Daytona USA is once again racing onto modern computers, courtesy of a new fan-made port for Windows, macOS and Linux, reports Generation Amiga.
The project, from developer alphanu1 takes the original arcade machine ROMS for Sega’s 1994 arcade racer and runs it natively on a modern PC, Mac or Linux machine, rather than inside a traditional emulator. While this game is still in development, it’s already playable with keyboard and gamepad controls, with higher-resolution output planned for a later release.
Daytona USA is one of Sega’s best-known racers and arrived in arcades in 1994. The game is a followup to another popular polygonal racer, Virtua Racing. Daytona USA took things another few steps forward, adding textured graphics, larger fields of competitors, and a much improved presentation.
While Daytona USA came to home consoles and computers, including versions for Sega’s own Saturn and Dreamcast, as well as for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and even Microsoft Windows, this is the first time to my knowledge that it’s made it onto the Mac and Linux.
Keep in mind that you’ll need to do some heavy lifting to get everything set up, but the project’s Github page does an excellent job of walking you through the steps. After finding the needed ROM files, I had the game up in running in 5 minutes or so.
You will need to get your hands on the original game data, since Sega’s copyrighted ROM files aren’t included with the project itself. Those are easy enough to find, just Google “daytona93.7z” and you dhould find it fairly quickly.
The needed files for the game (excluding the ROMs) and the instructions for setting up the game are available on Github.
