daytona_usa_pc_port_alphanu1
Image: Sega

More news for fans of Sega's legendary arcade racers, as homebrewer alphanu1 has coded a PC port of crowd-pleasing IndyCar title Daytona USA, originally released in 1994.

If alphanu1's name rings a bell, then that's probably because they were featured recently on Time Extension for creating a new FPGA Model 1 core - best utilised in another classic Sega arcade, Virtua Racing. The new port works by recompiling the code of the Daytona USA Deluxe '93 ROM into C++, allowing the game to run natively on Windows without the need for an emulator.

The PC port of Daytona USA is currently playable and supports keyboard and gamepad controllers. Alphanu1's next goal is to improve resolution for modern monitors and to reach closer verification with the original Model 2 hardware. A PS VITA port is also in the works.

As is the case for many recomps, the download (available from alphanu1's GitHub) does not contain the original game ROM files.

Daytona USA did receive an official PC port in 1996 as part of the short-lived "Sega PC" line. This series also included solid, but not always spectacular ports of Virtua Fighter, Sonic CD, Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Cop, and the missing-in-action fighter Last Bronx.

This is the second Daytona USA project to surface in the past week. We recently reported on MatiasZanolli's AI-assisted effort to convert the racer to the Sega 32X. As noted in that article, Sega's Model 1/2/3 arcade boards are a favourite of the homebrew community, attracted by their complex, if fragile, infrastructure and tough-to-replicate software.