Bleem! The Emulator that Doesn't Play Around [weirdly colored text] Many of you have written and asked how Bleem! works, if it's cool and what you need to run it. The famous society who are in the midst of their third legal meeting with Sony recently opened a branch in Europe, Belgium to be exact, and the product should soon be available at major retailers. What should one know about this subject? [Sony man] You'll have to get by me first!!! [Grey box left hand side of page] Why is Bleem! legal? Other PlayStation emulators have seen the light of day, notably PSEmu Pro (the most commonly known) but have ceased their activities after legal action by Sony. Only Bleem! has received absolution, for the moment. Why? Because Bleem! doesn't work like the other emulators. It doesn't use a single line of Sony's code which is protected by copyright! Most emulators use what are called the ROM BIOS of Sony machines, the mini-system that lets the system boot. Bleem! escapes this rule and has already won two victories. Sony's trying a third counter-attack next March, but the guys at Bleem! remain confidant. [Main article] The Bleem! Emulator If you read Joypad regularly you will already have heard of Bleem!. This PC application is what is called an emulator, a program that "imitates" a PlayStation so you can play it's games on your PC. As you can imagine, Sony is a little peeved. However the two legal actions by the Japanese firm against Bleem! have landed in the emulator's favor and they are almost certain that Sony's latest try, unresolved at press time, will end in the same fashion. Take a look at the insert "Why is Bleem! legal?" for more details. It would be useful to find out a few more details on how this program works and according to our bosses there couldn't be a better time than now! [Note that last sentence is really shaky] How's it look? Bleem! is a program, it's that simple. To use it, install it on a PC (running win9x) and run it. The program asks you to insert your CD-ROM and then launches. It's that simple! What does it do for PlayStation owners you ask? Quite simply it improves the quality of the graphics by several levels, thanks to 3D acceleration with a Direct3D card like the ones from 3dfx or nVida. The resolution of a PlayStation when compared to a PC is completely inferior. Bleem!, thanks to the powers of the PC, can run tournament games at 2, 3, even 4 times the resolution of the PlayStation on high end machines. Everything looks readable, right and isn't pixilated. You might even think you're playing the PC version of the game! That sounds like strong advertising but Metal Gear Solid or Grand Turismo could get a second wind one the PC. But don't fool yourself, not all is peachy in Bleem! Land. Compatibility and Performance Bleem! is constantly evolving. Updates are needed regularly so you can play the most recent games. Therefore you must understand that does in software (through the Bleem! program) what the PlayStation does with it's dedicated software. Thus the architecture of the console is quite different than that of the PC. That said, even if PCs are infinitely faster than the PlayStation, it's still a monstrous task to try and make all those calculation in memory. Worse, some titles don't work at all due to the restriction of the program. Also, a machine with a minimum of a PII is needed to get acceptable performance. If you can meet these conditions and try Bleem! with a completely compatible game (Crash Bandicoot 2 or Tekken 3, for example) you will experience bliss. We tried the program on two different machines. (Celeron 350, 128M RAM, 3D Banshee card and a PII 350, 128M RAM, nVida TNT) and got varying results. Some games didn't run full screen (Bio Hazard 3), others didn't run in sync (video/sound) (Metal Gear Solid), or really slow (Colin McRae Rally). Briefly, if you want to run Bleem! make sure you have an internet connection so you can download updates from the official site. No-one like to hear the truth In closing, Bleem! is a good program but to get the most out of your PlayStation games, nothing beats the original console. We can't guarantee that except this one point: the controllers! There are some good imitations out there but none are a good as the ones that ship with the PlayStation, and that goes double for the Dual Shock! For the rest of us PlayStation owners, it's an amusing gadget but not indispensable.