Bleem! (styled as bleem! ) is a commercial PlayStation emulator released by the Bleem! Company in 1999 for IBM-compatible PCs using Microsoft Windows and the Dreamcast . It is notable for being one of the few commercial software emulators to be aggressively marketed during the emulated console's lifetime, and was the center of multiple controversial lawsuits.
117-737: Bleem! was a PlayStation emulator designed to allow people to play original PlayStation games on Windows 95 or 98 or on the Dreamcast (the Dreamcast version was called Bleemcast!). It was released in March 1999. The company that developed and commercialized Bleem! initially consisted of just two people, David Herpolsheimer (president) and Randy Linden , but in the commercial phase included Will Kempe, Scott Karol, Sean Kauppinen , Bryan Stokes, James Sinclair , and Paul Chen, later of Rovio Entertainment . To allow for full-speed emulation on lower-end computers of what
234-560: A DirectX distributable and the actual version of Bleem! available at the time of the CD's printing. The rest of the CD was only for copy protection and was impossible to copy by conventional means; nevertheless, the copy protection was cracked within two weeks of the release. Further updates to the emulator were free until the company ceased operation several years later. Bleemcast! is an independently developed commercial emulator by Bleem! that allows one to load and play PlayStation discs on
351-526: A preliminary injunction against Bleem!; however, Bleem! later appealed the decision providing their use of copyrighted material was protected under fair use . The appeal was successful, with the court stating that the use of screenshots of Sony's video games rather constituted comparative advertising . In spite of the loss, the release of the Bleemcast! caused Sony to file another lawsuit accusing them of unfair competition and patent infringement regarding
468-480: A retrogaming -focused online storefront titled Bleem Powered, which as of late 2022 still seems to be under development. Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a line of discontinued Microsoft Windows operating systems from 1995 to 2000, which were based on the Windows 95 kernel and its underlying foundation of MS-DOS , both of which were updated in subsequent versions. The first version in
585-440: A top-down perspective . Players can freely navigate around the world map unless restricted by obstacles such as bodies of water or mountain ranges. To traverse these impediments, players can ride chocobos , sail on a boat, or pilot airships . Like previous Final Fantasy games, players enter battles caused by random encounters with enemies while traveling across the world map or hostile field screens. Final Fantasy IX offers
702-490: A " gaiden " (side story) to the main series. By late 1999, however, Square had confirmed that the game would indeed be titled Final Fantasy IX , and by early 2000, they had almost finished the game. The developers made several adjustments to the game, such as changing the ending seven times. Director Hiroyuki Ito had designed the battle system. The game's developers sought to make the game's environment more "fantasy-oriented" than its PlayStation predecessors by reintroducing
819-668: A "level up", which permanently increases combat attributes. Equipment worn by a character may also amplify their attributes. Certain weapons and armor also bestow special abilities, which the character may use when equipped. When the character earns enough ability points, it becomes usable without the item equipped. There are two types of abilities: action and support. Action abilities require magic points to use and include magical spells and special moves used in battle. Support abilities provide functions that remain in effect passively, such as increasing power against certain types of enemies. The maximum number of effects characters can equip at once
936-446: A "reflection" on the older games of the series. Leading up to its release, Sakaguchi called Final Fantasy IX his favorite Final Fantasy game as "it's closest to [his] ideal view of what Final Fantasy should be". This shift was also a response to demands from fans and other developers. Additionally, the team wanted to create a coherent story with deep character development; this led to the creation of Active Time Events which showcase
1053-538: A 16-bit real mode initialisation segment) to allow those virtual devices to intercept interrupts and faults to control the access that an application has to hardware devices and installed software. Both the VMM and virtual device drivers run in a single, 32-bit, flat model address space at privilege level 0 (also called ring 0). The VMM provides multi-threaded, preemptive multitasking . It runs multiple applications simultaneously by sharing CPU ( central processing unit ) time between
1170-514: A FAT drive also has access to all files on that drive. The FAT file systems provide no access control lists and file-system level encryption like NTFS . Final Fantasy IX Final Fantasy IX is a 2000 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation video game console. It is the ninth game in the main Final Fantasy series. The plot focuses on
1287-481: 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 . WWF SmackDown! was also being planned for a release, but was not completed, while a couple of screenshots of Final Fantasy IX were surfacing during this time, but
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#17328581413821404-407: A PlayStation title with the Bleemcast! emulator built in. ISO images of many of these discs were known to circulate on file-sharing networks. After the leak, Rod Maher, one of the developers of Bleemcast!, made a public statement regarding the beta, providing some insight into the development process. He revealed that the leaked beta predated the beta that had been shown at E3 and that the leaked beta
1521-432: A battle screen. The player issues commands to characters from an on-screen menu on the battle screen, including physically attacking, using items from the inventory, and unique character-specific abilities that define their role in battle. For example, the thief Zidane can steal items, Eiko and Garnet can summon "eidolons" to aid the party, and Vivi can use black magic to damage the opposition. The speed and order in which
1638-472: A demo system running Cairo for all attendees to use. Based on the Windows NT kernel, Cairo was a next-generation operating system that was to feature as many new technologies into Windows, including a new user interface with an object-based file system (this new user interface would officially debut with Windows 95 nearly 4 years later while the object-based file system would later be adopted as WinFS during
1755-487: A large information database called the Windows registry . Hardware-specific settings are also stored in the registry, and many device drivers use the registry to load configuration data. Previous versions of Windows used files such as AUTOEXEC.BAT , CONFIG.SYS , WIN.INI , SYSTEM.INI and other files with an .INI extension to maintain configuration settings. As Windows became more complex and incorporated more features, .INI files became too unwieldy for
1872-485: A lawsuit from Sega. Sega themselves had also been indirectly involved in the obstruction of Bleemcast! by the way of the removal of support for the unpopular (for Sega's intended use) MIL-CD format on later Dreamcast models. A beta build of Bleemcast! was eventually leaked . Even though it was buggy and incomplete, it would run some PlayStation games, though not all the games it ran would be playable. Using this beta, hackers were able to create "Bleemed games" – discs of
1989-468: A medieval setting. In the game world, steam technology is just beginning to become widely available. The population relies on hydropower or wind power for energy sources but sometimes harness Mist or steam to drive more advanced engines. Norse and Northern European mythology also inspired the game's setting. According to Ito, "[the development team is] attracted to European history and mythology because of its depth and its drama". The game's art director
2106-415: A more modern computing environment. These factors immediately began to impact the operating system's efficiency and stability. Microsoft marketing adopted Windows 95 as the product name for Chicago when it was released on August 24, 1995. Microsoft went on to release five different versions of Windows 95: OSR2, OSR2.1, and OSR2.5 ("OSR" being an initialism for "OEM Service Release") were not released to
2223-563: A near-extinct race of horned humanoid summoners who conjure powerful magical beings called eidolons. Also on the Outer Continent is the Iifa Tree, which disperses the Mist to other continents through its roots. This Mist stimulates the fighting instinct in humanoids and contributes to Gaia's bloody history. The Lost and Forgotten continents are littered mostly with ancient ruins. Scattered throughout
2340-408: A new approach to town exploration with Active Time Events (ATE). These allow the player to view events unfolding at different locations, providing character development, unique items, and prompts for story-altering decisions. ATEs are occasionally used to simultaneously control two teams when the party divides to solve puzzles and navigate mazes. When the player encounters an enemy, the map changes to
2457-473: A personal computer as this would ultimately damage Sony's sales of the PlayStation. The Judge had rejected the notion, and issued a protective order to "protect David from Goliath". Sony's second copyright allegation regarded the use of screenshots on their advertisements comparing the native PlayStation and emulated Bleem! versions. The district court had held in favor of Sony regarding the allegation and issued
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#17328581413822574-457: A retrospective for the series, it departed from the futuristic settings of Final Fantasy VI , VII , and VIII by returning to the medieval style of the earlier games. Consequently, it draws heavy influence from the original Final Fantasy and features allusions to the rest of the series. The game introduced new features to the series despite this approach, such as "Active Time Event" cutscenes, "Mognet", and skill systems. Final Fantasy IX
2691-401: A show; Vivi has implicitly died as Black Mages only live for a year, but he has left behind several identical "sons," as well as grown to understand the meaning of life; Freya and Fratley are rebuilding Burmecia; Cid has adopted Eiko; Quina works in the castle's kitchen; Amarant and Lani are travelling together; and Garnet presides as queen of Alexandria, with Steiner and Beatrix as her guards. In
2808-577: A stopgap release between Windows 98 and Windows XP (then code-named Whistler at the time). It borrowed some features from the business-oriented Windows 2000 into the Windows 9x series, and introduced the first version of System Restore , which allowed users to revert their system state to a previous "known-good" point in the case of a system failure. Windows Me also introduced the first release of Windows Movie Maker and included Windows Media Player 7 . Internet Explorer 5.5 came shipped with Windows Me. Many of
2925-589: A top-seller in Japan and America, Final Fantasy IX did not sell as many copies as VII or VIII in either Japan or the United States. In 2001, the game received a "Gold" certification from the Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland (VUD), for sales of at least 100,000 units across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The original PlayStation version sold over 5.5 million copies by March 2016. Final Fantasy IX
3042-447: A war between nations in a medieval fantasy world called Gaia. Players follow a thief named Zidane Tribal who kidnaps princess Garnet Til Alexandros XVII as part of a ploy by the neighboring nation of Lindblum. He joins Garnet and a growing cast of characters on a quest to take down her mother, Queen Brahne of Alexandria, who started the war. Game development occurred in parallel with Final Fantasy VIII . Envisioned by developers as
3159-457: A year before the development of Windows 3.1's successor (Windows 95, code-named Chicago) began, Microsoft announced at its 1991 Professional Developers Conference that they would be developing a successor to Windows NT code-named Cairo , which has been implied by some to succeed both Windows NT and Windows 3.1's successor under one unified system. Microsoft publicly demonstrated Cairo at the 1993 Professional Developers Conference, complete with
3276-674: A young girl living in Madain Sari who is one of the last summoners; and Amarant Coral , a bounty hunter hired to return Garnet to Alexandria. Other important characters include Cid Fabool, the charismatic Regent of Lindblum; Brahne , Garnet's adoptive mother and the power-hungry Queen of Alexandria; Beatrix , the general of Alexandria's all-female army; Garland, an elderly Terran male tasked with saving his world; and antagonist Kuja, an arms dealer and pawn of Garland who questions his own existence. In Alexandria, Zidane and Tantalus kidnap Princess Garnet by order of Cid. Garnet does not resist, for she
3393-452: Is Treno, a cultural nexus under perpetual starlight that is home to many aristocrats and paupers alike. The technologically advanced Lindblum, a hub of airship travel, is nestled on a plateau to the southwest. Both countries feature a mix of humans, humanoids, and anthropomorphic animals. Burmecia, a kingdom showered by endless rain, is in the northwest. Cleyra, a neighboring settlement that seceded from Burmecia due to its appreciation for war,
3510-524: Is a fork of Gecko 1.8.1 aimed at bringing "improved compatibility on the modern web" for versions of Windows as old as Windows 95 and NT 4.0. The latest version, 2.2, was released in February 2019 and added support for TLS 1.2 . Windows 9x is a series of monolithic 16/32-bit operating systems. Like most operating systems, Windows 9x consists of kernel space and user space memory. Although Windows 9x features some memory protection , it does not protect
3627-484: Is determined by level. Final Fantasy IX takes place primarily in a world named Gaia. Most of Gaia's population lives on the Mist Continent, named after the thick Mist that blankets the lowlands. Large mountain ranges act as natural borders that separate its four nations: Alexandria, Lindblum, Burmecia, and Cleyra. Alexandria is a warmongering monarchy that controls the eastern half of the continent. One of its cities
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3744-510: Is situated in a giant tree in the desert, protected by a sandstorm. Both are inhabited by anthropomorphic rats with a fondness for dance and spear fighting. Players eventually explore the Outer, Lost, and Forgotten Continents as well. Civilizations on the Outer Continent include Conde Petie, home of the dwarves; Black Mage Village, a secret settlement of sentient magician drones; and Madain Sari, once home to
3861-572: Is the last version compatible with latter releases of Windows 9x (i.e. 98 and Me). While Internet Explorer 6 for Windows XP did receive security patches up until it lost support, this is not the case for IE6 under Windows 98 and Me. Due to its age, Internet Explorer 7 , the first major update to Internet Explorer 6 in half a decade, was only available for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista. The Windows Update website continued to be available for Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, and Windows Me after their end of support date; however, during 2011, Microsoft retired
3978-553: The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences honored Final Fantasy IX with the " Console Role-Playing ", " Art Direction " and " Animation " awards, as well as received nominations for " Game of the Year ", "Console Game of the Year", " Original Musical Composition ", and " Character or Story Development ". Final Fantasy IX was voted the 4th best Final Fantasy game in a poll by Japan's national broadcasting organization NHK. IGN named it
4095-556: The FAT32 file system which allows support for disk partitions larger than the 2 GB maximum accepted by Windows 95. The USB support in Windows 98 was more robust than the basic support provided by the OEM editions of Windows 95. It also introduces the controversial integration of the Internet Explorer 4 web browser into the Windows shell and File Explorer (then known as Windows Explorer at
4212-502: The VFAT file system, allowing file names with a maximum of 255 characters instead of having 8.3 filenames . Windows 9x has no support for event logging and tracing or error reporting that the Windows NT family of operating systems has, although software like Norton CrashGuard can be used to achieve similar capabilities on Windows 9x. Windows 9x is designed as a single-user system. Thus,
4329-443: The Windows NT kernel , including Windows 2000 . In fact, Bleem!'s statement at the time was that Bleem! would never support running on Windows NT -based systems, as Windows 98 was the dominant operating system at the time. Sony , despite having lost its case with Connectix, continued to pursue legal action against Bleem!. Bleem!, financially unable to defend itself, was forced to go out of business. As of 2005, two members of
4446-468: The development of Windows Vista ). According to Microsoft's product plan at the time, Cairo was planned to be released as late as July 1996 following its development. However, it had become apparent that Cairo was a much more difficult project than Microsoft had anticipated, and the project was subsequently cancelled 5 years into development. A subset of features from Cairo were eventually added into Windows NT 4.0 released on August 24, 1996, albeit without
4563-485: The real-mode memory model, which confined it to a maximum of 1 megabyte of memory. In such a configuration, it could run under another multitasking system like DESQview , which used the 286 Protected Mode . Microsoft Windows scored a significant success with Windows 3.0 , released in 1990. In addition to improved capabilities given to native applications, Windows also allowed users to better multitask older MS-DOS-based software compared to Windows/386 , thanks to
4680-467: The 14th best game on the original PlayStation, calling it an "incredible" way to close out the Final Fantasy series's first nine games and complimented its reverence for those titles. Rock Paper Shotgun named the title their 4th best Final Fantasy game available on PC , praising the cast and its eclectic group of heroes. Though overshadowed during its initial release by other Final Fantasy titles,
4797-587: The 9x series was Windows 95, which was succeeded by Windows 98 and then Windows Me , which was the third and last version of Windows on the 9x line, until the series was superseded by Windows XP . Windows 9x is predominantly known for its use in home desktops . In 1998, Windows made up 82% of operating system market share. The internal release number for versions of Windows 9x is 4.x. The internal versions for Windows 95, 98, and Me are 4.0, 4.1, and 4.9, respectively. Previous MS-DOS-based versions of Windows used version numbers of 3.2 or lower . Windows NT , which
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4914-493: The Bleemcast!. At this point, Sony had obstructed Bleem! from developing further video games for the Bleemcast! and had even threatened retailers selling these products. The legal fees forced the company out of business and eBay auctions of some of the company's possessions were held soon after – including a huge library of worldwide game releases used for compatibility testing. Although Sony ultimately did not win any of its lawsuits against them, Bleem! had to shut down when
5031-568: The English manual to Canadian stores several days later. Square heavily promoted the game both before and after its release. Starting on March 6, 2000, the game's characters appeared in a line of computer-generated Coca-Cola commercials. Figurines of several characters were also used as prizes in Coca-Cola's marketing campaign. That same year, IGN awarded Final Fantasy dolls and figurines for prizes in several of their contests. Final Fantasy IX
5148-590: The Iifa Tree. At the Iifa Tree, the party enters Memoria and reaches the origin of the universe: the Crystal World. They defeat Kuja, preventing him from destroying the original crystal of life and thus the universe. After defeating Necron, a force of death, the Tree collapses; the party flees, while Zidane stays behind to rescue Kuja. One year later, the game reveals the cast's fate: Tantalus arrives in Alexandria to put on
5265-627: The PATH environment variable. The registry consists of two files: User.dat and System.dat. In Windows Me, Classes.dat was added. The Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is the 32-bit protected mode kernel at the core of Windows 9x. Its primary responsibility is to create, run, monitor and terminate virtual machines . The VMM provides services that manage memory, processes, interrupts and protection faults. The VMM works with virtual devices (loadable kernel modules, which consist mostly of 32-bit ring 0 or kernel mode code, but may include other types of code, such as
5382-457: The Princess of Alexandria who runs away with Zidane; Vivi Ornitier , a young, timid, and kind black mage with an unknown origin; Adelbert Steiner , a brash Alexandrian knight captain and loyal servant of Princess Garnet; Freya Crescent , a Burmecian dragoon searching for her lost love; Quina Quen , a Qu whose master wants them to travel the world so that they will learn about cuisine; Eiko Carol ,
5499-566: The Sega Dreamcast . It is compatible with most Dreamcast controllers and steering wheels, and leverages the Dreamcast's superior processing power for enhanced graphics. It was created by using the MIL-CD security hole found in the Dreamcast BIOS . Originally, Bleem! was planning to have the disc able to run any PlayStation game on the Dreamcast, but due to technical difficulties, they developed
5616-680: The Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), the Installable File System Manager ( IFSHLP ), the Configuration Manager, and in Windows 98 and later, the WDM Driver Manager (NTKERN). As a 32-bit operating system, virtual memory space is 4 GiB , divided into a lower 2 GiB for applications and an upper 2 GiB for kernel per process. Like Windows NT, Windows 9x stores user-specific and configuration-specific settings in
5733-535: The Win16 subsystem, the Win32 subsystem and MS-DOS. Windows 9x/Me set aside two blocks of 64 KiB memory regions for GDI and heap resources. By running multiple applications, applications with numerous GDI elements or by running applications over a long span of time, it could exhaust these memory areas. If free system resources dropped below 10%, Windows would become unstable and likely crash. The kernel mode parts consist of
5850-454: The Windows 9x series until July 11, 2006, when extended support ended for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition (SE), and Windows Millennium Edition (Me) – 4 years after extended support for Windows 95 ended on December 31, 2001. Microsoft DirectX, a set of standard gaming APIs, stopped being updated on Windows 95 at version 8.0a. It also stopped being updated on Windows 98 and Me after the release of Windows Vista in 2006, making DirectX 9.0c
5967-752: The Windows Update v4 website and removed the updates for Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, and Windows Me from its servers. Microsoft announced in July 2019 that the Microsoft Internet Games services on Windows Me (and XP) would end on July 31, 2019 (and for Windows 7 on January 22, 2020). The growing number of important updates caused by the end of life service for these operating systems have slowly made Windows 9x even less practical for everyday use. Today, even open source projects such as Mozilla Firefox will not run on Windows 9x without major rework. RetroZilla
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#17328581413826084-504: The black mages, Zidane and Vivi join Freya to investigate. Garnet and Steiner secretly return to Alexandria to reason with Brahne. Zidane's team finds that the Alexandrian forces, headed by Beatrix, conquered Burmecia with help from Kuja and the refugees have fled to Cleyra. Brahne imprisons Garnet, extracts her eidolons, and uses the eidolon, Odin to destroy Cleyra while Zidane's group defends
6201-435: The character's individual exploration away from the protagonist. Sakaguchi wrote the scenario for the game, with further contributions from Kazuhiko Aoki and Nobuaki Komoto. In the game's conceptual stage, the developers made it clear that the title would not necessarily be Final Fantasy IX , as its break from the realism of VII and VIII may have alienated audiences. This idea led fans to speculate that it would be
6318-448: The character's strength and allows the player to select more powerful attack commands. For example, Vivi's "Black Magic" command changes into "Double Black", allowing him to cast two magic spells at once. Winning battles awards money, items, " experience points ", and "ability points". Experience points determine a character's combat attributes like agility, strength, and magical power. Accumulating sufficient experience points results in
6435-534: The characters amusing and full of humor. IGN also noted that even the Active Time Event system helps expand the player's understanding of the characters' personalities as they grapple with many ideas and emotions. RPGFan enjoyed the detailed animation and design of the semi-deformed graphical style. They also praised the pre-rendered backgrounds, noting the careful attention given to the artwork, movement in animations, and character interactivity. They commended
6552-659: The characters and enemies take their turn varies according to their agility , an implementation of the Active Time Battle system first featured in Final Fantasy IV . Character-specific commands change when the character goes into " Trance mode", which is activated for a short duration when the character sustains a specified amount of damage similar to the Limit Breaks in Final Fantasy VII . Trance mode amplifies
6669-407: The city. The party escapes on Brahne's airship, rendezvous with Steiner, and rescues Garnet. Meanwhile, Brahne cripples Lindblum with another eidolon, Atomos. Cid explains that Kuja supplies Brahne with black mages and the knowledge to use eidolons. The party befriends Quina and tracks Kuja to the Outer Continent. Brahne hires bounty hunters Lani and Amarant to capture Garnet. On the Outer Continent,
6786-458: The climax of Tantalus's performance, the lead actor reveals himself as Zidane in disguise and reunites with Queen Garnet. Early planning for Final Fantasy IX began in July 1998 before Square had finished development on Final Fantasy VIII . The game was developed in Hawaii as a compromise to developers living in the United States. As the series' last game on the PlayStation, Sakaguchi envisioned
6903-451: The concept 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 PlayStation-to-Dreamcast controller adapter, which would allow one to use
7020-443: The cutscenes for being emotionally compelling and highlighted the seamless transition between cutscenes and in-game graphics. The music also received praise, with Electronic Gaming Monthly listing it the best soundtrack on their list of top five original soundtracks, while GamePro praised the audio for evoking "emotions throughout the story, from battles to heartbreak to comedy". Critics acknowledged that Square primarily built
7137-625: The early 2000s. By March 2004, it was impossible to purchase any versions of the Windows 9x series. Over time, support for the Windows 9x series ended. Windows 95 had lost its mainstream support in December 31, 2000, and extended support was dropped from Windows 95 on December 31, 2001 (which also ended support for older Windows versions prior to Windows 95 on that same day). Windows 98 and Windows 98 Second Edition had its mainstream support end on June 30, 2002, and mainstream support for Windows Me ended on December 31, 2003. Microsoft then continued to support
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#17328581413827254-412: The eidolon as a means to kill his master, Garland, but the latter arrives and destroys it. The party chases Kuja through a portal to Terra, where the antagonists' goals become clear. The Terrans created Garland to merge their dying world with Gaia; Garland, in turn, created self-aware, soulless vessels called Genomes. For millennia, Garland has been using the Iifa Tree to replace deceased Gaian souls with
7371-407: The fantasy roots", with newer elements. To accomplish this and satisfy fans who had become used to the realistic designs of Final Fantasy VIII , the designers stressed creating characters with whom the player could easily relate. The characters had "comic-like looks" as a result. In addition, The Dark Crystal was used as inspiration for the design of the world and characters. Ito suggested that
7488-557: The first megabyte of memory from userland applications for compatibility reasons. This area of memory contains code critical to the functioning of the operating system, and by writing into this area of memory an application can crash or freeze the operating system. This was a source of instability as faulty applications could accidentally write into this region, potentially corrupting important operating system memory, which usually resulted in some form of system error and halt. The user-mode parts of Windows 9x consist of three subsystems:
7605-407: The game as part of the Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Ultimate Box Japanese package in December 2012. A remastered version was released for Android and iOS in February 2016. The remaster features HD movies and character models, an auto-save feature, seven different game boosters (cheats), including high speed and no encounter modes, and achievements. A port for Windows was released on April 14
7722-471: The game has been recognized for its mature themes, including mortality and handling death and is considered a JRPG masterpiece. The music has also been called one of Uematsu's greatest scores. The game has inspired a number of mods such as Moguri Mod , which is an unofficial remaster project developed by fans which saw its initial release in 2018. In 2015, OverClocked ReMix released a four-disc collection called "Worlds Apart" with 120 songs to celebrate
7839-507: The game itself, such as the overworld theme and a lullaby that Garnet sings. Emiko Shiratori performed this piece in both the Japanese and English versions with arrangement by Shirō Hamaguchi . Final Fantasy IX ' s release was delayed to avoid a simultaneous release with then-rival Enix 's Dragon Quest VII . On October 7, 2000, a demo day for the North American version of IX
7956-460: The game. During writing sessions, Square gave him a travel break in Europe for inspiration, where he spent time admiring ancient architecture in places like Germany. Uematsu cited medieval music as a significant influence on the score of IX . He aimed for a "simple" and "warm" atmosphere and incorporated uncommon instruments like the kazoo and dulcimer . Unlike the stark realism of its predecessors,
8073-496: The general public, rather, they were available only to OEMs that would preload the OS onto computers. Some companies sold new hard drives with OSR2 preinstalled (officially justifying this as needed due to the hard drive's capacity). The first Microsoft Plus! add-on pack was sold for Windows 95. On June 25, 1998, Microsoft released Windows 98, code-named "Memphis" during development. It included new hardware drivers and better support for
8190-402: The head of marketing at Microsoft, convinced the company that the name Windows would be more appealing to consumers. Windows 1.0 was not a complete operating system, but rather an "operating environment" that extended MS-DOS . Consequently, it shared the inherent flaws and problems of MS-DOS. The second installment of Microsoft Windows, version 2.0 , was released on December 9, 1987, and used
8307-617: The hibernating Terran souls, turning the former into Mist in the process; this will allow the Terrans to be reborn into the Genomes after the planetary merge. Kuja and Zidane are Genomes created to accelerate this process by bringing war and chaos to Gaia. Kuja had betrayed Garland to avoid becoming occupied by a Terran soul. Kuja defeats Garland, who reveals before dying that the former has a limited lifespan anyhow: Garland designed Zidane to be his replacement. Enraged, Kuja destroys Terra and escapes to
8424-402: The high fantasy undertones of IX allowed for a broader spectrum of musical styles and moods. Uematsu composed with a piano and used two contrasting methods: "I create music that fits the events in the game, but sometimes, the [developers] will adjust a game event to fit the music I've already written". Uematsu incorporated several motifs from older Final Fantasy games into the score, such as
8541-584: The huge court costs became too much for the small company to handle. Bleem! shut down in November 2001, the same year Sega announced that they would discontinue the Dreamcast in North America. Bleem! closed their website, with only an image on their front page showing Sonic the Hedgehog tearfully holding a flower next to a Bleem! gravestone. However, the image was later altered and Sonic was removed, ironically to avoid
8658-483: The information instead of providing it within the actual guide. The book's given links are no longer accessible on the PlayOnline website. The minigame "Tetra Master" was seen by GameSpot as inferior and confusing compared to Final Fantasy VIII ' s minigame "Triple Triad" as the rules are vaguely explained and offered few rewards despite its expansive nature. During the 4th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards ,
8775-431: The introduction of virtual memory . Microsoft developed Windows 3.1 , which included several minor improvements to Windows 3.0, primarily consisting of bugfixes and multimedia support. It also excluded support for Real mode, and only ran on an Intel 80286 or better processor. Windows 3.1 was released on April 6, 1992. In November 1993 Microsoft also released Windows 3.11 , a touch-up to Windows 3.1 which included all of
8892-471: The last version of DirectX to support these operating systems. Support for Microsoft Internet Explorer on all Windows 9x releases have also ended. Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows Me all lost security patches for Internet Explorer when the respective operating systems reached their end of support date. Internet Explorer 5.5 with Service Pack 2 is the last version of Internet Explorer compatible with Windows 95, while Internet Explorer 6 with Service Pack 1
9009-471: The lead character's head, indicating a point of interest. Players speak with Moogles to record their progress , recover their energy, and purchase items. An extensive optional quest involves sending and receiving letters from Moogles and other non-playable characters via Mognet, an in-game postal service. Players journey between field screen locations on the world map , a three-dimensional representation of Final Fantasy IX ' s world presented from
9126-512: The lengthy combat pace and the repeated battles, describing it as "aggravating". RPGFan felt the Trance system was ineffective because the meter buildup is slow and unpredictable, with characters Trancing just before the enemy dies. The characters and graphics also received positive reviews. Although IGN felt that the characters were similar to those in other Final Fantasy games, the characters were still engaging and sympathetic. GameSpot found
9243-639: The limitations of the then-current FAT filesystem. Backwards-compatibility with .INI files was maintained until Windows XP succeeded the 9x and NT lines. Although Microsoft discourages using .INI files in favor of Registry entries, a large number of applications (particularly 16-bit Windows-based applications) still use .INI files. Windows 9x supports .INI files solely for compatibility with those applications and related tools (such as setup programs). The AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files also still exist for compatibility with real-mode system components and to allow users to change certain default system settings such as
9360-464: The marshes of Gaia are the Qu: large, frog-eating, and seemingly androgynous humanoids who are considered great gourmands . Late in the game, players briefly travel to the parallel world of Terra and the dream realm of Memoria. The main playable characters are: Zidane Tribal , a member of a group of bandits called Tantalus who are masquerading as a theater troupe; Garnet Til Alexandros XVII (alias Dagger),
9477-474: The moogles foil them. Amarant then challenges Zidane to a duel and loses. He joins the party and Garnet learns of her heritage as a summoner who was adopted by Brahne as a child. At the Tree, Brahne attempts to kill Kuja with an eidolon so she can rule unopposed, but he takes control of it and destroys her and her army. After Garnet's coronation, Kuja attacks Alexandria Castle. Garnet and Eiko summon an extremely powerful eidolon in defense; Kuja attempts to steal
9594-467: The more reliable Windows 98 Second Edition for the remainder of Windows Me's lifecycle until the release of Windows XP in 2001. A small number of Windows Me owners moved over to the business-oriented Windows 2000 Professional during that same time period. The inability of users to easily boot into real mode MS-DOS like in Windows 95 and 98 led users to quickly figure out how to hack their Windows Me installations to provide this missing functionality back into
9711-441: The music was "uninspired and dull" compared to previous Final Fantasy titles and criticized composer Uematsu for reusing some tracks from past iterations of the series. Still, reviewers have concluded that this and many other elements are part of the overall effort to create a nostalgic game for fans of the older Final Fantasy games. The strategy guide also received criticism; it urged buyers to log onto an online site to gain
9828-660: The need to call the real mode file system code of the DOS kernel). Partial support for Unicode can be installed on Windows 9x through the Microsoft Layer for Unicode . Windows 9x does not natively support NTFS or HPFS ; however, there are third-party solutions available for Windows 9x that allows read-only access to NTFS volumes. Early versions of Windows 95 did not support FAT32 . Like Windows for Workgroups 3.11 , Windows 9x provides support for 32-bit file access based on IFSHLP.SYS . Unlike Windows 3.x, Windows 9x has support for
9945-525: The new features from Windows Me were also available as updates for older Windows versions such as Windows 98 via Windows Update . The role of MS-DOS has also been greatly reduced compared to previous versions of Windows, with Windows Me no longer allowing real mode DOS to be accessed. Windows Me initially gained a positive reception upon its release, but later on it was heavily criticized by users for its instability and unreliability, due to frequent freezes and crashes. Windows Me has been viewed by many as one of
10062-454: The object file system. Windows NT and Windows 9x would not be truly unified until Windows XP nearly 5 years later, when Microsoft began to merge its consumer and business line of Windows under a singular brand name based on Windows NT. After Windows 3.11 , Microsoft began to develop a new consumer oriented version of the operating system code-named Chicago. Chicago was designed to have support for 32-bit preemptive multitasking, that of which
10179-467: The operating system. Windows Me never received a dedicated Microsoft Plus! add-on like with Windows 95 and Windows 98. The release of Windows 2000 marked a shift in the user experience between the Windows 9x series and the Windows NT series. Windows NT 4.0, while based on the Windows 95 interface, suffered from a lack of support for USB, Plug and Play and DirectX versions after 3.0, preventing its users from playing contemporary games. Windows 2000 on
10296-546: The original battle music intro, a reworked Volcano Theme from Final Fantasy and the Pandemonium theme in Final Fantasy II . Tantalus' band plays "Rufus' Welcoming Ceremony" from Final Fantasy VII near the beginning of the game. Uematsu has stated on several occasions that Final Fantasy IX is his favorite score. "Melodies of Life" is the theme song of IX and shares its main melody with pieces frequently used in
10413-442: The original version. Windows 98 Second Edition also has certain improvements over the original release, and hardware support through device drivers was increased. Many minor problems present in the original release of Windows 98 were also found and fixed. These changes, among others, makes it (according to many) the most stable release of Windows 9x family—to the extent that some commentators used to say that Windows 98's beta version
10530-501: The other hand, while primarily made towards business and server users, featured an updated user interface and better support for both Plug and Play and USB, as well as including built-in support for DirectX 7.0 . The release of Windows XP in late 2001 confirmed the change of direction for Microsoft, bringing the consumer and business operating systems together under Windows NT. After the release of Windows XP, Microsoft stopped selling Windows 9x releases to end users (and later to OEMs) in
10647-479: The party defeats Lani and meets Eiko, a summoner who lives with a group of moogles in the village of Madain Sari. Eiko leads Zidane and the others to the Iifa Tree. Inside, they learn that Kuja uses Mist to create the black mages and that Vivi was a prototype. The party defeats the monster that generates the Mist within the Tree, which clears it from the Mist Continent. While waiting for Kuja's reprisal at Madain Sari, Lani and Amarant attempt to kidnap Eiko but Zidane and
10764-600: The patches and updates that followed the release of Windows 3.1 in early 1992. Meanwhile, Microsoft continued to develop Windows NT . The main architect of the system was Dave Cutler , one of the chief architects of VMS at Digital Equipment Corporation . Microsoft hired him in August 1988 to create a successor to OS/2 , but Cutler created a completely new system instead based on his MICA project at Digital. The first version of Windows NT, Windows NT 3.1 , would be released on July 27, 1993 and used Windows 3.1's interface. About
10881-469: The print guide had access to "keywords" that they could search for on PlayOnline's site for extra tips and information. This design caused anger among buyers of the guide who felt cheated by the expensive print version's omissions. The blunder made GameSpy' s "Top 5 Dumbest Moments in Gaming" list, and Square dropped the idea for Final Fantasy X , which was under development at the time. Square Enix re-released
10998-428: The protagonist Zidane should be flirtatious towards women. Regular series composer Nobuo Uematsu wrote the music of Final Fantasy IX . In early discussions about the game, Ito asked him to compose themes for the eight main characters along with "an exciting battle track, a gloomy, danger-evoking piece, and around ten other tracks". Uematsu spent a year composing and producing "around 160" pieces, with 140 appearing in
11115-421: The release (notably Plug and Play) slipped. Microsoft did not change all of the Windows code to 32-bit; parts of it remained 16-bit (albeit not directly using real mode ) for reasons of compatibility, performance and development time. Additionally it was necessary to carry over design decisions from earlier versions of Windows for reasons of backwards compatibility, even if these design decisions no longer matched
11232-456: The same year. In September 2017, the Windows port was released on PlayStation 4 . It was also released on the Nintendo Switch , Xbox One, and Windows 10 in North America on February 13, 2019, and in other regions a day later. Final Fantasy IX sold over 2.65 million copies in Japan by the end of 2000, making it the second-highest selling game of the year in the region. Although it was
11349-551: The security model is much less effective than the one in Windows NT. One reason for this is the FAT file systems (including FAT12/FAT16/FAT32), which are the only ones that Windows 9x supports officially, though Windows NT also supports FAT12 and FAT16 (but not FAT32; which wouldn’t be supported until Windows 2000) and Windows 9x can be extended to read and write NTFS volumes using third-party Installable File System drivers. FAT systems have very limited security; every user that has access to
11466-403: The storyline upon elements found in previous Final Fantasy installments, such as evil empires and enigmatic villains. The main villain, although considered by GameSpot to be the least threatening in the series, was seen by IGN as an impeccable combination of " Kefka 's cackling villainy" and "plenty of the bishonenosity that made Sephiroth such a hit with the ladies". RPGFan felt that
11583-479: The team were working for Sony: Randy Linden was working for SCEA on porting titles and looking at the possibility of emulation of previous generation titles for the next PlayStation, and Sean Kauppinen was promoting EverQuest II and Star Wars Galaxies for Sony Online Entertainment . To combat redistribution of the small downloadable emulator , the user had to buy the Bleem!-CD, containing about 35 MB of data:
11700-479: The threads in which the applications and virtual machines run. The VMM is also responsible for creating MS-DOS environments for system processes and Windows applications that still need to run in MS-DOS mode. It is the replacement for WIN386.EXE in Windows 3.x, and the file vmm32.vxd is a compressed archive containing most of the core VxD, including VMM.vxd itself and ifsmgr.vxd (which facilitates file system access without
11817-488: The time). On June 10, 1999, Microsoft released Windows 98 Second Edition (also known as Windows 98 SE), an interim release whose notable features were the addition of Internet Connection Sharing and improved WDM audio and modem support. Internet Connection Sharing is a form of network address translation , allowing several machines on a LAN (Local Area Network) to share a single Internet connection . It also includes Internet Explorer 5 as opposed to Internet Explorer 4 in
11934-503: The title's gameplay and combat system. GameSpot approved of the simple learning curve and that the ability system is not as complex as in VII or VIII . Each character possesses unique abilities, which prevents one character from overpowering the others. GameSpot describes the battle system as having a tactical nature and notes that the expanded party allows for more interaction between players and between enemies. Nevertheless, IGN disliked
12051-492: The use of PlayStation BIOSs on the Sega Dreamcast . This approach had become problematic for Bleem!, despite no actual court ruling against them. The main issue regarded the financial problems Bleem! had faced as they had to deal with defense costs of $ 1 million per patent. This had caused Bleem!'s work to decline, so that they had only managed to release three games: Metal Gear Solid , Gran Turismo 2 , and Tekken 3 , for
12168-502: The worst operating systems of all time, both in critical and in retrospect. PC World was highly critical of Windows Me months after it was released (and indeed when it was no longer available), with their article infamously describing Windows Me as "Mistake Edition" and placing it 4th in their "Worst Tech Products of All Time" feature in 2006. Consequently, many home users that were affected by Windows Me's instabilities (as well as those who negatively viewed Windows Me) ultimately stuck with
12285-411: Was 30% complete. The commercial Bleemcast! release was notable as the only release on the Dreamcast that had not been pirated, as it had a complex copy-protection scheme. All three Bleempaks were finally cracked and made available online in December 2009, eight years after their introduction. On January 4, 2021, Piko Interactive announced that they had acquired the Bleem! brand name, with plans to start
12402-459: Was Hideo Minaba, while the characters were designed by Shūkō Murase and Toshiyuki Itahana. Recurring artist Yoshitaka Amano created promotional concept art of the characters and world, and designed the logo. The main Final Fantasy IX website says the development of the game's world serves as a culmination of the series by blending the "successful elements of the past, such as a return to
12519-410: Was aimed at professional users such as networks and businesses, used a similar but separate version number between 3.1 and 4.0. All versions of Windows from Windows XP onwards are based on the Windows NT codebase. The first independent version of Microsoft Windows, version 1.0 , released on November 20, 1985, achieved little popularity. Its name was initially "Interface Manager", but Rowland Hanson ,
12636-429: Was already planning to flee and warn Cid of Queen Brahne's increasingly erratic behavior. Vivi and Steiner join the party during the escape. En route to Lindblum, the group discovers that Brahne is manufacturing soulless black mage soldiers that look similar to Vivi. In Lindblum, Cid confirms that he hired the group to protect Garnet from Brahne's newfound aggression. After learning that Alexandria has invaded Burmecia with
12753-407: Was announced in 2021. In Final Fantasy IX , the player navigates a character through the game world, exploring areas and interacting with non-player characters . Most of the game occurs on "field screens" consisting of pre-rendered backgrounds representing towns and dungeons. To aid exploration on the field screen, Final Fantasy IX introduces the "field icon", an exclamation mark appearing over
12870-485: Was at the time a current generation console, the authors coded Bleem! in assembly . This allowed them to create precise optimizations. Unlike Connectix 's commercial Virtual Game Station , it made use of a PC's 3D graphics hardware for rendering, allowing for enhanced resolutions and filtered textures not possible in real-time software rendering of the time. Bleem! used low-level memory emulation and other real-mode technology. It did not function on operating systems using
12987-552: Was available in OS/2 and Windows NT, although a 16-bit kernel would remain for the sake of backward compatibility. The Win32 API first introduced with Windows NT was adopted as the standard 32-bit programming interface, with Win16 compatibility being preserved through a technique known as " thunking ". A new GUI was not originally planned as part of the release, although elements of the Cairo user interface were borrowed and added as other aspects of
13104-566: Was held at the Metreon in San Francisco, California. The first American release of the game was also at the Metreon; limited-edition merchandise was included with the game and fans cosplayed as Final Fantasy characters in celebration of the release. In Canada, a production error left copies of Final Fantasy IX without an English version of the instruction manual, prompting Square to ship copies of
13221-476: Was more stable than Windows 95's final (gamma) version. Like with Windows 95, Windows 98 received the Microsoft Plus! add-on in the form of Plus! 98 . On September 14, 2000, Microsoft introduced Windows Me (Millennium Edition; also known as Windows ME), which upgraded Windows 98 with enhanced multimedia and Internet features. Code-named "Millennium", It was conceived as a quick one-year project that served as
13338-628: Was never announced as a planned release. As promised from the beginning, the games ran in a 640×480 resolution, as opposed to the PS1's 320×240 resolution, and featured anti-aliasing and bilinear filtering . This drastically improved the games' graphics, but also brought out some graphical imperfections that were originally hidden in the lower resolution. Two days after Bleem! started taking preorders for their emulator, Sony filed suit over violations of copyright . Sony had accused Bleem! of engaging in unfair competition by allowing PlayStation BIOSs to be used on
13455-431: Was released on Sony's Greatest Hits on June 30, 2003. Final Fantasy IX was also the benchmark of Square's interactive PlayOnline service. PlayOnline was initially developed to interface with Final Fantasy X but became a strategy site for IX when those plans fell through. Square designed the website to complement BradyGames' and Piggyback Interactive's official strategy guides for the game, where players who bought
13572-495: Was released to critical acclaim both in Japan and abroad. It achieved a 94/100 on the review aggregator Metacritic making it their highest-scoring Final Fantasy game. The game was voted the 24th-best game of all time by readers of the Japanese magazine Famitsu . Francesca Reyes of Next Generation called it "an imaginative return to the roots of the Final Fantasy series that hits the RPG mark dead-on". Critics generally praised
13689-701: Was the last game in the main series whose music was composed solely by Nobuo Uematsu . Final Fantasy IX was released to critical acclaim and commercial success, selling more than 5.5 million copies on PlayStation by March 2016. It was re-released in 2010 as a PS1 Classic on the PlayStation Store —this version was compatible with PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable ; PlayStation Vita support arrived in 2012. In 2016 Square Enix released an enhanced port featuring minor gameplay and graphical enhancements, which would be released on several platforms. An animated series adaptation by Square Enix and Cyber Group Studios
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