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AutoBleem 2

A game launcher and front-end for the PlayStation Classic (and the Raspberry Pi). AutoBleem replaces the stock SonyUI, scans a USB stick or SD card for PS1 games, keeps their metadata and cover art in SQLite, and launches games in pcsx-ab, pcsx-abnxt (the next emulator), or RetroArch.

Platforms

Products: PlayStation Classic (psc), Raspberry Pi 32-bit and 64-bit (rpi, rpi64 - appliances on the SD card), 32-bit Debian PC USB stick (pcusb), Windows (win - NSIS installer). Development builds on Linux/macOS (make_sys.sh) and Windows MSYS2 (make_win.sh).

Getting started

Ready-to-use packages for every platform are assembled and released by autobleem2/autobleem-appliance. Extract a release package to your USB stick (FAT32 on a stock PlayStation Classic; exFAT requires the AutoBleem kernel) or SD card on a Raspberry Pi, drop PS1 game folders into Games/, and plug it in. On the console, the exploit payload in the stick's /media/028c18a9-ec4b-4632-b2cf-d4e20f252e8f/ folder boots AutoBleem automatically.

Stick layout

/media (console) or data partition (Pi):
Autobleem/bin/autobleem/   launcher binary, libraries, resources
Autobleem/bin/emu/         pcsx-ab (PS1 emulator)
Autobleem/bin/emunxt/      pcsx-abnxt (PS1 emulator, next version)
Autobleem/bin/db/          regional cover art databases
Autobleem/rc/              boot and launch scripts
Autobleem/lib/libs.tar.gz  shared SDL2 libraries (unpacked to /tmp/lib at boot)
Games/                     your PS1 game folders (one folder per game)
  !SaveStates/             save-state slots per game
  !MemCards/               shared memory cards
Apps/                      third-party apps (ABFlashKit, etc.)
Extensions/                launcher extensions (PSC-Bios, Store, etc.)
RetroArch/bin/             RetroArch binary, cores, configuration
RetroArch/bios/            BIOS files for cores
RetroArch/roms/            other systems' games
System/Databases/          game metadata (regional.db, internal.db)
System/Logs/               launcher and system logs
Themes/                    UI themes (folders or .zip)

Building

Target Command
Windows (dev) make_win.sh - builds, runs tests, validates translations. Requires MSYS2 UCRT64 with SDL2 packages.
Raspberry Pi (32-bit) make_rpi.sh then autobleem-appliance's tools/make_rpi_package.sh for the installer.
Linux / macOS make_sys.sh for a native build.
PlayStation Classic make_psc.sh to cross-compile on a build server, or docker/run.sh ci/build.sh psc in the Docker image for all targets.

See CLAUDE.md (the short map) and docs/developer-guide.md for detailed build information, platform-specific macros, and coding conventions.

Architecture

The launcher is built from libraries that link only the one below them:

  • ableem_engine - SDL-free portable engine: filesystem, ini/cfg files, SQLite game database, metadata from RetroArch's .rdb, cover art from thumbnails, disc images (bin/cue, PBP, CHD via libchdr), game scanner, RetroArch playlists, themes as JSON, zip read/write (in autobleem-core)
  • ableem - SDL2 UI layer: window, renderer, textures, fonts, audio, input; links ableem_engine (in autobleem-core)
  • ab_core - AutoBleem's model and services (no SDL): game queries, settings, memory cards, launching; links ableem_engine (in autobleem-core)
  • ab_classic - Theme-aware classic UI: Gui singleton, text rendering, theme assets, splash/confirm/keyboard screens; links ab_core + ableem (in autobleem-core)
  • ab_ui - Game-aware classic screens (Options, editors, Game Manager); links ab_classic (in this repo)
  • ab_evoui - EvolutionUI: carousel and launcher; links ab_ui (in this repo)

Features

  • EvolutionUI with background scanning - games appear on the stick without rebooting
  • Cover flow - a perspective shelf of PS1 games in jewel cases, other systems in big boxes
  • Multiple PS1 emulators - choose between pcsx-ab and pcsx-abnxt in Options
  • theme.json themes - typed theme format with partial-over-default merging; old theme.ini folders are converted in place; themes can be dropped as .zip files
  • Metadata and cover art from RetroArch's database and thumbnail sets
  • Multi-disc game folders merged automatically
  • RetroArch integration - play other systems (Mega Drive, SNES, NES, etc.)
  • Light-gun games as a separate set
  • Memory card management - create, rename, and switch between cards per game
  • Hardware Information screen (CPU, RAM, storage, network)
  • 17 languages with Key=Value translation files

Code structure

In autobleem-core submodule:

  • lib_ableem/ - SDL-free engine + SDL UI library (vendored: sqlite, json, miniz, plog, libchdr)
  • src/code/core/ - model + services (ab_core library)
  • src/code/app_base.* and src/code/gui/ (partial) - classic UI framework (ab_classic library)

In this repository:

  • src/code/main.cpp, autobleem.* - the executable; src/code/app.* - the app model (ab_ui)
  • src/code/gui/ (game-aware screens) and src/code/evoui/ - launcher UI (ab_ui and ab_evoui libraries)
  • src/resources/ - themes, languages, fonts, platform configs
  • apps/abpad/ - virtual gamepad mapper for third-party Apps
  • payload/ - console USB tree; payload_linux/ keeps only Autobleem/rc/, the App scripts shared with the console (DOCS-5, 2026-09-27) - the Pi/PC-stick installer package itself is autobleem2/autobleem-appliance's own payload_linux/

Clone with git clone --recurse-submodules.

Separate repositories:

Runtime

  • PlayStation Classic: The launcher runs at 720p on the console's HDMI output. Boot chain is the exploit payload → AutoBleem's rc/boot.sh → launcher.
  • Raspberry Pi: Runs as a systemd service on a 32-bit or 64-bit Pi OS install. Games are on a data partition of the same SD card.
  • Development (Windows): The launcher reads from a fake USB root in one-arg mode (autobleem-gui <root>) or two-arg debug mode (autobleem-gui <regional.db> <Games dir>).

Licence

GNU General Public License, version 3 or later - see LICENSE and TRADEMARKS.md.

  • Source code and binaries: GPL-3.0-or-later (LICENSE)
  • Third-party components: see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md (SQLite, nlohmann json, miniz, plog, libchdr with lzma/zlib/zstd, SDL2 family, fonts under SIL OFL, etc.)
  • Name, logo, and theme artwork are excluded from the licence grant - see TRADEMARKS.md

Development

  • CLAUDE.md (short map) and docs/developer-guide.md (the full reference) - the canonical source of developer knowledge: architecture, conventions, build details, runtime layout, history
  • tools/format.sh - auto-format sources with clang-format
  • tools/lint.sh - check with clang-tidy
  • Tests - tests/ with doctest; every extracted service ships with tests in the same commit
  • Manual - autobleem2/autobleem-manuals - the user manual (17 languages), built to HTML and PDF by that repository's CI

Credits

AutoBleem 2 is by screemer. The AutoBleem-NG contributors, whose fork's features were ported back. PCSX-ReARMed (notaz) and RetroArch communities for the emulators.

This tool is made to be used with legally owned games only. It does not alter any file on the console's internal storage.