Jotego's CPS3 FPGA core just got Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact

FPGA developer Jotego has updated his JTCPS3 core to support Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact. The beta update rolled out to Patreon supporters this weekend. It brings the 1997 fighting game to MiSTer and Analogue Pocket hardware with a few technical adjustments.

Getting the game running required accommodating an extra 20MB of memory space compared to its predecessor, New Generation. Those massive character sprites take up a lot of room.

Capcom's CP System III was a notoriously complex piece of hardware when it launched. It featured advanced 2D sprite handling and an aggressive security system that kept emulator developers at bay for years. Having these games running natively on FPGA hardware is a massive leap from the days of relying on fragile arcade boards with suicide batteries.

7MHz versus 8MHz

The core now operates using the same pixel clock and video signals as Jotego's CPS1 and CPS2 cores. The original CPS3 hardware runs at a 7MHz clock, which is slower than the 8MHz clock used by CPS1. Because of that slower clock, the active video takes longer to draw. For a lot of people playing on commercial CRT televisions, the image simply does not fit on the screen.

Jotego bypassed this by changing the pixel clock to match the older hardware. It is a safe adjustment because the game's framerate stays the same. Hideki Okugawa's jazz and drum 'n' bass soundtrack operates on its own separate clock, so the music timing remains accurate.

Don't touch the service menu

There is a catch with the current build. Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact is the only CPS3 game to include a widescreen feature, but the core does not support it yet. If you try to enable widescreen in the game's service menu, it will break the video output. You will have to reset your MiSTer and reload the core to get the standard aspect ratio back.

The update also includes fixes for Red Earth. Missing text is now visible, and the score alignment matches the background correctly. There is still a line of garbage pixels at the top of the screen. Jotego mentioned he actually could not see the glitch until he changed the video timings to the CPS1 mode, and he is working on a fix.

Outside of CPS3, a last-minute patch went out for the Gradius III core to stop the random player kills that were plaguing the game.

Why 2nd Impact still matters

Some players genuinely prefer competing in this middle child of the Street Fighter III series. It introduced EX moves and characters like Urien and Hugo, but it lacks the universal red parry system that dominates 3rd Strike.

Without that overwhelming parry threat, the neutral game in 2nd Impact feels much faster and more aggressive. You can actually throw out poke attacks without immediately risking your entire health bar. It is a wilder, more offensive game.