Dispelling a rumor.

[TheDumbAss]

Risking some trouble buy posting this... expecially since I'm a mod... but...

I've proven to myself (at least) that a hot bleem! related topic is no good. It is not possible to get Bleemcast to boot a game other than what its designed for. Unless new information is made avalible I will stand by my findings. (Rand is probibly the only one with such info)

Let me say that... though I say "on boob" a lot... The Boob webmasters did not post the info. One of their forum users did. Boob can not be held accountable.
Also I would post this in that thread on the boob forums... but the forums are down at the momment. (and Im not a member over there)

If a megamod or Snapple decide I give too much info at any point feel free to edit. I understand completely. I'll close the topic myself after posting it (IF I can)

Anyway I read through the method outlined on the boob forum on how to get other games to boot with the bleem paks a few days ago (maybe new info became avalible or was already disclosed as not possible) I found it had many holes in it. (A bad sign) But it did get me thinking on how that method could work if done a bit differantly.

Since my playstation is dead, Bleem is closed down, and no emu for PC runs Silent Hill propperly I decided I'd try getting it to work useing the Metal Gear pak. I dont own Tekken 3 (yet) so I couldnt compair the files, LBAs Etc. and use my TK3 bleem disc instead. Besides their both made by Konami (Incase that helped) and MGS bleem supported all the needed buttons.

I tried that method and found those holes... so I developed my own method that accomplished the same things only better. (w/o as many steps)

I checked Metal Gear in ISObuster... and found that the LBA of the System.cnf (calls the psx executable... like a Dreamcast's IP.bin I think) and psx exectuable (slus_blah.bl) are the same on it and Silent Hill. The disc label was exactly the same. (blank) I started off trying the method discribed on boob for ripping/adjusting the ISO and could not get the LBA to match the originals (off by two sectors) so I fired up CDRWIN and made a bin/cue for it. Checked the bin in ISObuster and it had the proper LBAs.

So I opened up the .bin in a hex editor and changed all instances of Silent Hill's executable to match Metal Gear's. Saved and closed the hex editor.

Opened the bin back up in ISObuster. LBAs were still correct. Name of the PSX .exe was changed. Opened up system.cnf and the call for the exe pointed at the new .exe name. Everything looked good. I made the image seem as much like MGS's as possible. So I burned it.

Popped in my MGS bleem disc. Popped in my newly burned Silent Hill and what happened? Nothing! It scanned the disc... then kept flashing the "please insert game disc" message.

Checked the disc in ISO buster... The LBAs were still correct.

So I decided to check MGS VR missions. Same LBAs, Same disc label, and same directory structure as MGS. If you just had to look at the disc info and not the disc itself (and dont know the EXE #s) You wouldn't be able to tell which was which. So I figured... "If anything would work this will" and went through the whole process discribed above. I changed BOTH exe names while hex editing (MGS and MG VRM both have a second one in the MGS dir.) Burned it... and guess what? Still no reaction from Bleem. "Please insert..." kept flashing.

Very discouraged I decided to try one last thing. (since I realized maybe MGS bleem loaded the second exe in the MGS dir which is at a differant LBA than MG VRm) I decided to do something obvious... Gran Turismo with the GT2 bleem disc. LBAs matched... but the disc label was differant. I made the image, Hex edited the exe name and its call in system.cnf, and changed the cd label in the Hex as well. Checked the image... labels right, exe's right, LBA's right, time to burn.

Results... same as above... "please insert...."

Decided to check and make sure all the actual discs are good. Tried them on bleem4PC and they worked as well as the originals... Took them to my friends to try with his modchiped PSX... they work fine on there too.

My conclusion... Bleem checks the EXE itself (or other parts of the game) for a few spacific things that are differant on each and every game. (or directory structure, or exact to the byte filesizes, etc) Finding and changing those things could very well cause the game to not work at all on bleemcast, Bleem4PC or a chipped PSX.

My recommendation... deal with it.

We only got 3 paks... we should be happy we got that much. Bleem could have left silently before ever releasing the GT2 pak. Instead they stuck with it and let us play 3 of the PSX's best games on our DC's. Maybe its not all the games we wanted/hoped for... but what can you do?

Maybe someone will get up the interest to develop a homebrew psx emu now that Bleems gone. Sony hasn't/can't stop the homebrew PC psx emus... (Some even use(d) the playstation BIOS) nothing should stop a homebrew (Not for sale) one for DC. One was in the works at one time... Probibly was scrapped because of Bleem's plans.

[edit]
Darn. I cant close this topic.
This is not ment for open discussion.
[/edit]

[Schnapple]

Well considering the original notion was to hack bcTK3 instead of bcMGS...

Schnapple