Bleemcast!

Comparison: Ridge Racer 4, running natively on the PlayStation, and under Bleemcast!.

Bleemcast! is an independently developed commercial emulator by Bleem! for Sega Dreamcast that allows one to load and play PlayStation discs on the Dreamcast. It is compatible with most Dreamcast controllers and steering wheels, and enhances the PS1 game. It was originally created by using the Mil-CD security hole in the Dreamcast.

The early years

Originally, Bleem! was planning to have the disc able to run any Playstation game on the Dreamcast, but due to technical difficulties, they made the idea of the "Bleempak", in which the software would boot only 100 specific games each. New Bleempaks would have to be purchased if one game was not available to boot in a Bleempak. Due to the Dreamcast controller's fewer buttons compared to the Playstation, there were plans to release a Bleem! controller (somewhat similarly designed to the Playstation controller) and a PS1-to-Dreamcast controller adapter (which would allow one to use a Playstation controller on the Dreamcast). As technical difficulties grew further, all these ideas were scrapped, with no "Bleempak" and no hardware releases.

However, they managed to release individual Bleemcast! bootdiscs for three popular games: Gran Turismo 2, Tekken 3, and Metal Gear Solid (Box Scan). As promised from the beginning, the games ran in a 640x480 resolution, as opposed to the PS1's 320x240 resolution, and featured anti-aliasing and bilinear filtering. This drastically improved the games' graphics (more so than the backwards-compatible PlayStation 2), but also brought out some graphical imperfections that were originally hidden in the lower resolution.

The death of Bleem!

File:RIP bleem.jpg

Bleem!'s farewell

Although Sony ultimately did not win any of its lawsuits against them, Bleem! had to shut down when the huge court costs became too much for the small company to handle. Bleem! shut down in 2001, the same year Sega announced that they would discontinue the Dreamcast. Bleem! closed their website with only an image on their frontpage of Sonic the Hedgehog tearfully holding a flower next to a Bleem! gravestone. The image was later altered and Sonic was removed possibly to avoid a lawsuit from Sega.

Beta leak

A beta build of Bleemcast! was eventually leaked. Even though it was very buggy and incomplete, it would run many PlayStation games. [1] Also, using this beta, hackers were able to create "Bleemed" games — discs of a PlayStation title with the Bleemcast! emulator built-in. Many of these discs circulate on peer to peer networks. A game compatibility list can be found here.

After the leak, the developers made a public statement regarding the beta, providing some insight to the development process. The commercial Bleemcast! release is notable as the only release on the Sega Dreamcast that has not been pirated, as it has deep layers of copy protection schemes.

Trivia

• A single Bleem!-dedicated VMU is required to save any Bleem! games.

See also

Utopia bootdisk