What Is It?

Supermodel emulates Sega's Model 3 arcade platform, allowing you to play a number of ground-breaking arcade classics on your PC. It uses OpenGL and the SDL library, and can run on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. The source code is freely available under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Model 3 first made its debut in 1996 with Virtua Fighter 3 and Scud Race, and for the subsequent two years boasted the most powerful 3D hardware of any gaming platform. Developed by Real3D, then a Lockheed Martin company, and with a heritage rooted in advanced flight simulator technology, Model 3 featured capabilities that would not appear on PCs for several years. Using an on-board scene graph and geometry processor, it could store, transform, light, and rasterize tens of thousands of polygons per frame at a fluid 60 frames per second.

The aim of the Supermodel project is to develop an emulator that is both accurate and playable. As with virtually all arcade hardware, no public documentation for the Model 3 platform exists. What is known so far has been painstakingly reverse engineered from scratch. There is still plenty left to figure out and the emphasis at this early phase of development is toward accuracy rather than speed and usability.

Clockwise from top-left: Virtua Fighter 3, Scud Race, Star Wars Trilogy, and Daytona USA 2 Power Edition.

Presently, Supermodel is in a very early "alpha" stage of development, meaning it lacks many planned features. It does not yet have a user-friendly graphical interface, game compatibility remains low, and all CPUs are emulated using straightforward (and slow) interpretation rather than fast just-in-time translation. Carefully reading the documentation and Help pages is highly advised. Nobody said making it to the catwalk was going to be easy!

Which Games Are Supported?

Below is a matrix of all Model 3 games and their compatibility status. In order to use Supermodel, you must possess ROM images of Model 3 games.


Title Graphics Sound Playable?
Daytona USA 2 Battle on the Edge Mostly good, isolated problems. Yes. Yes.
Daytona USA 2 Power Edition Mostly good, isolated problems. Yes. Yes.
Dirt Devils Shading problems, encrypted 2D graphics. Yes. Yes.
Emergency Call Ambulance Severe geometry problems. Yes. No.
Fighting Vipers 2 Good. Yes. Yes.
Get Bass N/A (does not boot). N/A No.
Harley Davidson & L.A. Riders Severe geometry problems. Yes. No.
L.A. Machineguns Severe shading problems. Yes. No.
Le Mans 24 Some texture and fog problems. Yes. Yes.
Magical Truck Adventure N/A (does not boot). N/A No.
Scud Race Good. Yes. Yes.
Scud Race Plus Good. Yes. Yes.
Sega Bass Fishing Mostly good. Yes. No.
Sega Rally 2 Numerous geometry glitches. Yes. Yes.
Ski Champ Severe geometry problems. Yes. No.
Spikeout Texture problems. Yes. Yes.
Spikeout Final Edition Texture problems. Yes. Yes.
Star Wars Trilogy Mostly good with some problems. Yes. Yes.
The Lost World Some texture and fog problems. Yes. Yes.
The Ocean Hunter Severe geometry problems. Yes. No.
Virtua Fighter 3 Numerous texture and geometry problems. Yes. Yes.
Virtua Fighter 3 Team Battle Same as above, slow game play. Yes. Yes.
Virtua Striker 2 Mostly good, some texture problems. Yes. Yes.
Virtua Striker 2 '98 Mostly good, some texture problems. Yes. Yes.
Virtua Striker 2 '99 Mostly good, some texture problems. Yes. No.
Virtua Striker 2 '99.1 Mostly good, some texture problems. Yes. No.
Virtual On Oratorio Tangram Encrypted 2D graphics. Yes. Yes.

Who Made It?

Supermodel was written by Bart Trzynadlowski and Nik Henson. It is based on the findings of the original Supermodel effort by Ville Linde, Stefano Teso, and Bart from 2003. The PowerPC emulator is originally by Ville Linde and the Sega Custom Sound Processor emulator was donated by ElSemi. Development began in January 2011.

Supermodel incorporates code from the following projects:

Numerous people contributed their precious time and energy to this project and without them, it would not have been possible. In no particular order, we would like to thank:

Hosting for this site has been generously donated by Jeremy Rhoten of EmuMovies. Check them out! I sincerely hope I did not forget anyone!