libretro/emulators/super3.yml

emulator: SUPER3
type: standalone
core_classification: community_fork
source: "https://github.com/izzy2lost/Super3"
upstream: "https://github.com/trzy/Supermodel"
based_on: "Supermodel 0.3a through the arm branch of DirtBagXon/model3emu-code-sinden at fa1e305"
author: "izzy2lost"
profiled_date: "2026-08-12"
source_commit: "b435c80a88fd496d4a9858be0681260e84342c85"
core_version: "1.2.1"
display_name: "Sega - Model 3 (SUPER3)"
verification: existence
cores:
  - super3
  - SUPER3
  - com.izzy2lost.super3
systems:
  - sega-model3
mode: standalone

notes: |
  Sega Model 3 emulator for Android, package com.izzy2lost.super3, versionName 1.2.1
  versionCode 22, arm64-v8a alone, minSdk 26 and targetSdk 36, GPL-3.0 with the tree in
  the open. A Kotlin front end carries the launcher, setup wizard, ini editor and save
  state browser over the Supermodel core, built through CMake against SDL2 with an
  OpenGL ES presenter of its own. The core states its own lineage: SUPERMODEL_VERSION
  reads "0.3a-fa1e305-arm-mm DirtBagXon (Sinden)", and the app names both sources it
  draws on, so the emulator is Supermodel 0.3a as carried by the arm branch of
  DirtBagXon/model3emu-code-sinden at fa1e305, "Add ManyMouse License" of 2025-07-28.
  No upstream commit is pinned because neither this repo nor that fork shares git
  history with trzy/Supermodel: both report themselves as independent repositories and
  a comparison against trzy/Supermodel has no merge base. ES-DE reaches the app through
  its SUPER3 find rule, on Android alone among the seven find rule sets, starting
  MainActivity with an intent VIEW whose data is the storage framework URI of the game.
  ref: android/app/build.gradle.kts:22-36, Src/Version.h:32, README.md:3-4,
       android/app/src/main/java/com/izzy2lost/super3/MainActivity.kt:453-463,
       es-de resources/systems/android/es_find_rules.xml:552-557,
       es-de resources/systems/android/es_systems.xml:1091

  The Android build compiles a subset of the tree, which decides where a load path can
  be read. The CMake source list globs Src/ and then drops all of Src/OSD/ and all of
  Src/Graphics/ twice over, by regex and again by an explicit removal loop, adding back
  only a named list of Src/Graphics/New3D files. So the desktop SDL frontend is absent
  from this binary: Src/OSD/SDL/Main.cpp holds the command line and its own config file
  handling, Src/OSD/SDL/SDLInputSystem.cpp its own controller database call, and
  Src/Graphics/Shader.cpp the loader for external GLSL files, and none of the three is
  built here. The paths below are the ones this build actually runs.
  ref: android/app/src/main/cpp/CMakeLists.txt:32-91, 135-158

  One directory holds everything the emulator reads. MainActivity hands the native side
  a user data root of getExternalFilesDir(null)/super3, so
  /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.izzy2lost.super3/files/super3, and
  SetUserDataRoot creates it and changes into it, which is what makes the relative names
  below resolve. AssetInstaller copies five trees out of the package assets into that
  root before every launch, Assets, Config, GraphicsAnalysis, NVRAM and Saves, never
  overwriting a file that is already there, so the emulator always finds its own
  configuration whatever the user has done. The native entry point also probes
  <root>/super3/Games.xml over external storage, internal storage, /storage/emulated/0
  and /sdcard when no path is passed, but the front end always passes one, along with
  the ROM path, the game name and the user data root as its four arguments.
  ref: android/app/src/main/java/com/izzy2lost/super3/MainActivity.kt:501-503,
       1155-1161, 1209-1222,
       android/app/src/main/java/com/izzy2lost/super3/AssetInstaller.kt:7-18,
       android/app/src/main/cpp/native-lib.cpp:247-260, 1080-1117,
       android/app/src/main/java/com/izzy2lost/super3/Super3Activity.kt:99-111

  Model 3 boards carry no shared system BIOS and this emulator loads none. Every byte
  the machine needs comes out of the per-game MAME format zip: the program ROMs, the
  video ROMs, the sound program and samples, and where the board has them the drive
  board program, the MPEG program and the MPEG music, all declared as regions of one
  game in Games.xml. The set is identified by the basename of the zip, not by a scan,
  and the ErrorLog asks for an appropriately named archive when no game answers to that
  name; the individual members are then matched by name or by crc32. A child set names a
  parent and the loader opens <same directory>/<parent>.zip for the rest of its regions,
  which the front end prepares for by walking the parent chain and staging every zip it
  names into romcache, refusing to start and naming what is missing when one cannot be
  found. This Games.xml declares 63 games with 41 of those lines naming a parent, every
  named parent itself a game, and not one non-game or BIOS set among them.
  ref: Src/GameLoader.cpp:873-928, 882-890, 913-921, 148-153,
       Src/Model3/Model3.cpp:2919-2933,
       android/app/src/main/java/com/izzy2lost/super3/MainActivity.kt:1163-1208,
       Config/Games.xml

  Three files ship inside the package and are read from Config/ at runtime. Games.xml is
  the one the emulator cannot do without: InitLoader tests for it and returns failure
  when it is absent, which leaves the loading thread in its failed state and no game
  running. Supermodel.ini and gamecontrollerdb.txt are both skipped when they are
  missing, on built-in defaults in the first case and SDL's built-in controller mappings
  in the second. Nothing about any of the three is verified: no length is compared and
  no hash is computed, the only tests being that the file is there and that it parses.
  ref: android/app/src/main/cpp/native-lib.cpp:531-538, 568-580, 1123-1135,
       android/app/src/main/cpp/android_input_system.cpp:291-311,
       Src/Util/ConfigBuilders.cpp:60-73, 134-142

  Two files that AssetInstaller lands are read by nothing in this build.
  Config/Music.xml declares substitute MPEG tracks for DSB1 and DSB2 games, and neither
  its own name nor the attributes it is written in appear anywhere in the tree, nor any
  handling of mp2 or mp3 files: the DSB reads its music from the mpeg_music region of
  the game zip and from nowhere else. Assets/p1crosshair.bmp and Assets/p2crosshair.bmp
  are documented by the inherited Manual for a crosshair-style option that does not
  exist here, and the tree holds no bitmap reader at all, Src/Util/BMPFile.h being a
  writer; the Crosshairs setting is a two bit mask and the presenter draws the crosshair
  as geometry. A build that wires either feature up would turn these into files to
  collect.
  ref: android/app/src/main/assets/Config/Music.xml, Manual.txt:99-102,
       Src/Model3/Model3.cpp:2932, Src/Util/BMPFile.h:391,
       android/app/src/main/cpp/native-lib.cpp:763-772, 909-976,
       android/app/src/main/cpp/gles_presenter.cpp:364-369

  The rest of the tree is written, not read. NVRAM/<game>.nv is created on exit and read
  back on the next launch of the same game, Saves/ holds the ten save state slots and
  their screenshots, romcache/ holds the staged copies of the user's own archives, and
  Flyers/ is filled on request from the GitHub contents API of izzy2lost/Model3flyers
  for the artwork in the launcher list. An optional sync copies NVRAM, Saves, Config and
  Flyers between the internal root and a folder the user picks in the system picker.
  ref: android/app/src/main/cpp/native-lib.cpp:262-313, 793-797,
       android/app/src/main/java/com/izzy2lost/super3/FlyerRepoSync.kt:16-46,
       android/app/src/main/java/com/izzy2lost/super3/UserDataSync.kt:10-25

files:
  - name: Games.xml
    path: "Config/Games.xml"
    required: true
    bundled: true
    unsourceable: "Installed from the package assets on every launch and never obtained separately"
    size: 154928
    md5: fc26e2deaa532794d91fe33ca73f8e2c
    sha1: b41150f8cff409dde89939b80a980a20e853df0b
    crc32: "b2ea6948"
    description: "Game and ROM set definitions"
    note: >-
      The ROM set database, 63 games, giving for each one the regions to fill and the
      name and crc32 of every file that fills them, the stepping, the PCI bridge, the
      encryption key, the drive board, net board and MPEG board the machine carries, the
      patches to apply and the parent set to fall back on. Handed to the GameLoader
      constructor, parsed as XML, and a game load is refused outright when the file is
      not there. The Kotlin launcher parses the same copy out of the assets for its game
      list and its per-game input hints. Byte identical to the copy in the repository
      root Config directory.
    source_ref: "android/app/src/main/cpp/native-lib.cpp:568-580, 1096-1114, Src/GameLoader.cpp:492-502, 930-933, Src/Util/ConfigBuilders.cpp:60-73, android/app/src/main/java/com/izzy2lost/super3/GameXml.kt:23-24, android/app/src/main/java/com/izzy2lost/super3/MainActivity.kt:1211"

  - name: Supermodel.ini
    path: "Config/Supermodel.ini"
    required: false
    bundled: true
    unsourceable: "Installed from the package assets on every launch and rewritten in place by the app"
    size: 6887
    md5: a468e45e005caa89356bd67b70e0d37d
    sha1: 6c38cc6fba14863bfbdc730e53d3274fd79a4544
    crc32: "2d012d14"
    description: "Input and per-game settings"
    note: >-
      Read after the built-in defaults have been applied, the Global section first and
      then the section named after the loaded game, each merged over what is already
      set; a file that is absent or unparseable leaves the defaults standing. The hashes
      are those of the copy in the package assets, which is not the 13290 byte copy in
      the repository root Config directory: the Android build ships its own. They
      describe the file as shipped, since AssetInstaller rewrites it on first run,
      substituting the Android control defaults, and the in-app editor writes per-game
      keys such as LegacyReal3DTiming afterwards.
    source_ref: "android/app/src/main/cpp/native-lib.cpp:531-566, 620-621, Src/Util/ConfigBuilders.cpp:134-142, android/app/src/main/java/com/izzy2lost/super3/AssetInstaller.kt:17, 43-159, android/app/src/main/java/com/izzy2lost/super3/Super3Activity.kt:880-884"

  - name: gamecontrollerdb.txt
    path: "Config/gamecontrollerdb.txt"
    required: false
    bundled: true
    unsourceable: "Installed from the package assets on every launch and never obtained separately"
    size: 587398
    md5: e8da2d033e90d6fefa884ee78690b4e0
    sha1: cb6be8206308470ecaa8b9cc882d82abe0ef3562
    crc32: "94468d79"
    description: "SDL controller mapping database"
    note: >-
      Opened once, on the first pad the input system sees, and handed to SDL as mappings
      to add. The name is fixed unless the ini key SDLGameControllerDB carries a path of
      its own, and a handle that cannot be opened is passed over, leaving SDL on its
      built-in mappings. Byte identical to the copy in the repository root Config
      directory.
    source_ref: "android/app/src/main/cpp/android_input_system.cpp:291-311, 207-213"

exclusion_note: >
  No BIOS or firmware file is loaded. Sega Model 3 hardware has no shared system ROM:
  each board carries its own program, video, sound and where fitted drive board, MPEG
  program and MPEG music ROMs, and every one of them reaches the emulator as a region of
  a per-game MAME format zip declared in Games.xml, a child set drawing its remaining
  regions from its parent's zip in the same directory. The three files listed above are
  the emulator's own configuration, reinstalled from the package assets before every
  launch. Config/Music.xml and the two crosshair bitmaps in Assets are shipped by the
  package as well and read by no code in this build.