Sidenote: For improved/even more custom voxels, you can install the Blood Voxel Pack mod for Fresh Supply. This mod also works for NBlood, to get similar 'custom' voxels in that port as well)
  
  
• Field Of View: 90 (Defaults to 74. Make sure you have Full 3D Aim Look set to "On" before raising the FOV higher than default, or else it looks really weird and warped, akin to old software rendering on other ~2.5D games, which causes potentially disorienting y-shearing)
  
  
• Show Splash Movies: On/Off (The amount of intro/splash movies that Fresh Supply has is kinda high, and it gets annoying after a while having to hit "ESC" on them every time. Setting this to "Off" can make booting into the main menu definitely faster)

The settings here will depend on your system and setup, but generally I recommend V-sync On and framerate cap @ your monitor refresh rate (Mine's 144hz ; Can even a bit under the refresh, some claim that helps with V-sync latency), for that buttery smooth boomer shooter gameplay.

Anti-Aliasing and Ambient Occlusion are new settings available in Fresh Supply, but they're not really even remotely authentic so I recommend keeping them "Off" (I don't care for the effects in any game personally), unless you REALLY want such things.

That's the bulk of the main options to consider changing from the Fresh Supply defaults, all others are down to user preference/discretion.



This menu can be used to boot into Custom Campaigns, such as Death Wish. How to install custom maps and campaigns will be covered in the next section.

This also is the menu you launch the Cryptic Passage DLC from (Even other ports such as NBlood require rebooting the game/booting into Cryptic Passage separately for it's unique level set/.ini file, so that's normal behavior), so if you wish to play that DLC campaign without having to launch it from the steam launch option popup, this is how to do so.

A brief sidenote: The config/.cfg file for Fresh Supply (Where all the settings get stored) can be found at:

(with "<USERNAME>" being your Windows Username)
Along with your save files (If you wish to back those up). You could also change the settings directly in that file, but editing them in-game, or using the console command for changing soundfonts is less likely to cause issues.

Installing custom .MAP files in Fresh Supply is actually very easy, as well as installing well-known custom campaigns, such as Bloatoid's excellent "Death Wish" mod. This section will cover installing Fresh Supply addons (As well as some unexpected insights into weird, unexpected quirks of Fresh Supply).





In the folder where your Fresh Supply install is located ("Library > Rightclick Fresh Supply, Manage > Browse local files" if you've forgotten), create a folder for tidiness' sake.
It can be named anything, but I named mine "maps" just to make it easier to find.

Fresh Supply itself will actually automatically find ANY .MAP files located in it's directory, or any sub-directories/folders, so it can technically load files even deeper into your game files (This tends to creates problems, as you'll see later).



To load custom maps in-game, from the main menu, navigate to "New Game", then "User Maps". However, upon looking through the map list in-game (Which has no search option either...), you may notice there's a huge amount of map clutter by default:



You actually have to scroll down QUITE a long ways to find any custom maps you've put in say, for example the aforementioned "maps" folder, no matter how you name them alphabetically/numerically.
All of the maps listed unfortunately don't seem to work or load no matter what, so they may not even be proper working map files in the first place.
(Maybe leftovers from testing? But why are they dud maps, and why's the folder named xbox? Other accounts I've read online in places like the steam forums, users have mentioned that the .MAP files here don't even properly work in map editors such as "XMAPEDIT", simply throwing errors and closing out)

The culprit is actually a very bizarre inclusion to the game files that AFAIK was introduced in the November 19, 2023 update to Fresh Supply that added the bonus DOS version of One Unit: Whole Blood (As best as I can guess, from the folder names), and some other miscellaneous files, such as:



The path to the files/the offending folder in question is:

All of the maps are 4kb (Suggesting they're corrupt or dud maps. For reference, even maps like the ones from Death Wish are about ~100-500kb, and Cryptic Passage's largest map (CP09: Castle) is ~396kb), and seem to refuse to open/load no matter what.

The solution to cleaning up the clutter in the User Maps folder is to simply delete the \xbox folder (Keeping Fresh Supply from finding said clutter, dud .MAP files), leaving the \mapperfiles folder one directory up completely empty.

This appears to be safe to do, as the files seem to be entirely unused, but if you want to be safe, you can copy and backup the \xbox folder somewhere else for safe keeping.
Once you delete the offending folder, the in-game User Maps menu becomes MUCH cleaner and easier to navigate:



Renaming .MAP files with numbers in the filename (As seen with my testing example) can also help bring them further up the list, if you still have trouble with finding specific maps.


Installing custom map packs/campaigns is actually pretty easy for Fresh Supply (Assuming said packs are capable of working with Fresh Supply). All that's required for most packs to run is there to be a .ini configuration file (Such as CRYPIC.INI, or dw.ini) to be present in their files for Fresh Supply to recognize them and be able to launch them properly.
In the root \Blood folder for Fresh Supply, there should be a folder named \addons:





Inside you can find Cryptic Passage and it's files, and it's here you extract the folder for custom campaigns such as "Death Wish" (Containing all their files, and their .ini).

For the example in this guide, I'll show how to install Death Wish itself (A great campaign mod for experienced players, really good, and seems to play just fine through Fresh Supply with newer updates of "Death Wish" improving compatibility in the port):



Download the latest version of Death Wish from Bloatoid's ModDB page:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/death-wish-for-blood/downloads



However, unlike installing Death Wish for say, NBlood, you'll actually want to extract the WHOLE "Death Wish <version>" folder to the \addons folder in Fresh Supply's game directory, instead of putting the files loose next to the executable, as with NBlood.
Your /addons folder should look like the following image, with Death Wish's folder next to Cryptic Passage's folder.





To load into Death Wish from Fresh Supply, go to the "Manage Addons" menu, and select "Death Wish <version>". The game should reload, and under "New Game" in the main menu, the new episode(s) for the campaign should be present.



The compatibility of campaigns/map packs, and custom .MAP files in general in Fresh Supply varies, so some maps may have issues, graphics bugs, or glitches not present on other ports, some may even need specific versions built for Fresh Supply for them to work properly (Or for them to be designed with Fresh Supply in mind, as with some newer custom maps).
Your mileage may vary. Updating addons is as simple as updating/replacing the original addon's folder in the \addons directory with the updated version of said addon.

That's about all that can be fixed AFAIK by the end user with Fresh Supply, any remaining glitches, bugs, and oddities with the port may unfortunately take game modding (Which may even justify a guide of it's own), or further updates from Nightdive, who have been MIA with proper updates and patches ever since ~2019.
(Blink twice if Atari is holding you hostage)

Let met know in the comments if there's any more tweaks that can be done to Fresh Supply to further improve/fix some of the jank of the port.

On the separate issue of Fresh Supply's remaining problems/discrepancies, compared to an alternative quality port such as NBlood, they're are nothing too major from what I've noticed in my many playthroughs in either, the Nightdive port is still definitely playable. The only notable issues I've encountered in Fresh Supply are (There may be more than this, along with Fresh Supply's many other differences from the original MS-DOS version or NBlood):

• Hitscanners at least from my experience FEEL much more accurate in Fresh Supply, their longer range accuracy is much better (NBlood even on Extra Crispy you can still make them miss at long ranges with good movement), and trying to throw off their aim with crouching/general movement and juking feels more difficult,
  
  
• Voodoo Doll hitreg is genuinely off in Fresh Supply, it tends to miss enemies blatantly in view/under the crosshair very often, and as a result, it tends do self-damage from having no target a lot more regularly. This limits the weapon's effectiveness/reliability in Fresh Supply, something that is not an issue in other ports such as NBlood (Where it feels much more consistent, for stuff like: stone gargoyle killing, sniping hitscanners at range, or focusing hitscanners underwater).
  
  
• Flare Gun flares/particles, when attached to enemies sometimes glitch out, rendering off center and not 'snapping/centering' onto targets, or sometimes end up lingering around indefinitely even after said enemy burns to death from the flare.
  
  
• Enemies tend to go 'idle' far quicker in Fresh Supply (Something that does happen in other ports like NBlood, but not nearly as fast), after being woken up by seeing you. This is technically abusable as a result, or can be an outright detriment (Can make 'pulling' enemies on higher difficulties more annoying, from having to re-peek enemies to wake them back up, so they keep pathing towards you).
  
  
• Enemy hitreg with melee seems to be far more accurate, they tend to hit you with melee much more easily if you're not well outside their hit range when they swing. This makes melee fighting to conserve ammo a bit more difficult on this port, compared to NBlood from my experience (NBlood I almost NEVER get hit by enemies in melee, whereas Fresh Supply it happens a lot more often).
  
  
• Mild graphical/menu discrepancies, such as the original stock demos not playing back in the main menu (Likely due to demo incompatibility with the original DOS demos, or just demos in general ; NBlood properly plays the original demos in the main menu, as intended), or save preview screenshots not showing up at all (DOS I don't think ever had any, more a feature of sourceports).

Despite all it's flaws, Fresh Supply does have some novel value and features to it, such as:
Steam achievements, new custom voxels (However, some mods for other ports can achieve similar or arguably superior results, such as the Blood Voxel Pack), modern resolution and renderer support, re-written netcode, etc.
(Some other ports don't even support Vulkan rendering. As for the netcode changes, no idea if they were any good or not. Other ports such as NotBlood[github.com] are generally a superior option for multiplayer blood however)

With the recent update to include One Unit: Whole Blood as a bonus, this port's release has gained additional value, since the original version of which has been delisted/removed from sale from steam (as well as other storefronts such as GOG), making Fresh Supply a good option for modern players to (Legally) acquire the older DOS version's files if one doesn't care for the modern improvements the Nightdive port offers.

With the news of Refreshed Supply, Hopefully Nightdive will finally properly do the blood remaster port justice, however it seems to be an entirely different title/game in itself unfortunately and not an update to Fresh Supply:

https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/app/3884520/Blood_Refreshed_Supply/

According to Kaiser[x.com] (Main KEX engine dev for Nightdive) Refreshed Supply is apparently is built from scratch from original blood sourcecode (Non-alpha code, very promising), which may completely obsolete Fresh Supply entirely for those who don't already own it.




If you're curious about how to setup modern source 'ports' such as NBlood, with Fresh Supply's included One Unit: Whole Blood DOS copy (Included as a bonus in the install folder) for an overall better experience, see my other steam guide:
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3484622533

Nightdive/Atari pls fix
#freeblood