Model 3-Vulkan v0.9.8.3a is released. A Vulkan-focused fork of Supermodel, the open-source Sega Model 3 arcade emulator.

Model 3-Vulkan Changelog:
Model 3-Vulkan v0.9.8.3a represents a historic architectural milestone in Sega Model 3 emulation. This release officially graduates the project from Supermodel-VK into Model 3-Vulkan, decoupling the modern rendering pipeline from legacy OpenGL into a dedicated, high-performance Vulkan 1.3 architecture.
🌟 Executive Summary
Project Graduation: Transitioned to an independent, standalone Vulkan 1.3 and SDL3 architecture. Legacy OpenGL is cleanly preserved as a standalone fallback binary (Supermodel-LegacyOG.exe).
Real3D Hardware Simulation: Completely resolved long-standing graphics artifacts, including Real3D hardware-accurate checkerboard transparency (Mode 2) and Quad pull-model SSBOs.
Native HD Texture Pack Engine: Unlocked the first-ever native texture replacement pipeline for Sega Model 3 arcade games with automatic hardware Mipmaps and textureGrad bypass.
Audio Overhaul: Decoupled the sound emulation into a dedicated real-time thread, permanently retiring the 6-year-old LegacySoundDSP workaround by correcting SCSP memory mapping.
Modern Storage & State Management: Introduced visual 16-slot save state management with Zstandard (.zst) compression, slashing save state file sizes by ~83% (crucial for handhelds like the Steam Deck).
Display Pacing & Low-Latency Input: Native 57.524 Hz arcade refresh rate with 120Hz/144Hz+ motion interpolation via CDisplayPacer, backed by an ultra-low latency SDL3 Raw Input and HIDAPI input foundation.
🎨 Visuals & Real3D Emulation Accuracy
1. 100% Hardware Quad Pull-Model (SSBO)
Completely eliminated geometry shaders. Quads are now pulled directly from shader storage buffer objects (SSBOs).
Implemented an inverse-bilinear solver directly within the fragment shader to recover perspective-correct (s, t) coordinates and native quad interpolation.
Preserves GPU Early-Z depth culling across all modern graphics pipelines, significantly boosting fill-rate efficiency on integrated and discrete GPUs alike.
2. 4x EWA Anisotropic Filtering
Engineered an elliptical weighted average (EWA) anisotropic filtering pipeline using a 2×2 Gram matrix eigenvalue extraction with dynamic tap calculation.
Eliminates oblique texture shimmering and cross-seam edge bleeding along track boundaries and distant geometry.
3. Groundbreaking 3-Tier Transparency Architecture
Mode 0: Bit-Exact Two-Pass (AlphaSortMode = 0):
Utilizes on-chip subpassLoad with VK_ATTACHMENT_STORE_OP_DONT_CARE tile memory access for optimal bandwidth efficiency on low-power and integrated GPUs.
Mode 1: Per-Pixel Sorted A-Buffer OIT (AlphaSortMode = 1):
Employs a 4-slot structure-of-arrays (SoA) A-Buffer backed by a 5-step constant-time sorting network (<0.75ms resolve at 4K MSAA).
Mode 2: Arcade Hardware Checkerboard (AlphaSortMode = 2 — World First):
Faithfully revives Real3D’s 1996 single-pass 50% stipple dither mask and transparent Z-write depth competition.
Fixes Blinding Exhaust & Tire Burnout Smoke: Multi-layered smoke particles in Daytona USA 2 and Scud Race no longer stack exponentially into solid, blinding white walls of milk; they now render with authentic arcade depth, proper particle layering, and natural falloff.
Fixes Sega Rally 2 Blizzard Blowout: Permanently resolves the 20-year-old snow/fog overexposure bug where player cars were swallowed into solid white voids.
Eliminates Dirty Foliage Halos: Cleans up black outlines and alpha blending seams on 3D trees and leaves in The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
Note: This is an experimental mode intended for dense snow, dust and fog; it cannot reproduce LOD cross-fades. Use Mode 0 or Mode 1 for scenes such as Daytona 2's waterfall.
4. CRT Filter Refinement & Evolution Roadmap
Beam-profile scanline integration eliminates moiré banding and brightness unevenness at 4K without requiring point-sampling approximations.
Roadmap Goal: The internal CRT shader pipeline will continue to be optimized, aiming to rival leading heavyweight modern retro shaders out of the box with near-zero performance cost.
🖼️ Native HD Texture Pack Engine
Clean Sub-Texture Identification: Real3D sub-textures are cleanly identified and dumped using a 64-bit coordinate and format hash (page, x, y, w, h, format).
Zero Seam Bleeding: Automatic hardware Mipmap generation combined with textureGrad bypass prevents edge bleeding and mipmap shimmer across multi-quad models.
Format Support:
Native .png (lossless masters)
Native .webp (ultra-compact distribution sizes with full alpha channel support)
Hardware-direct .dds (BC7 direct VRAM streaming) is actively in development.
Modder-Centric Architecture: Designed to be extensible for community upscalers and artists. Support for custom PBR material maps (normals, roughness, metallic) and emissive layers is planned based on community creator requests.
🔊 Audio Modernization & Sound Board Decoupling
Dedicated Real-Time Audio Threading:
Decoupled Motorola 68000 CPU and SCSP/DSB sound emulation into an independent real-time audio thread.
Window movements, resizing, asset streaming, or background GPU frame pacing fluctuations will no longer cause audio stutter, crackle, or dropouts.
The "LegacySoundDSP" Mystery Solved:
Fixed an architectural flaw dating back to 2020 where address range 0x7C0–0x7FF (a reserved hardware hole) was incorrectly mapped as a mirror of MADRS.
Because Fighting Vipers 2 uploads its DSP image sequentially with 32 zeros filling this hole, the emulator was inadvertently zeroing out the game's newly uploaded delay/offset table, causing an acoustic positive feedback runaway loop (cutting victory speech to "you wi…" followed by a 0dB screech).
Discarded writes to the reserved hole, corrected effect return volume to EFSDL << 13, patched an unsigned underflow in SCSP_w32, and officially retired the LegacySoundDSP switch.
Restores pristine, authentic audio to Fighting Vipers 2, Virtua Fighter 3, and Sega Rally 2 out of the box with zero configuration hacks.
💾 Modern Save State Management (.zst)
16 Visual Slots per Game:
Fully accessible via right-click on the game list or directly through the in-game overlay menu (Tab).
Each slot captures a high-resolution screenshot thumbnail for effortless visual identification.
Zstandard (.zst) Compression:
Upgraded state serialization to use modern Zstd compression.
Slashes save file size to roughly 1/6th of legacy uncompressed .st files (reducing 30–50MB+ dumps down to 4–7MB). Eliminates storage bloat and flash-memory write wear on handheld devices like the Steam Deck.
Usage Pro-Tip: For select titles with complex mid-stage memory transitions, restoring save states via the in-game quick menu (Tab) is recommended over desktop launcher cold-booting.
🖥️ UI, Multi-Monitor & Display Pacing
Intelligent Window Lifecycle & Dynamic DPI:
Window dimensions are preserved seamlessly between sessions.
Moving the emulator window between primary and secondary monitors with differing screen resolutions or OS scaling factors (e.g., 4K 150% to 1080p 100%) dynamically updates without blurry text or cropped controls.
Warm Eye-Care Themes:
Introduced three built-in visual styles (warm light, warm dark, and the original interface), with a custom Warm Eye-Care Theme active by default to filter blue-white glare during extended sessions.
Public community theming API planned for future releases.
Arcade-Exact 57.524 Hz Pacing (CDisplayPacer):
Delivers exact 57.524 Hz arcade refresh rate on VRR/G-Sync monitors.
Provides smooth, motion-interpolated presentation on 120Hz, 144Hz, and 240Hz high-refresh displays.
SDL3 Ultra-Low Latency Input Foundation:
Fully migrated the Vulkan build to SDL3 input handling, retiring the legacy DirectInput and XInput backend split.
SDL3 gamepad handling uses HIDAPI polling, and a dedicated RawInput path provides isolated per-device mouse tracking for dual light guns. Hot-plugging is automatic.
🛠️ Additional Fixes in This Build
Scud Race save states (scudplus.zst1): Loading a car-select save no longer hangs. The saved MPEG window is validated (the 0x80008000 "no track" sentinel is rejected), a stalled decoder exits with silence instead of spinning, and the sound board re-drives its interrupt line on load, so effects work after restoring a state. New saves also carry a companion MPEG block, so background music resumes from the saved position; states written by older builds return the music when the game issues its next track command.
Quad-cabinet audio on stereo endpoints: The mixer now reads the output device's real channel count. On a two-channel device the rear pair is folded into the front pair by the mixer itself, instead of SDL applying a different downmix while the statistics panel still reported four channels. This restores Scud Race's car-select effects and rear-channel sound effects on normal desktop speakers.
Input system default: The Vulkan build now defaults to SDL Gamepad (sdlgamepad); legacy xinput values are migrated in memory, and controller detection only suggests a backend that actually exists in this build.
Low-resolution 3D rendering: Video → Picture scaling now also offers 992×768 (2× native) beside 496×384. The 3D scene renders at 992×768 and is upscaled onto the picture rectangle, while the 2D HUD keeps its own resolution. Takes effect next session.
⚙️ Dual-Binary Deployment
To ensure 100% hardware coverage, release archives provide two pre-compiled binaries:
Model3-Vulkan.exe (Default):
Pure Vulkan 1.3 / SDL3 modern pipeline.
Optimized for modern dedicated GPUs (NVIDIA GeForce, AMD Radeon, Intel Arc) and Intel Iris Xe (Gen12+) integrated graphics. Older iGPUs such as Skylake and the HD 500 class should use the OpenGL fallback.
Supermodel-LegacyOG.exe (Fallback):
Standalone SDL2 + OpenGL 4.1 legacy build.
Preserves compatibility for legacy hardware lacking modern Vulkan drivers (such as Intel 4th Gen Haswell).
🚀 Upcoming Milestones: Roadmap Preview
Part 1: Modern Peripherals Overhaul
Plug-and-play DirectDrive and belt/gear Force Feedback telemetry for Fanatec, Moza, Simagic, Thrustmaster, and Logitech wheels.
Native dual-lightgun support with off-screen reload detection for Sinden, Gun4IR, Aimtrak, and Wiimote hardware.
Crowdsourced Device Probe Tool to capture community rig telemetry and generate native auto-mapping presets.
Part 2: Netplay 2.0
Zero-config P2P online multiplayer via 6-digit room codes with automatic NAT punch-through.
Asynchronous Star-Mesh UDP architecture: local simulation remains locked at 57.524 Hz / 120 Hz+ regardless of network latency.
Drop-in / drop-out fault tolerance: disconnected racers safely coast to the roadside without crashing the active lobby.
🔗 Links & Community
GitHub Repository: https://github.com/Igloo-Garage/Model-3-Vulkan
Subreddit: r/Model3Vulkan
Support the Project: Ko-fi

Download: Model 3-Vulkan v0.9.8.3a
Source:Here