the e-mail that bleem sent to me:

[Asz]

Burnout, your response should have been after the post above this one..... As smart a computer he be.

[null_pointer]

LanGaidin:

I just bought bleem, and it's still better in many areas than the free emulators on my system. I like the 3D graphics acceleration and the sound is great. However, the timing thing is irritating to me also.

Technically, what's involved in solving the timing issue? Do you not have enough info about how many cycles each instruction takes? Or is bleem simply trying to do too much, with accelerating frame rates?

(Personally, I would be more pleased by a no-frills emulator that could run everything at a perfectly normal speed with average graphics/sound, than with one that accelerates the graphics but messes up the music.)

The problem with the timing is not just that it's "too fast" or "too slow" for a particular game; the emulators I've tried, if they support a game, have a lot of jerkiness to them. One part of the game is too slow, one part is too fast, and some parts just vary wildly. ePSXe w/ Pete's plugins are better than bleem in this category, but the problem still exists.

BTW, any possibility to making bleem! open source? - it's definitely not helping the company's reputation right now (and besides, I'd love to see the code

- null_pointer

[wanderer]

Originally posted by null_pointer

BTW, any possibility to making bleem! open source? - it's definitely not helping the company's reputation right now (and besides, I'd love to see the code

- null_pointer

Actually, since bleem! was coded in asm, you should see exactly what it should look like when opened with a disassembler. Unfortunately, since it is in asm, it will be much difficult to understand. Have you seen the code that does the key disk? It's ingenious! Hats off to Randy for that.

Btw, for those of you who think I don't own bleem, I do own it. I bought mine for $50. It's just that I get irritated by the key disk.

[Pete Bernert]

I just bought bleem, and it's still better in many areas than the free emulators on my system.

Mmm... could you name a few of that 'many areas'? I really would like to know...

[Raziel]

Originally posted by Pete Bernert


Mmm... could you name a few of that 'many areas'? I really would like to know...

Don't care about him,he just bought it,he just doesn't want to admit he wasted his money.

BTW,null_pointer,you say that you like the 3D acceleration in Bleem!,then what do you think of the one you get when using Pete's or Lewpy's plugins,it's by far better than what you'll ever get with Bleem!
The sound is great?Are you sure it's Bleem! you're using?
I never got good sound from Bleem!(except for Tekken3,which was a recent game when Bleem! appeared,strange isn't it?)

[Pete Bernert]

Don't care about him,he just bought it,he just doesn't want to admit he wasted his money.

Naaa... I was not in a flaming mood or something, I really just wanted to know in which areas bleem! is beating epsxe... I don't know any important ones... mmm... maybe something like "bleem! is easier to set up", or "you don't need a psx bios file"... but when it comes to the real emulation and the playability of games, I think epsxe is far ahead.

[FireGL]

I agree epsxe is the best in image quality even if you use filtering you cant see any artifac especially the game that needs Petes OGL Advance Blending I really like em

[null_pointer]

Actually, since bleem! was coded in asm, you should see exactly what it should look like when opened with a disassembler. Unfortunately, since it is in asm, it will be much difficult to understand. Have you seen the code that does the key disk? It's ingenious! Hats off to Randy for that.

A dissassembler doesn't automatically have the comments, macros, and other niceties supported by the assembler. By "open source" I was referring to something more along the lines of licensing issues...

BTW,null_pointer,you say that you like the 3D acceleration in Bleem!,then what do you think of the one you get when using Pete's or Lewpy's plugins,it's by far better than what you'll ever get with Bleem!

Bleem seems to have better visual quality (and less graphical glitches) on the few games I tried, perhaps it's just luck. For instance, when playing Xenogears w/ ePSXe (1.40) and Pete's D3D plugin (1.50), the game's menu borders are botched and the text looks like Linux

I've tried Pete's other plugins of that version, but they all seem to have the same problems - the D3D one is just faster.

Similarly, the menus in FF7 are botched and frustrating to work with. In a RPG like the two I mentioned, you spend most of your time working with and staring at the menus.

(The D3D hardware acceleration mode in bleem seems to have its own problems, of course, but the software mode doesn't suffer the same glitches.)

Nothing runs at the full frame rate in all game scenes on my computer at any resolution other than 320x240 windowed. Odd, one would think fullscreen mode would be faster, but maybe that's a quirk of PSX emulation.

The sound is great?Are you sure it's Bleem! you're using? I never got good sound from Bleem!(except for Tekken3,which was a recent game when Bleem! appeared,strange isn't it?)

I've tried several sound drivers in ePSXe, including Null2's, Pete's, lori's, and of course the built-in sound. They all have very poor sound with FF7 and Xenogears; most of the "tones" are messed up, the effects are scratchy/botched, and all the drivers seem to have trouble syncing the graphics and sound. The song "My Village is Number One" in Xenogears sounds more like a funeral dirge.

Bleem seems to get all of the "tones" correct (I own the complete, original soundtrack to Xenogears, I should know), and the effects sound closer to the original PSX. Bleem also seems to sync graphics and sound together quite nicely (except MDECs, which are poor); the problem is that the speed is ridiculous.

So that's what I meant; if the bleem team could get the timing issues resolved I would use it. Right now, bleem is simply unusable.

[Raziel]

About the FF7 text boxes,ther's a special game fix for this in pete's plugin as well as in Lewpy's one.

[null_pointer]

That doesn't seem to work. Any other suggestions?

[Gambler2k1]

My EMail to them

Sent: Monday, July 02, 2001 6:34 AM
To: sean@bleem.com
Subject: Bleem! PC


To Whom This May Concerne

Now to start off, I believe bleem! PC is a extremely brilliant emulator for the PC. I`m also believe that bleem! has been to caught up with Dreamcast emulation (In case you guys havent noticed, DC is a practicly dead system, Why create a emulator for a dead system (more legal problems will probably accur) and court problems. Bleem! PC was probably you best bet at becoming *millionaire$* (heh), But what it seems like, Bleem! inc. has turned they`re back on they`re faithful bleem! customers (such as I), Which is a huge disappointment towards me and other bleem! consumers. It brings up questions like "If Bleem! inc is unreliable to deliver it`s promises towards Bleem! PC, then what makes me that they wont do the same for Bleem! PC". I`ve often wonder whats the problems with Sony and I see 2 things that couldve avoided all of this. One being not going Commercial with Bleem! PC (Randy if you had so much of a stratagy and brains to create Bleem! then you shouldve thought it out before money was on your mind) and 2 being not to emulate, simulate or even incorperate the psx bios into bleem! and use a bois plugin system instead (like PSemu which was out before bleem was created). Now, I have 2 questions to which only Bleem! can answer (Heh, another 2 things). Is Bleem! PC dead, if not, will we see a Bleem! PC this year?. The reason why I am writing this email is that I am a loyal Bleem! PC costumer and I`m just wondering if my investment was made wisely. Well I hope that this reaches you and I get some kind of email back.

And the Reply from Sean Kauppinen

1 -no
2 - we don't have info at this time

Not even a Hello, just that. Pretty blunt, So Maybe for us still unhopefully Bleem! Customers (not fans), We might see something


.......................you never know

[null_pointer]

Yeah, maybe when dentures become a fashion statement.

[LanGaidin]

null_pointer, unfortunately, that is the biggest complaint about bleem! From what I understand, even the sound issues that most people bring up is actually related to the timing as well. As for what technically is required to make the timing correct, well I don't really know for sure. However, it probably is mostly due to the fact that Randy doesn't know which instructions are being called when, much less how many cycles each one takes. The way that bleem! was created, at least IIRC, was that Randy looked at what ouput was occuring at each point in the game, and then made bleem! ouput the same thing at those points. So, he really doesn't know the underlying instructions, and had to figure out the timing on his own. And, it's possible that I completely botched that explanation. I don't understand low-level programming that well, and am going from things that were explained to me by people that did. It's possible I forgot, mis-remembered, or mis-understood the explanations. Anyway, he realized that it wasn't really accurate in versions up to 1.4a, and completely re-wrote it for 1.5. Unfortunately, this actually made it worse for some people. :/ So, if you have a game where the timing is off in 1.5x, you might want to try 1.4a, and see if it's better there.

As for a no-frills emu with a high compatibility rate, have you tried VGS? It's not pretty by any means, especially compared to the ones that have 3D Acceleration, but it is very compatible, and I never noticed any speed issues at all in the short time I used it.

And, as for open-source, I highly doubt it... As long as it's private, bleem, inc. always has the option of selling the technology to a bigger company that would be more able to fight Sony. While I don't know how likely it is that they'd consider that, if they make source public, that out is no longer available.

[null_pointer]

Hmm...that's what I thought as well. What about getting a second-hand PSX dev kit? Surely there must be references available somewhere...

I'll try 1.4a like you suggested.

BTW, is that basically how all of the PSX emulators are written?