Often when the sound volume in a game is too low I use a program called DFX Audio Enhancer that additionally increases the volume of the sound. I don't know what this program does in the background, but it fixed the menu lag for me in Nocturne and Blair Witch games. I tried it several times and to verify. Since I can't explain it I couldn't really write it as a fix on PCGamingWiki (I wrote basically everything else on that page).

I tried it with this DFX app and also with it's continuation, the FxSound app, but it didn't work unfortunately for me, neither of those.. :( Thanks for the assist nevertheless.
I'm out of ideas. The only way this works for me now if I swap those dll files, but even then if I apply antialiasing and anisotropic filtering it just crashes after like half an hour gameplay, and so does Blair Witch interestingly which I really don't understand why.

Thanks for replying back, I guess it is not a universal fix. I will write down how I played those games, for future reference:

I use Windows 7 with SP1 and have an AMD GPU R9 270x and an Intel i5 CPU.

I installed the latest game patch.

For dgVoodoo 2 I used the version 2.54, default settings, with forced vsync, AA, AF, resolution and enabled bilinear blit stretch.

I did not run the games in Windows 98 compatibility mode myself, so I had those memory warnings at the beginning of the game.

I'm using Windows 10 and I had to use Win98 compatibility mode on the .exe, because it wouldn't work otherwise. Every other mode, even without compatibility mode the game would just launch with a black screen and nothing more.

I've tried with both dgVoodoo2 2.54 (as per your suggestion on PCGamingWiki) and the latest 2.55.4, the newest produced better results for me.

The interesting thing is with Nocturne, I could throw everything at the game, AF, AA, forced v-sync, forced resolution, bilinear blit stretch, it ran perfectly without crashes except the lagging menus. With Blair Witch, there is zero menu lag after I get into the game, but no matter how I turn every extra dgVoodoo feature down or off, it just crashes after a while, and the windows error report points to it's render file, the "tridx7.dll". And then I switched that render over to Nocturne, the menu lag was completely gone, but it made the game crash too after a while, basically it was behaving the same way as BW.

So yeah.. I guess Win7 is more compatible with these old engines? At this point, I really can't think of anything else :)
I really hope that GOG or Nightdive picks the game up at some point to make these work flawlessly on modern machines.
Oh yeah and thank you for the PCGamingWiki page you wrote to keep these games alive :)

I didn't read the whole thing, but has anyone tried running it in VMware or some other emulator that runs Win 98, so you can play the game natively in Win 98 on Win 7? That might help as well.

Ok so I managed to test both Nocturne and Blair Witch Vol I. on another machine with Windows 7, and well, both works perfectly without any hassle. Hell, they don't even need dgVoodoo2, nor Win98 compatibility mode, everything launches and plays without problems. No menu lag, no crashes, no nonsense.
So I guess the major culprit here is going to be Windows 10, it really doesn't like these games.

If any of them do I hope they remake this game from the ground up.

Btw, those images can be projected onto a levels geometry.
One can then render them to textures ...if there will be any reason for this.
Here's a video:
youtube.com/watch?v=VuqTltoWAfo

Not directly related to Nocturne (sorry), but Puppet Combo is working on a game that gave me similar vibes to what I've seen of Nocturne (granted the video is only a few seconds long) - https://twitter.com/PuppetCombo/status/1159102048031465473

They're asking, "Would you play this?"

Why didn't you do what other kids did/do and give money to some random guy/gal to buy it for you at the time?

Thanks for the info.....now if only I could get past that bit in the first BW game where you need to touch/depossess that one kid by running to him quick enough before the cop nabs ya.

VTMB2 is coming so this is like a prediction come true. o.0

IIRC there are ways/tweaks to get the Nocturne game and the BW games installed on 7 and possibly 10 as well.

They might crash so you'd need to save often, but they do run.

There is a "abandonware" version that runs perfectly on a modern system. Won't go into details because that would get me in trouble with the mods, but the search engine is your friend....

I just replayed it.
I think the term "Flawed but fun" fits.
The game has serious flaws, mainly dealing with the camera and the controls. And yes, they are major flaws, no matter what the games fanboys might say. You will be killed a number of times just because of the lousy camera angles and the wonky controles. The saving grace is there are unlimited saves and a quick save. Save early and save often, particular before making a leap ,after a leap and before you push a button a pull a lever;the desginers are fond of booby traps.
But that the game is fun despite flaws serious enough to kill a lesser game is proof of how overall well designed it is.
The First Three Episodes are all a lot of fun'(though the opening section of Chicago can be a bit frustrating) the fourth has a really bad and tedious first section because it's is centered on a series of non intuitive illogical puzzles; too much pure guesswork. I recomment just downloading a walkthrough and the cheat codes for the patched version to get through it. Once you get inside the mansion it becomes fun though.But man, the Graveyard section before is lame, like a badly designed Tomb Raider level. The first Chicago Section can be annoying but nothing like the Graveyard section in epidose 4.
And then there is the Bloodrayne Connection.. Any resembalence between the NPC Damphire Svetania and Bloodrayne is purely intentional. Svetania proves so popular with the game players that they decided to make her the main player controlled character in the sequel, but when the low sales of Nocturne killed a sequel, the designers took the Damphire heroine concept and made the much more successful Bloodrayne.

Some want to support the site/rights holders, don't use such sites for moral reasons, want to only get it on gog(support/ease of use/etc), or are afraid to use such sites. For those people such is not an option, and I can see why they want such here. I also want such here to kick a few bucks gog's way/have a gog installer for such.

Yeah it had faults, but it was fun for what it was as you said.

You forgot the somewhat connected Blair Witch games(at least the first one for the most part).

I am definitely a fanboy of Nocturne, and it's my favorite game, but my fanboyness doesn't invalidate what I know about it since I'm also a veteran of it who has played it many times. I don't agree it has 'major' flaws or serious control or camera problems. The camera never moves unless the player directly causes it to do so, by deliberately changing screens. So if a player dies due to "lousy camera angles," then that's a self-created problem which is the player's fault for creating in the first place, such as by fighting on (a) screen(s) where they have a bad view instead of fighting on different screen(s) where they have a good view, and/or by moving into a bad position and at a bad time, and/or for not choosing a different/better route from which to engage with or flee from enemies, and/or for not knowing the maps well enough before provoking monsters into a firefight, and/or for not using evasion tactics at all, and/or for not choosing the best weapon/ammo type, and/or for not killing the monsters fast enough before they were able corner the character in the first place.

I can easily get through all 4 Acts of Nocturne without ever dying due to "lousy camera angles," and also while auto-aim is set to off (but it's even easier with it set to on).

The Chicago streets section is one part of the game where the camera angles are not okay. They are a problem in that one section, although that's a small section of the game which is an insignificant part of the game as a whole.

I'm not sure why you hate the graveyard section in front of Killian's mansion. I think that section is amazing. The little imps you fight there are horrifying and annoying at the same time, exactly as they should be. Yes there are puzzles there, but there are plenty of more puzzles inside of the mansion as well, and also in other sections of the game too. I don't see anything that would make the graveyard's puzzles be worse than any of other other puzzles elsewhere, or vice versa.

I definitely would not recommend using cheat codes on a first playthrough. That would wreck all the tension and ruin the whole point of trying to survive in this survival horror game.

Yes BloodRayne was more successful, but it's also a much worse game. BloodRayne has an infinitely inferior horror atmosphere, and characterization & writing, when compared versus Nocturne. Those two games are not even in the same ballpark. BloodRayne is terribly dumbed-down. It's like comparing a masterpiece quality film (Nocturne) to a Michael Bay film (BloodRayne).

While I love the game too, even I can admit it has some flaws. The camera angles problem could've been solved with a controllable camera and/or a first person mode, for instance.....why expect the player to just "get good" and not criticize where appropriate?

(Also your bias from being a super fan likely affects your judgement on the matter a bit, and the veteran line is appeal to authority)

Not every player is as good as others, and even one very bad section can turn people off of a game and prevent it from being completed by some.

I also liked that episode a good deal.

For those not used to such "fast" play it might make the difference between them not playing it again and dropping entirely and them enjoying it.....I would at least recommend any health cheats for some sections on the harder difficulties for some players(not all).