Friday, 18 February 2020   Adaptoid Review [20:15 GMT] By mathew2   I have just finished writing a review of Wishtech's Adaptoid. The Adaptoid is a N64 Controller to USB interface connector. Its a very nice product and comes recommended. Check out the review here. Head to Wish Technologies to order one for yourself. Feel free to mail me your comments about the review!

	Thursday, 17 February 2020  New Psmplay soon [15:59 CET] By Bobbi   Segu just sent me a new version of the great movie player Psmplay. It looks as if Psmplay might be able to replace all important programs for working with movies soon.     You can extract files now so you can store the sounds and the movies itself on your HD. The old version is still available at segu.psxemu.com.  Yet another bleem! scan [15:55 CET] By Bobbi   EmuHQ posted yet another scan from a Swedish magazin includinga translation. When your favourite TV show starts, or the TV is busy. Eather that or the kids are fighting over what game they are about to play on the TV. Bleem is the rescuer, it allows your PC to play Palystation games. Their result was to give bleem! 7 out of 10 points. View the article on EmuHQ at this page.

	Wednesday, 16 February 2020  Sony can't loose [16:39 CET] By Bobbi   Some days ago it became public that Connectix won in a lawsuit against Sony. But now, Sony claims that they own 11 patents Connectix is using. In the suit filed yesterday against San Mateo, Calif.- based Connectix, Sony claims it owns 11 patents needed to make its best-selling PlayStation video game system. Foster City, Calif.-based Sony computer is a unit of Sony, the giant maker of consumer electronics. Connectix is illegally using those patents to make a rival product, Sony claims in the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Read the whole article here. I start to get a bad opinionagainst Sony ...

	Monday, 14 February 2020  500.000th visitor [14:17 CET] By Bobbi   All I can say is that I'm amazed. After only 10 months, we already topped half a million visitors.And yep, you heard right, we're already 10 months old. PSXEmu, formal the bleem! support page on EmuHQ started sometime in may 1999 (nope, I don't know the exact date any more). Our 500.000th visitor was CDBurnout, member of another bleem! fan page called Extremebleem (small advert =P), we'll think about sending him a price. BTW, for all of you who wondered what the correct answers for the contest were : Before bleem!, Randy Linden did Doom for the SNES and Dragon's Lair for the Amiga Bleem!'s 1.0 release was on the 5/15/1999 Emus running commercial games are AdriPSX, bleem!, PSEmu Pro, Psyke and VGS. The winners will be contacted soon ! And thanks again for all your support !  PSmplay news [14:17 CET] By Bobbi   Segu updated his page with news on the progress of his cool new utility PSmplay. Now there's a manual available and he also discovered some bugs : Color mode detection. It doesn't become proper pixel format at the time of the 16bit color. Use the 24bit or 32bit color mode if there is a problem IKI format. A decision sentence was mistaken It is repaired in the next version. (maybe) To get some more informations in the manual or to get PSmplay, head over to segu.psxemu.com.  Bleem! article [13:58 CET] By Bobbi   There've been quite many articles in game magazins in the past few weeks, here's another one fromForbes. Although the title may be a bit confusing (it's namedDoomed =P) it's not a bad article. A part from it reads as the following : Bleem's $29.95 bit of code has challenged Sony's $7.4 billion videogame empire. The Play-Station has sold more than 25 million units in the U.S. since its release in 1995, giving Sony two-thirds of the console hardware and software business. One would think Sony would love for its games to run on the even more ubiquitous PC. But if PlayStation games could be played on other platforms, Sony would find it harder to justify its estimated $10-per-game licensing fee, its juiciest profit stream. Right now developers pay nothing to Microsoft to write a Windows game, so why should Sony get paid $10 if it runs on somebody else's hardware? Check out the whole article here.  Small PCSX update [13:54 CET] By Bobbi   The PCSX homepage today posted a small update on the progress of this new emulator, which hasn't seen a firstrelease yet. Right now the pcsx team is working a new dynarec core that will make things much faster.In the mean time,there have been many bug corrections and an attempt to raise the compatibility. You can check out the PCSX homepage here. Shadow, one of the coders, alsowanted to know if people want to see a release with less compatibility soon or one with more compatibility a bit later, so check out theirmessage board to vote on that. Thanks to Ben-J for the notice.

	Saturday, 12 February 2020   PSMPlay 0.1 [23:22 CET] By Bobbi   Like already previewed some days ago, here's the first release of the great PSX movie player PSMPlay. It's programmer is Segu, who also gave his homepage a kickass new look with the release of this nice utility. PSMPlay can play any STR movie as well as XA Audio and TIM pics. Here's what Segu still wants to fix : All can't be regenerated, and it isn't understood whether it can cope with it from now on, too, at present. It may move with the environment after DirectX3 because only the function of DirectX3 is being used fundamentally You can download this great utility at Segu.psxemu.com or get it directly here. I also suggest you to check out his great new design as well as his other goodies !   Blini! 4th release [23:12 CET] By Bobbi   Today, JNS released the 4th release of his bleem! ini editor called blini!. With this new release, we get the following changes : Bug fixes Blini! now shows when a game works under D3D an improved update function for those of you, who didn't got the old one working The old function : "Online Update (based on MSWINSCK)" The new function : "Online Update (based on MSINET)" Changed the window size - Now viewable in 800x600 The Compatibility.TXT isn't load on startup any more, this causes a speed improvment of more than 400% on startup To get this cool new release, head over to blini.psxemu.com and download the latest release. JNS is also asking his visitors for ideas regarding his next release, you can also suggest anything at his page.   More Connectix articles [23:00 CET] By Bobbi   As a reaction on yesterdays success of Connectix against Sony, there've been some quite some articles. One from MCV reads like that : Connectix could not be reached for comment. A Bleem official tells MCV, “The decision bodes very well for Bleem.” While the emulator, also called Bleem, continues to sit on store shelves (unlike the Virtual Game Station), Sony has been greatly opposed to any PlayStation emulators hitting the market and has pursued all of them. You can read the whole article here. The second article is from ZDnet and has this interresting part : As a result of the latest ruling, Connectix began online sales of the game player for the Mac and also resumed development of an updated product and a new version for Windows. "Everyone's really excited, but a whole huge load of work just landed on everybody's desk," Connectix Chairman Roy McDonald said. Read this short article here (cheers to VG for the link). You might also be interrested in the fact that online sales started again, head over to the Connectix homepage for more details.

	Friday, 11 February 2020   Virtual GameStation Sells Again [10:40 CET] By Nick   The injunction on Virtual Game Station, the Playstation Emulator for the Macintosh has been lifted, and Connectix is back in business with their Wonderful Playstation Emulator for the Macintosh and soon to come, the Windows platform. It was formerly announced that the windows version was already completed somewhere in July/August last year, but due to the preliminary injunction on the Mac version of Virtual Game Station, it was not released, and they are still enhancing it by adding 3D hardware support to it. Read more about this in the press release. Here's an interesting finding by the judge: "Sony understandably seeks control over the market for devices that play games Sony produces or licenses. The copyright law, however, does not confer such a monopoly." The Virtual Game Station website looks sweet and provides lots of information for user support, such as a list of recommended game controls etc. Currently it seems to support any USB gamepads and sticks.

	Thursday, 10 February 2020   Article on PS2 compatibilty [22:50 CET] By Bobbi   After Sony announced that not all games will be backward compatible, Daily Reader talked with Randy Linder, programmer of bleem! about this topic. Here's a part from the article : We discussed the matter with Bleem!'s Chief Technical Officer, Randy Linden, who was not surprised in the slightest concerning Sony's announcement that the PS2 won't play all PlayStation games. In fact he was surprised that there hasn't been an announcement until now. Basically, in the lifespan of the PlayStation, there have been about 20 to 30 production runs for the hardware. While all these production runs have been designed around set specifications, the actual performance of each PlayStation can vary slightly as long as the variance is incredibly small. (This is called the tolerance.) The tolerance for PlayStation chip performance is around plus or minus 5%. (This means that each production run of the PlayStation chip must not perform 5% faster or slower than the design specs) I suggest you to check out the whole article here.   AdriPSX release [20:50 CET] By Bobbi   Roor, the programmer of the PSX emulator AdriPSX, which already runs few commercial games, asked me to put up his new release to the download area. I made a small page for it with some screenshots, check back tomorrow to see more of them ! The new release on the download page is much more compatible than the first version, since it doesn't only support VESA2 but VESA1 and VESA3 as well ! Well, enough said, to read the details head over to this page. Before you run it, make sure to read the release notes. Roor also said that he'll send us a new version from time to time so keep an eye on the page.   PS2 not 100% backward compatible [20:46 CET] By Bobbi   Well, according to this article the PSX2 won't be 100% backward compatible. From the article : Of course, since Bleem! is merely a 'black-box' that behaves the way a PlayStation might, it's not a perfect test of PlayStation 2 backwards compatibility, but it does suggest that, since the two versions of the console are architecturally different, the degree of backwards compatibility may not be as high as Sony anticipated since a lot of titles won't find the hardware they expect to find. It's a good article (hehehehe =P), read it here.

	Wednesday, 08 February 2020   Blini! page redesigned 18:42 CET] By Bobbi   The blini! page recived another re-design. The page is more blue this time, you can vote in a poll on the page if you like that. JNS also wrote this : I played a bit around with the design and I think, that this one looks quite a bit better. But since your opinion is the one that counts, we created a Poll where you can tell us if YOU prefer the new design. P.S.: Blini! already became 2 months old and, thanks to your great support, it's homepage already had more than 20000 visitors. This prooves to me, that it can't be THAT bad :) Take a look at the new designed page and tell JNS your opinion at blini.psxemu.com.   CD Brake 1.05 Update [08:50 CET] By Nick   Today. i just received an email on what's new in CD Brake 1.05. Here's what's new in CD Brake 1.05 : It now supports new drives: Cyberdrive 40x/100S-44x/110P, Delta 48x 3.00, Mitsumi FX4820, Sanyo CRD-BP2, Yamaha CRW8424S. The support of all NEC-drives which didn't work in 1.04, now it works again. To get CD Brake 1.05, you can download it right here. For more info and details, visit the official page of CD Brake. Thanks to Flo Dester for the translation.

	Tuesday, 07 February 2020   New, yet unknown, project [15:41 CET] By Bobbi   Remember the movieplayer PSXPlay, that played most .str files ? Well, it's only problem was that it was shareware and the author wanted money for allowing you to watch more than the half movie ... Now I recived a notice from one of our team members, that he created a "small" utility for watching movies on the PC ... Well, all I can say right now about this project is, that it already kicks ass in it's current stage ... It's even possible to view the movie files RIGHT from packed files (for example FF8). Well, enough said, check out the screenshots below to make you an own picture :                 Be sure to keep an eye on our site to see more about the progress of this tool soon !   New features at PCSX page [15:41 CET] By Bobbi   The homepage of the yet unreleased PSX emulator PCSX has recived some cool additions. The created the team page, the status page and their links page. No word though when there might be a first release. BTW, I recived many mails asking if the first release of PCSX will play commercial games. Well, if they'll release it in the near future, the emu WON'T play any demos ... But what I can already tell you : This emu is FAST ... Just some compatibilty things are missing :)   CD Brake 1.05 Released [02:05 CET] By Nick   CD Brake 1.05 was released not long ago. Till now, i still do not know what's new in this release. Click here now to download CD Brake 1.05. So you may visit CD Brake's official site to find out what's new. Please mail me if you found out what's new in it.

	Saturday, 05 February 2020   Scans from Incite [14:30 CET] By Bobbi   Zophar had some scans from the english magazin Incite, which has many new facts that weren't public before, like this part : Randy Linden, bleem's Chief Technical Officer, is the mastermind who discovered a way to emulate a PlayStation on an Intel-based PC. What Lindenhad done was use a ProAction Replay - a device sumular to InterAct's Game Shark that plugs into the parallel port of older Playstations - to see enough of the BIOS code so he could see how it worked. Linden always reasoned that Sony would be eager to benefit from his technology. After all, why wouldn't Sony want to join bleem in opening a whole new market for PlayStation games ? It's no secret that Sony doesn't make their money off PlayStation sales. To get answers on many open questions read the first page here and the second here. Thanks to Zophar for the scans.   Emulationworld troubles [14:30 CET] By Bobbi   Our host, Emulationworld, had some troubles with it's secondary DNS server ... PSXEmu wasn't affected, but many other pages like Retrogames were ... If you want to know more about this issue, visit Ztnet. All those problems should be solved now ... "Long lives emulation" :)

	Saturday, 05 February 2020   FPSE 0.07 Released [15:00 CET] By Nick   FPSE, known as Free PlayStation Emulator, has updated it's FPSE to 0.07 with a long list of improvements and bug fixes. Here's what's new, read below to find out: SPU inital work. now play sound More GTE support GPU software render sprite & tile bug fix Dynamic compiler NOR opcode bug fix Support WATCOM C++ / Borland C++ Bulider (perherps Borland C++ too) And Implovement by LDChen Now sio, pads (even dual-shock) and memory cards work fully Interrupt and async events work fully All memory access are closed to 8 MB (infact 0x000000 and 0x00200000 point to the same location) GPU dma are closed to 8 MB (see above) Added frame rate limiter to 60Hz (see HW.C for details) Added frameskip and screenshot (see GPU.C for details) Added a primitive but useful debugger ( '-e' option) Added a CDNULL driver A small fix to root counters Bios can be used for running demos Now cdrom can generate interrupts Some changes on layout of the code To download FPSE v0.07 binary, click here or you may also want to download FPSE v0.07 source here (all are in handy .zip format). For both binary and source, download it here. On a sidenote, FPSE has got a new host at emuforce.com, so the FPSE site is now located at fpse.emuforce.com. For more info and details, visit their site here.

	Friday, 04 February 2020   Finally : Scan from german magazin [19:16 CET] By Bobbi   As we promised 3 days ago, here's finally the scan from the german magazin PC Games. I also translated it, and at the end, they mention an interresting thing : The "master" (Randy) has some future visions. Some are talking about a dreamcast emu, or of a conole on their own with own slots for every type of modul. One of Randy's company partners means : "Wouldn't it be cool, to make an Instal-based box with lots of connections where you can pop in every game ? That wouldn't be illegal... You could simply go into the next shop and take every game from Intellivision until Atari with you. Scan's : Page 1  Page 2  Page 3  Page 4  Translation. Thanks to JNS for the sharper scans. Is anyone out there able to send us a scan from the american sister magazin of PC Games ? Would be cool, there should be a few more details in it !   Bleemid & Soniath [19:16 CET] By Bobbi   Normally we don't report those overclocked episodes (although they're not bad), but this one is well done : Bleemid & Soniath, loosly based on David & Goliath. It goes about the lawsuit between Sony and bleem! (remember : bleem! already won 3 times at court against Sony !). View the episode here. Thanks to Dl for the news.

	Tuesday, 01 February 2020   New PSX Emulator: PCSX! [21:45 CET] By Thorgal   Over at EmuForce, they've now got a new Playstation emulator hosted called PCSX ! Its progress seems to be very well, and it already runs a few demos. Here's a snippet from the PCSX homepage: Time to report some news on the development of the emulator.The GPU status has changed from 60% to 80% and the bios and some demos have started working. Check the screenshots page for more info and pictures of the working demos.Plus,there's a nice speed boost in the main core and the GPU code, resulting in 2x speed from the previous builds.There are many things left to do,but the programming team is working hard.Time to get some sleep now Nocomp! Seems interesting to me ...be sure to keep an eye on this one! Screenshots and more can be found here. And now for something completely different (oh my god, Monty Python's been brainwashing me! ...never mind). There's an interesting thread at the bleem.com message boards; in case you've always been wondering who the guys behind that magical piece of software actually ARE, here's your chance to find out! Check out this thread, for a groovy picture using a rather original concept ;) This picture (+ article, ofcourse) can be found in the February issue of the German PC Magazine 'Incite Magazine'; we expect to have a better scan tomorrow.