™

U S E R M A N U A L
 C O N T E N T S

GETTING STARTED
Before you begin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Installing bleem! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
DirectX 6 and Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

RUNNING BLEEM!
Launching bleem! for the first time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Game Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
Using Memory Cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

SETTINGS AND CONFIGURATION

Graphics Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
Full Screen Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Windowed Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
Accelerated 3D Hardware Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
Advanced Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
Sound Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Movies and CD-ROM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
NEED HELP?
Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
Where to go for help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
1
 G E T T I N G S TA R T E D

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

Thanks for your business! There are a couple things to keep in mind
as you get acquainted with bleem!:™
For all of us who know and love the PSX, it’s tempting to compare the
bleem! experience to the original console. But remember, this is PC
software, and the plug-n-play simplicity of consoles just can’t be beat.
If you’re a PC gamer, you’re no doubt used to the setup routine of PC
games and bleem! should be no problem. You’ll quickly be playing
hundreds of new games, many never-before-available on the PC!
And for PlayStation gamers, we’ve done everything possible to make
it easy to install bleem! and start enjoying your games as never before.
Just follow the instructions and you’ll soon be up-and-running.
Now, bleem! isn’t a PlayStation “clone,” so you’ll find that we’re not
compatible with all games – but we’re working every day to make
bleem! even better and are listening to what you, our customers, want.
We’ve averaged an update every week since we opened for business,
adding more games and better performance at every step.
And we’ll continue to support bleem! with frequent, FREE updates,
as long as users tell us what they want added. So thanks again,and
please stop by our website to tell us how we can continue to make
bleem! better.

2
INSTALLING BLEEM!
1 Insert the bleem! CD into your CD-ROM drive.
2 Go to “My Computer” and double-click on the icon for your
CD-ROM drive to open the directory.
3 Drag the “bleem!.EXE” file to your PC’s hard drive. You can
put bleem! anywhere you like – in your Programs folder, or
even on your desktop for easy access.
4 Double-click on “SETUP” to launch the DirectX 6.1 Installer.
It will check the version of DirectX on your PC and tell you
if you need to update your drivers.
5 The installer will ask if you want to replace your drivers –
click “Yes”.
6 When it’s finished, the Installer will ask if you want to restart
your PC. Click “OK” to reboot with the new drivers.

TIP: A ”clean” system makes for easier installation. Go to a

site like windowsupdate.microsoft.com or oil-change.com and get
a free, automatic update to your system resources. And it's not a
bad idea to check for new drivers at your CD-ROM drive
manufacturer's site as well.

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ABOUT DIRECTX 6 AND DRIVERS
We know, everyone always says that you MUST have the newest
versions of drivers for blah blah blah... But we really mean it!
See, bleem! is one of a handful of new products to take advantage
of DirectX 6.1 and all that it offers. But in order to use the advanced
features DirectX 6.1 promises, hardware manufacturers have had to
upgrade their drivers. Repeatedly.
One 3D accelerator manufacturer (who will remain nameless) blew
through FOUR driver versions over six weeks (all listed as "DirectX 6
Compatible") before finally releasing a version that actually worked.
And while the only available version of DirectX 6.1 is included on the
bleem! CD, the drivers in that installation have been replaced many
times since its release, and new cards have hit the market as well
(like the Voodoo3 and TNT2).
So we STRONGLY recommend that after you install DirectX 6.1,
you check for updated, Direct-X 6 CERTIFIED drivers from your
3D card’s manufacturer. The easiest way to get them is online from
a source like www.drivershq.com, or in the Drivers section of
www.winfiles.com. They have links to all the manufacturers and are
the simplest way to get up-to-date.
Many cards will work just fine – but for the easiest setup in the
shortest time, make sure you have the very latest, standard drivers
(make sure you don’t get game-specific versions of drivers).

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 R U N N I N G B L E E M !

YOU’RE READY TO PLAY!

1 The first time you run bleem!, make
sure it’s right after a fresh restart.
2 Quit any other running programs.
After you’ve run bleem! a few times
and KNOW it works well, it’s OK to
run it with other programs – it just
makes any troubleshooting that
much easier the first time.
3 Insert the bleem! CD in your drive.
4 Launch “bleem!.exe” from wherever you copied it.
5 The bleem! legal disclaimer (a necessary evil) will pop up –
read it, click “OK” when you accept it, and bleem! will eject the
CD and prompt you to insert a game disc (if you have two CD
drives, you can leave the key in one all the time and the use the
other for games – see CD-ROM configuration instructions).
6 Insert a compatible game and you’re on your way! This is when
when you really should set all bleem!’s configuration options –
but if you just can’t wait, go ahead and try bleem! in Software
Mode now. Just make sure you come back and read the rest of
the instructions before fiddling with all the settings.
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 C O M P A T I B I L I T Y

GAME COMPATIBILITY AND BLEEM!

For best results, check the games listings at www.bleem.com for
games we’ve tested or our users have reported as working with bleem!
If a game isn’t yet listed, you can help! Here are some steps to follow
in testing your own games:
1 Start fresh. Reboot your machine and launch bleem! from a
fresh restart. Some programs can leave behind garbage in mem-
ory that might affect compatibility and accurate testing. And this
is important – if you should get a crash or a freeze when trying
a new game, make sure you restart before trying another.
2 Close all other running programs to prevent conflicts. And
while this isn’t absolutely necessary, it’s a good idea: shut down
any startup programs in the task manager (except for SysTray
and Explorer). Press CTRL-ALT-DELETE to end tasks.
3 Keep it simple. Turn off Memory Cards in bleem! and start by
running your game in Software Mode (3D Acceleration OFF).
4 Next, turn on 3D and see what you get – remember, the
Software mode is generally more compatible – but more
and more games are “Direct3D Enhanced” every day.
5 Finally, turn on Memory Cards, save your game, and reload.
6 Come to www.bleem.com and share your lists with other users!
6
 MEMORY CARDS

When you launch bleem for the first time, it automatically creates two
default memory cards on the root level of your startup drive. Go to
Memcards | Manager to create and manage an unlimited number of
memory cards (DexDrive files, too!).
DISABLE MEMORY CARDS: Sometimes, if a
game uses memory cards in a way we’ve
never seen, we can’t run it – even though
the rest of the game might play perfectly.
This option lets you enjoy those titles in
the meantime, while we work to make
bleem! fully-compatible with them.
LOAD CARD: Loads an existing memory
card from your hard disk. Games saved in
that card then appear in the window.
SAVE CARD AS: Saves the contents of the
current card to a new memory card file.
NEW CARD: Creates a new memory card.
ERASE SAVE: Single click and game save in the window and hit this
button to delete the save from the memory card file.
ERASE ALL SAVES: Erases all saves from the current memory card.
COPY TO... : Copies the selected game saves to the other memory card.

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 GRAPHICS OPTIONS

bleem! runs in your choice of two modes, and each will perform
differently for different users, depending on your system, your
hardware cards, and the games you want to play.

SOFTWARE MODE: This is bleem!’s default mode. It uses our highly-

optimized software emulation engine to run many PlayStation games
on your PC. Because we have MUCH greater control in our software
than with other folks’ hardware, running in Software Mode gives
you the greatest compatibility and the most accurate rendition of
PlayStation game graphics, at PlayStation resolutions. Depending on
the speed of your PC and the complexity of the game you want to
play, Software Mode delivers great gameplay on the largest number
of games.

ACCELERATED 3D HARDWARE MODE: This is the part of bleem! that

makes people drool. With a full-featured 3D card, bleem! makes many
games look better than ever before! Now you can play your games at
2X, 3X, even 4X PlayStation resolution and see detail you never knew
existed! And a good 3D accelerator can deliver great, speedy gameplay,
even on slower systems. Many bleem!-compatible games are fully
Direct3D Enhanced, and more will be added as quickly as we can.

Try your games in different modes and resolutions, and you’ll find the
level of graphics quality and performance that you enjoy most.

8
bleem!’s graphics settings are divided into four menus within a single
interface. To change graphics settings, go to Settings | Graphics, then
click on the appropriate tab in the window that appears.

FULL SCREEN SETTINGS

ALWAYS DISPLAY IN FULL SCREEN: when
you insert a game CD, bleem automati-
cally switches to full screen display.

ONLY USE FULL SCREEN WHEN… : with

this option selected, bleem! will always
launch to a window, and only switch to
Full Screen when you hit ALT-ENTER.
(recommended)

CHOOSE THE BEST DISPLAY MODE

AUTOMATICALLY: bleem! will pick the
best video mode for you.

IF A PERFECT MATCH EXISTS, USE IT: PlayStation games normally run

at certain settings - for example, 320x240 at 16-bit. If your video card
supports that setting, bleem! will use it. If not, bleem! defaults to the
setting specified in the next option.

TIP: Playing in Full Screen mode frees up video memory for

bleem! On larger monitors, your desktop pattern alone can eat
up more than a megabyte of VRAM!

9
 ALWAYS USE THIS DISPLAY MODE: bleem!
will always use the video mode you
select here. Selecting this option will
reduce the number of times your PC
has to change resolutions and re-sync
your monitor. (recommended)

WINDOWED MODE SETTINGS

DON’T RESIZE WINDOW AUTOMATICALLY:
bleem! normally adjusts its window for
a perfect 1-to-1 pixel match with the
game it’s playing. However, some games
save memory by “squeezing” the image,
then expanding it to fill your TV screen
when it’s played. Selecting this option
allows you to resize the window to fill any portion of your screen
you desire. However, this option can make bleem! run slower.

REMEMBER THE SIZE AND POSITION OF THE WINDOW… : Use this

option to make bleem! use the same window dimensions and
placement as the last time you exited the program.

TIP: Adjust your display settings in Windows to match the

ones you select in bleem! for better, more stable operation. You
can do this easily by right clicking on your desktop and select-
ing Properties, or via the Display Control Panel.

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 3D HARDWARE SETTINGS
ENABLE 3D HARDWARE ACCELERATION:
bleem! will use 3D Hardware Acceleration
if your graphics card supports it.
HIGH RESOLUTION: bleem! uses your 3D
hardware to render PlayStation graphics
at higher resolutions – instead of just
scaling them. That means you get smooth
lines and textures, not just bigger pixels.
(recommended)
ENABLE FILTERED POLYGONS: This will
smooth the graphics in most characters,
objects and the “world” in most games.
This option only affects 3D games, and your hardware must support it.
This can cause slowdowns with some 3D hardware. (recommended)
ENABLE FILTERED SPRITES: When used with supporting 3D hardware,
this option will smooth graphics in most status bars, overlay status
bars, icons and other “flat” objects in many PlayStation games. This
will also affect 2D games, but may cause slowdowns in gameplay.
(recommended)
ENABLE ANTIALIASING: If your hardware supports it, this can smooth
out the entire image, reducing blockiness and pixellation at higher
resolutions. This may cause significant slowdown in gameplay on
some hardware, but some cards do provide this feature for “free”,
without any performance hit.
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ENABLE PALETTED TEXTURES: Paletted textures lets bleem! upload far
fewer textures to your graphics card, and conserves valuable video
memory, resulting in more accurate rendering with fewer “dropouts”
on complex games at high resolutions.
Not all cards support this feature, so
check your hardware documentation
before selecting this feature.

ADVANCED SETTINGS
ENABLE GOURAUD TEXTURED POLYGONS:
This option only affects software mode.
When selected, bleem! smoothly blends
and shades colors in the game. When
this option if turned off, bleem! uses a
single color for shading and lighting
objects. This can make games run faster
on slower machines, but objects in the
game may appear more “blocky,” or
“faceted.” (recommended)
LIMIT MAXIMUM SPEED: You may find that some games actually play
TOO FAST with bleem!, especially in 3D hardware mode. When this
option is selected, bleem! will attempt to use the speed the original
playstation game was designed to run at.

TIP: If you experience slow gameplay when playing 2D

games, try turning off 3D Hardware Acceleration – you’ll
usually get better results in 2D games with Software Mode.

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 S O U N D S E T T I N G S

Access the Sound Settings by going

to Settings | Sound. You’ll get the
following options, as well as Sound
Quality Settings. Different combina-
tions of these settings will take more
or less processor power, and sound
very different from one system to the
next. We recommend that you start
at the lowest settings (Mono, 8-bit
Samples, 8000 Hz) and try higher
combinations until you reach the best
balance of quality and performance
on YOUR system.

ENABLE SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC:

Just what it says.

ENABLE DYNAMIC SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC: Some games use

“dynamic” sound effects, which are very similar to “internet streaming
audio” They require very precise timing and a lot of processor power.
Depending on your system configuration and sound card, this option
can sometimes result in choppy or stuttering audio. If you disable
dynamic sounds, the game will still play, but the “streamed” portion
of the audio will be muted.

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ENABLE FULL MOTION AUDIO: Some games use synchronized sound
along with full motion video for intro movies, cut-scenes, etc. This
option enables the audio for those video portions.
MONO VS. STEREO: You probably already know what this means:
monophonic or stereophonic.

8-BIT VS 16-BIT SAMPLES: The sample “depth” for audio refers to the
amount of information bleem! has to process to output sound. The
higher the level, the smoother the sound. However, this comes at a
price – 16-bit audio uses twice as much processor power as 8-bit (just
as a 32-bit color graphic is much larger than an 8-bit image, but has
more depth and detail). Your sound card, processor speed, and the
quality of your speakers will determine the level that’s best for you.

SAMPLE RATE(8000/11025/16000/22050/44100): The Sample Rate

affects the overall “smoothness” of the audio, as well as the dynamic
range (high and low-frequency response). But like the Sample Depth,
higher rates also result in much more processor overhead.

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 C O N T R O L L E R S

bleem! supports most DirectInput

devices (both analog and digital!),
and allows you to completely config-
ure your favorite joysticks and
gamepads for the way YOU like to
play. Tell bleem! the devices you use
by selecting Settings | Controllers.
AUTOMATIC CONFIGURATION:
In the General Settings tab, choose
the type of PlayStation controller you
want bleem! to emulate, the device
you actually have attached to your
PC, and click DO IT! bleem! will
auto-configure your device and open
the appropriate controller tab to review.
MANUAL CONFIGURATION: You can also
manually edit the settings for each con-
troller in the Controller 1&2 tabs. The
icons on the left represent buttons on the PlayStation controller.
Select a control, then choose the PC device and button on that device
you’d like to “map” to that particular control. You can even mix inputs
device – for example, you can configure a joystick to control move-
ment, and use your keyboard for the rest of the buttons.

15
MOVIES AND CD-ROM

Most folks won’t need these last two

settings menus – if you have a fairly
recent system, and don’t have multiple
CD-ROM drives, skip this section and
go play!

MOVIES – BLACK & WHITE ONLY:

When checked, bleem! plays full
motion video in B/W only. For some
older machines, this is much faster
than playing videos in full color –
but on high-end machines there is
no performance loss when using color
and this option should be unchecked.

CD-ROM – DRIVE LETTER: This setting

tells bleem! which CD-ROM drive you
want to use to play your PlayStation
game discs. This is a handy feature if
you have more than one drive – you
can keep the bleem! CD in the drive
you use least often and run game
discs in the other!

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 T R O U B L E S H O O T I N G

A GAME THAT USED TO WORK FINE IS FREAKING OUT:

• If you’re getting random graphics glitches in scenes that normally
render fine, it usually means the driver has gotten confused and is
buffering textures or other oddities. You can sometimes clear these
by switching between Windowed and Full Screen modes, but your
best bet is always a fresh restart to clear all the memory.

MY GAME IS PLAYING S..L..O..W..L..Y..:

• Since many games are 2D games, they don’t benefit from 3D
acceleration, and are even DE-celerated (many fighting games
exhibit this behavior). Try playing in Software Mode!
• Check your resolution; Just because you CAN set tell bleem! to run
at 4 gazillion X 2 gazillion pixels doesn’t mean you should, or
that you’ll see any difference on-screen. 800x600 is fine for most
monitors, and isn’t as huge a burden on the processor.
• Turn OFF Filtering and AntiAliasing. While some cards offer these
features for “free” (no performance hit), most do not.
Many users find the higher-resolutions to be more than enough.
• On very old systems, you may choose to disable sound to allow
more of the processor to be used for graphics. If your CD light is
blinking very rapidly, it means the game uses XA audio and your

17
 processor is probably working overtime. This doesn’t work for
ALL games, but you can often turn the background music OFF in
the game itself, and still get sound effects and voices, along with
sizeable speed increases!

GRAPHICS HELP
I ONLY SEE A BLACK SCREEN IN WINDOWED MODE:
• If this happens in Software Mode, chances are you don’t have
DirectX 6.1 running on your system. If you’ve installed anything
since bleem!, you may have replaced it with an older version.
Check by running the “SETUP” program on the bleem! CD –
it’ll tell you if you need to reinstall DIrectX 6.1.
• If this happens in 3D Hardware Mode, make sure your card
supports Windowed Mode and that you’re not asking it to display
something it’s not designed to. Some cards, like the Voodoo 1 and 2,
only work in full-screen and at 16-bit.

THERE ARE “WHITE BOXES” ALL OVER THE SCREEN:

• PlayStation games, particularly newer ones, need a LOT of video
memory to render textures. If you’re playing on an older 4-or 8MB
card, you may find that it runs out of video memory and displays
white or grey boxes where textures should be. You can often
minimize this effect by lowering your resolution or turning off
the Filtering or AntiAliasing options under 3D Hardware.

18
• If your card supports them, enable Paletted Textures under 3D
Hardware. It’ll use less memory to render graphics, but sometimes
has a slight performance hit.
• If you have an AGP video card, check the advanced settings in the
control panels and make sure you have allocated memory to the
card. This gives you more Video RAM (VRAM), but can result in
slower gameplay.

CD-ROM HELP
MY CD-ROM DRIVE WON’T READ THE BLEEM! CD:
• Make sure you have the latest drivers for your CD-ROM drive.
• Some DVD drives are not yet completely compatible with
standard CD-ROM formats. Windows 98SE is reported to help
in many cases.
• Try the CD on another machine to make sure it’s not the problem.
• If you have a CD-R burner, Nero (and possibly other burning
software) may install extra drivers that interfere with bleem!’s
CD-access. This problem has reportedly been addressed in recent
updates to CD-R burning software, so look for newer versions at
their respective websites. As a last resort, try uninstalling the
CD-R burning software – you must REBOOT after this action.
• The file SCSI1HLP.VXD is deleted by some CD-burning software,
particularly packages from HP. This file is sometimes renamed to

19
 something like SCSI1HLP.oldvx_. This file can be important, and
should be in the Windows\ System\Iosubsys directory. If it isn’t,
you need to get it. If it is, and bleem isn't working, try renaming it,
or uninstalling your burning software, then rebooting.
MY CD DRIVE KEEPS SPITTING OUT PLAYSTATION CDS:
• Launch Bleem! and wait for it to ask for the CD. Put your Game CD
in BUT DO NOT CLOSE THE TRAY. Press 'Retry' or enter and let
your CD/DVD-ROM close the tray itself. You can also CLOSE the
tray, and wait for the CD Drive to spin up (watch the light on the CD
Drive, once it blinks on, then back off) then press 'Retry'.

MY SCSI CD-ROM WON’T WORK WITH BLEEM!:

• Several users have recommended upgrading APSI32 for their SCSI
cards, and turning off their BIOS power management.

SOUND HELP
MY SOUND SKIPS / IS CHOPPY:
• Lower the setting for your CD’s read-ahead cache for better
sound performance: go to START | SETTINGS |CONTROL
PANEL | SYSTEM; click on the PERFORMANCE tab, then select
the CD-ROM tab, and finally (whew!) under “Optimize access
pattern,” select “No read-ahead.”

20
 O N L I N E H E L P

HELP IS JUST A CLICK AWAY – AT WWW.BLEEM.COM!

Go to Help | bleem on the Web to check out our website and learn everything
you ever wanted to know about bleem, plus plenty of helpful information and
more! You’ll find:
LATEST COMPATIBILITY UPDATES
(ALWAYS FREE!)

NEWS AND INFORMATION

ONLINE HELP PAGES

SUPPORT MESSAGEBOARD

COMPATIBILITY LISTS

21
bleem! is not affiliated with, authorized, endorsed or licensed in any way by Sony
Corporation, its affiliates or subsidiaries. PlayStation game software sold separately.
No affiliation, partnership, joint-venture or relationship of any kind or form exists
with any other companies, products or services that may be referenced, and should
not be implied or inferred by any references, or the lack thereof. PlayStation is a
registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc.“Sony” is a registered
trademark for the Sony Corporation. bleem! and the bleem! logo are trademarks of
bleem, LLC. All other trademarks are property of their respective holders. bleem,
LLC does not warrant compatibility with all PlayStation games. bleem! may exhibit
some defects while playing certain games, including, but not limited to, audio and
video flaws, which may affect how the games play. Specifications are for informa-
tional purposes only and are subject to change without notice.
bleem! is copyright © 1998-1999 bleem, LLC. bleem! is a trademark of bleem, LLC.
All rights reserved worldwide.