A Virtua Fighter 32X project is currently underway that aims to pull the long-overlooked Sega port into high-definition territory, running at a smooth 60fps rather than the original’s 30. The work is being driven by developer Sega Model King, known online as WangDrum, and the early footage is already turning heads.
Intercepting the SH-2: How WangDrum Is Rebuilding Virtua Fighter From the Inside Out
The approach here is far more ambitious than a simple filter or upscale pass. WangDrum describes intercepting camera-space floating-point vertices, matrices, bones, and camera data during the SH-2 interpreter’s vertex and part transformation phase. From that raw data, the 3D geometry is extracted directly from the ROM and re-rendered using a custom-built renderer operating in pure floating-point space, completely free from the pixel grid that constrained the original hardware.
The split is tidy: the Mega Drive handles the 2D elements, just as it always did, while the custom renderer takes responsibility for all the 3D geometry. The result, as the released footage shows, is Virtua Fighter with its retro character fully intact but running with a clarity and smoothness the 32X could never have delivered on its own.
WangDrum arrived at this method after initial work on upscale rendering ran into the structural limitations of the 32X itself. Rather than fight those constraints at the hardware level, the solution was to step outside them entirely, reconstructing the game’s coordinate space from scratch in software.
According to Renpou.com, the process involves extracting the internal 3D data and redrawing it in a high-resolution 3D space via a dedicated 3D rendering programme. That alone would be a substantial piece of work, but the project goes a step further.
New Interpolation Code Powers the Virtua Fighter 32X Project’s 60fps Target
Reaching 60fps required more than geometry extraction. According to Time Extension, WangDrum wrote new interpolation code specifically to allow frames to render at 60fps, doubling the original animation rate. Frame interpolation is used to upscale the source animations from 30fps, meaning the movement you see in the footage is not simply the original played back faster, but reconstructed between frames to produce genuinely smoother motion.
The combination of the floating-point renderer and the new interpolation code is what gives the project its distinctive look: unmistakably Virtua Fighter, unmistakably 32X-era in its aesthetic, but moving with a fluidity that the hardware never managed. For anyone who spent time with the original port, the footage is a slightly surreal experience in the best possible way.
It is worth remembering what the 32X version of Virtua Fighter was up against from the start. The add-on was a fraught piece of kit, relying on two SH-2 processors working in tandem with the base Mega Drive hardware, and the original port made compromises that were visible at the time. The Sega 32X library was never large, and Virtua Fighter was one of its headline titles, carrying considerable weight as a technical showcase for a system that was already fighting a losing battle in the market.
At this stage the project is firmly a work in progress. Screen artefacts are visible in places in the current footage, appearing where they do not belong, and there remains a way to go before anything approaches a finished state. WangDrum has indicated the project will continue to develop over the coming weeks and months, with updates being posted to YouTube for anyone wanting to follow along.
What is already clear is that the core technical approach is working. Extracting live geometry data from a running ROM interpretation, rebuilding it in floating-point space, and threading in purpose-written interpolation code to hit 60fps is not a small undertaking for a machine that launched over 30 years ago. The footage speaks for itself.
