• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike receives a native open-source PC port

John Bilbo

John Bilbo

Member
metalgamesolid.com

The Third of the Third: Unpacking the 3SX Native PC Port of Street Fighter III 3rd Strike - Metal Game Solid

The 3SX project (also known as "The Third of the Third") is an open-source development effort hosted on GitHub by the crowded-street organization. It is a
metalgamesolid.com metalgamesolid.com

The 3SX project (also known as "The Third of the Third") is an open-source development effort hosted on GitHub by the crowded-street organization. It is a native port of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike designed for modern platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Technical Origin

Unlike most ways to play the game on PC (which typically rely on emulators like MAME/FBNeo), 3SX is a native port. It is built upon the 3s-decomp project, a separate repository by the same group dedicated to the full reverse-engineering and decompilation of the original game code.

  • Source Material: The project specifically targets the PlayStation 2 version of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (found in the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection).
  • Methodology: The developers have reverse-engineered the PS2 binaries to C code. This allows the game to run as a native executable on modern hardware, rather than being "translated" in real-time by an emulator.

Legal and Practical Requirements

To maintain legal compliance and functionality, the project does not distribute Capcom's original assets.

  • Asset Requirement: Users must provide an official copy of the game (PS2 version) to extract the necessary game data.
  • License: The project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0), which requires that any modified versions of the source code also be made public.
Full article inside the link at the start of this post.

 
Decomp of PS2 version sounds like an epic fail at conception due to balancing differences. Why even bother when Fightcade exists with better arcade emulation and online play?

P.S. Second Impact is better.
 
NeverYouMind said:
Decomp of PS2 version sounds like an epic fail at conception due to balancing differences. Why even bother when Fightcade exists with better arcade emulation and online play?

P.S. Second Impact is better.
Click to expand...
Not only that, why use MAME or FBNEO when CPS-1, CPS-2 and CPS-3 direct emulation is available?

No thanks. I'll play this on my modded Arcade1Up.
 


I talk about retro gaming decomps and retro gaming recomps and decomps on the channel...but let's talk about a new PS2 decomp...Street Fighter III Third Strike...because the PS2 version is getting a decomp and PC port and you can now easily play it today! Because its legit good and another PS2recomp never hurts! This is why retro gaming is making a comeback!
Click to expand...
 
Ellis said:
It was an absolute flop outside of the tournament scene. Sold like shit and basically killed the series. Capcom admitted being incredibly hesitant to even go forward with SF4.

The downgrade from Alpha to SF3 was seen by many, not just us two.
Click to expand...
I still do not much like the roster of SF3 and it is weird that they did not bring back the iconic World Warriors for it. Street Fighter Alpha 2 and 3 had amazing rosters by comparison. The most baffling thing about Third Strike in particular is the lack of native widescreen which was introduced in Second Impact. My brother talks about Third Strike more than he plays it because of that random EVO Moment 37 crap.
 
SF3 flopped because Capcom was releasing better fighting games at the time and also because competition by SNK and Namco raised the standards of that era.
 
spookyfish said:
Not only that, why use MAME or FBNEO when CPS-1, CPS-2 and CPS-3 direct emulation is available?

No thanks. I'll play this on my modded Arcade1Up.
Click to expand...

The PS2 version has a real training mode, a bunch of extra modes and IIRC more accurate in timing (especially for parry windows) than the Dreamcast version (or at least can be made so through the options menu).

Futaleufu said:
SF3 flopped because Capcom was releasing better fighting games at the time and also because competition by SNK and Namco raised the standards of that era.
Click to expand...

I'd argue 3rd Strike is a better fighter on the technical level than the SFA series and VS. games. The problem is it came too late; by the time it released the market for 2D fighters, even in Japan, had diminished greatly due to 3D fighters like VF, Tekken, DOA etc.

MALpractice311 said:
Great idea. I love this game. It's my absolute favorite SF game. But why the PS2 version?
Click to expand...

For the reasons I mentioned above: move accurate than Dreamcast version, actual training mode, extra modes & content. Also IIRC it has some songs which are only in that version, but I could be misremembering.
 
Last edited:
thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
The PS2 version has a real training mode, a bunch of extra modes and IIRC more accurate in timing (especially for parry windows) than the Dreamcast version (or at least can be made so through the options menu).



I'd argue 3rd Strike is a better fighter on the technical level than the SFA series and VS. games. The problem is it came too late; by the time it released the market for 2D fighters, even in Japan, had diminished greatly due to 3D fighters like VF, Tekken, DOA etc.



For the reasons I mentioned above: move accurate than Dreamcast version, actual training mode, extra modes & content. Also IIRC it has some songs which are only in that version, but I could be misremembering.
Click to expand...
Oh for sure it's the more technical fighter. Alpha series got a little crazy, and the vs series got REAL crazy. I like them all, but I'm better at the vs series, but truly love the III series of games.
 
John Bilbo said:
metalgamesolid.com

The Third of the Third: Unpacking the 3SX Native PC Port of Street Fighter III 3rd Strike - Metal Game Solid

The 3SX project (also known as "The Third of the Third") is an open-source development effort hosted on GitHub by the crowded-street organization. It is a
metalgamesolid.com metalgamesolid.com

The 3SX project (also known as "The Third of the Third") is an open-source development effort hosted on GitHub by the crowded-street organization. It is a native port of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike designed for modern platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Technical Origin

Unlike most ways to play the game on PC (which typically rely on emulators like MAME/FBNeo), 3SX is a native port. It is built upon the 3s-decomp project, a separate repository by the same group dedicated to the full reverse-engineering and decompilation of the original game code.

  • Source Material: The project specifically targets the PlayStation 2 version of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (found in the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection).
  • Methodology: The developers have reverse-engineered the PS2 binaries to C code. This allows the game to run as a native executable on modern hardware, rather than being "translated" in real-time by an emulator.

Legal and Practical Requirements

To maintain legal compliance and functionality, the project does not distribute Capcom's original assets.

  • Asset Requirement: Users must provide an official copy of the game (PS2 version) to extract the necessary game data.
  • License: The project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0), which requires that any modified versions of the source code also be made public.
Full article inside the link at the start of this post.

Click to expand...

Useless decomp.
Nobody will play the PS2 version has it's not the same as Arcade.
There's frame differences, bugs corrected and so on.
So basically everybody will stay on Fightcade.
 
As someone who is very much not a Fighting Game type of guy, I have found it meaningful that I play and enjoy 3rd Strike no problem. I'm not sure what the je ne sais quoi is, but it has something that many other fighters don't.

Also I just love fucking around with Sean the underdog...no one loves my boy, but he's so fun!
 
thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
The PS2 version has a real training mode, a bunch of extra modes and IIRC more accurate in timing (especially for parry windows) than the Dreamcast version (or at least can be made so through the options menu).



I'd argue 3rd Strike is a better fighter on the technical level than the SFA series and VS. games. The problem is it came too late; by the time it released the market for 2D fighters, even in Japan, had diminished greatly due to 3D fighters like VF, Tekken, DOA etc.



For the reasons I mentioned above: move accurate than Dreamcast version, actual training mode, extra modes & content. Also IIRC it has some songs which are only in that version, but I could be misremembering.
Click to expand...
Frankly I'd prefer some Capcom console ports made it to Fightcade for training modes, arranged music, bonus characters, single player modes etc.
Also, versus modes allowed you to switch your character between matches, which many arcade versions didn't.
 
Last edited:
Variahunter said:
Skill issue !
Click to expand...
Could be the dull roster, the soundtrack abomination, the heavy weighted feeling, the slow speed of play, the art style, etc.

A game can be shit. This was proven on release, and today. There's an audience that adores this game, but it is a small one. And miniscule compared to those of SF2 and Alpha.
 
diffusionx said:
3S is the most overrated fighting game don't @ me
Click to expand...
SFII and it's variants is boring dogshit to play now, and every SF game after III constantly nostalgia pandering to it is annoying. The Alpha series was never my favorite either with how many hyper aggro rush down broken BS plagues the game.

The only SFs I like is III and 6 because they both have fairly neutral-heavy pacing, partying forces less repetitive aggro approaches and also makes projectiles less oppressive. If Chun-Li and Yun were better tuned (especially their supers) SFIII would be the closest thing to a perfect fighting game imo.
 
Ellis said:
Could be the dull roster, the soundtrack abomination, the heavy weighted feeling, the slow speed of play, the art style, etc.

A game can be shit. This was proven on release, and today. There's an audience that adores this game, but it is a small one. And miniscule compared to those of SF2 and Alpha.
Click to expand...
Ok, somebody doesn't have Beats In Their Head, and it shows. :goog_rolleyes:
 
Ellis said:
Could be the dull roster, the soundtrack abomination, the heavy weighted feeling, the slow speed of play, the art style, etc.

A game can be shit. This was proven on release, and today. There's an audience that adores this game, but it is a small one. And miniscule compared to those of SF2 and Alpha.
Click to expand...
Dull roster ? How dare you !

Ibuki, Makoto, Q, Yun/Yang, God tiers Ryu/Ken and Chun li 3S designs, Urien (arguably depends on tastes), Dudley, Hugo and Alex ??
Yeah there is some bad designed char like Twelve and Necro and Oro, but that's a wild take.
Heavy feeing ? It takes time yes, but it's very fast in fact. Just need to get good with your timings and inputs. So "slow speed of play" immediately reads as skill issue.
Soundtrack is funky.
Art style ? Get out of here man.

And my favorite SF is Alpha 3.
 
So, this is not a decomp, but a completely new made from the ground up port of Street Fighter III Third Strike? that is Open Source? So, this could also be the framework for a newer MUGEN-like engine? Which, there are a few of, to be honest.
 
spookyfish said:
Oh for sure it's the more technical fighter. Alpha series got a little crazy, and the vs series got REAL crazy. I like them all, but I'm better at the vs series, but truly love the III series of games.
Click to expand...

Yeah, for the VS games I could never really get into the Marvel ones because they were just too hyper for me, but I loved Capcom vs. SNK 2. Amazing game, that. Tho they could've at least updated Morrigan's sprite set; the style clash at times was grating.

Also after getting used to 3S after so many years (tho I haven't played it in a few years by this point...eager to consider doing so again with this decomp tho), I just prefer the way the SFIII games (well, 2S and 3S, not so much NG) "feel" with handling & control.

One thing I would've like for 3S to have carried over from 2I was the way air parries worked tho; felt a bit more balanced and emphasized staying on the ground, tho I guess they changed it for 3S because for some characters it'd of been virtually impossible to get in with some sense of control if they couldn't do so in the air, like Twelve.

Puscifer said:
In hindsight i hate this moment. I feel like so many fighting games have pointless bullshit to create "hype" moments now.
Click to expand...

It's not even the most hype moment in 3S tournaments, either. Very popular because it's Daigo & Justin, but some of the stuff I've seen from earlier 3S Japanese tournaments (especially with "low tier" characters like Remy, Necro, Q etc.) was legendary.

But since they weren't at EVO and were before this moment, most people don't know about them or have seen them. You can still find footage on Youtube, thankfully.

Hadoukens said:
Frankly I'd prefer some Capcom console ports made it to Fightcade for training modes, arranged music, bonus characters, single player modes etc.
Also, versus modes allowed you to switch your character between matches, which many arcade versions didn't.
Click to expand...

Same. It'd be the best way to play them online since, well, Fightcade basically runs forever as it's a P2P network. No need to worry about delisting or services ending.

Ellis said:
Could be the dull roster, the soundtrack abomination, the heavy weighted feeling, the slow speed of play, the art style, etc.

A game can be shit. This was proven on release, and today. There's an audience that adores this game, but it is a small one. And miniscule compared to those of SF2 and Alpha.
Click to expand...

SFIII didn't fail because it was a shit game. It failed because Capcom were spread thin between too many fighters, arcades waning in the West, and 3D fighters like VF & Tekken eating its lunch in Asia. And 2D as a whole falling out of favor in arcades and (in the West) consoles during the late '90s.

CPS3 itself was also prohibitively expensive for operators compared to earlier CPS systems, so there's also that. SFIII NG might've had a limited roster (and the parry was complex to more casual players), but the fundamentals and foundation were there from Day 1. They should've just had a few more of the OG roster to start with. Also will add, the sheer number of SFII variants probably also had a negative impact on SFIII.

MrCunningham said:
So, this is not a decomp, but a completely new made from the ground up port of Street Fighter III Third Strike? that is Open Source? So, this could also be the framework for a newer MUGEN-like engine? Which, there are a few of, to be honest.
Click to expand...

Not sure if that is the case, but if it is, I'm definitely down for it.
 
Ellis said:
Could be the dull roster, the soundtrack abomination, the heavy weighted feeling, the slow speed of play, the art style, etc.

A game can be shit. This was proven on release, and today. There's an audience that adores this game, but it is a small one. And miniscule compared to those of SF2 and Alpha.
Click to expand...
And I'd like to add that you don't know shit about fighting games or their audience.
On Fightcade, there is 5 times more people on 3.3 than any retro Street Fighter games (including 2X and A3-A2).

Niche audience… in comparison to SF6 probably for obvious reasons, but for retro games absolutely not.
 
Best fighting game of all time.

I love the horde of loud....folks.... who show up to decry this legend of a game every time, so transparently jealous that their favorite game doesn't enjoy the legacy that Third Strike does lol.

Welp, time to beat up my daughter at it again.
Video Game Jump GIF by CAPCOM


I hope Alex is half as fun to play on 6 as 3, tier lists be damned, (the worst thing to ever happen to fighting games by the way, if you pay attention to tier lists you're a sweaty try hard.)
 
Last edited:
Futaleufu said:
SF3 flopped because Capcom was releasing better fighting games at the time and also because competition by SNK and Namco raised the standards of that era.
Click to expand...
Also, the first version of SF3 dropped most of the OG cast.

Intrigued by the project though, gonna have to take a peek.
 
Last edited:
Variahunter said:
Useless decomp.
Nobody will play the PS2 version has it's not the same as Arcade.
There's frame differences, bugs corrected and so on.
So basically everybody will stay on Fightcade.
Click to expand...

With a decomp, things can be adjusted. It won't be a "PS2 Version", it will be a PC version beginning with the PS2 fork and ending up wherever the community chooses to take it. Corrected bugs, for example, could be "un-corrected", because the code is accessible. And all the assets that you need to take from the PS2 version to combine with the compiling app would be equivalent as if they did the same with an arcade ROM (I'm not aware of any compromises needed to get an arcade game of that era ported over to PS2, and unless for some reason the "bug corrections" included actually changing the art, it should be the same.)

Tools for this creation to be made possible are much more available for full consoles like PS2 than they would be for specific arcade boards (even the fairly-oftly used CPS2) and the PS2 version has some features included which would make it a more well-rounded port. So, it makes sense. We'll see what changes are done to the builder app over time or if the fighting community actually migrates to it.
 
Last edited:
CamHostage said:
With a decomp, things can be adjusted. It won't be a "PS2 Version", it will be a PC version beginning with the PS2 fork and ending up wherever the community chooses to take it. Corrected bugs, for example, could be "un-corrected", because the code is accessible. And all the assets that you need to take from the PS2 version to combine with the compiling app would be equivalent as if they did the same with an arcade ROM (I'm not aware of any compromises needed to get an arcade game of that era ported over to PS2, and unless for some reason the "bug corrections" included actually changing the art, it should be the same.)

Tools for this work are much more available for full consoles like PS2 than they would be for specific arcade boards (even the fairly-oftly used CPS2) and the PS2 version has some features included which would make it a more well-rounded port. So, it makes sense. We'll see what changes are done to the builder app over time or if the fighting community actually migrates to it.
Click to expand...
The potential is great. It could be the definitive indefinitely future proofed version.
 
The Capcom source code is there, the reductions are mostly around how assets are streamed, compressed, how tables have frames removed and in-between frames lengthened to compensate. Make no mistake, this could all be restored. The logic is the arcade logic, same jump tables, same asset lookups (although the asset pipeline is changed dramatically for PS2). I did some upscaling work on the sprites already by remove the LRU, rejiggling how sprites are constructed from tiles -> tilemaps etc. The potential here for a HD Remix style built by the community is massive... Although it is a LOT of work.
 
Last edited:
Welp;


Keep in mind, I found some deviant art recreation of Alex, and wrote a custom animation injector which bypasses all the graphics code to inject a hd sprite directly for a given animation. Idle animation is what was available. Doing this across the board is a massive amount of work, but it is possible now!
 
funking giblet said:
Welp;


Keep in mind, I found some deviant art recreation of Alex, and wrote a custom animation injector which bypasses all the graphics code to inject a hd sprite directly for a given animation. Idle animation is what was available. Doing this across the board is a massive amount of work, but it is possible now!
Click to expand...

Are you perhaps part of this open-source project?
 
thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
I'd argue 3rd Strike is a better fighter on the technical level than the SFA series and VS. games. The problem is it came too late; by the time it released the market for 2D fighters, even in Japan, had diminished greatly due to 3D fighters like VF, Tekken, DOA etc.
Click to expand...
when og SF3 came out, it looked outdated even though the animation was incredible... but the weirdest thing was almost completely throwing out the beloved sf2 roster.

sure, you can argue SFA already scratched that itch, but in a mainline SF entry, i expected more of the old cast.
and the new characters were lame.
 
cinnamonandgravy said:
when og SF3 came out, it looked outdated even though the animation was incredible... but the weirdest thing was almost completely throwing out the beloved sf2 roster.

sure, you can argue SFA already scratched that itch, but in a mainline SF entry, i expected more of the old cast.
and the new characters were lame.
Click to expand...

Eh, I wouldn't say all the new characters sucked in NG; Dudley, Elena, Necro, Ibuki, etc. were pretty cool, and three of them have since come back in one or multiple future mainline SF games so clearly the community likes them too. But at the time, yeah I can definitely see how they may've been received more coldly against having SFII characters come back, especially some like Akuma, Cammy etc. who were only introduced very late in the SFII cycle.

Capcom AFAIK, never intended for Alpha to be seen as the successor to SFII but like you said, it was so good (particularly once SFA2 came out) that people basically took to it as a natural successor, even if it was technically a predecessor timeline-wise. Big reason why, was because it had almost all the old favorites come back. I think if Capcom maybe did some OVA and limited-run manga for SF3 back when it was new, that would've helped set up the new characters better.

Just releasing an expensive 2D fighter in '97 after SEGA were already dominating with Virtua Fighter and Namco were stepping up with Tekken 2 & Tekken 3, was risky on Capcom's part. Turned out the Street Fighter name didn't carry much pull in light of that if you didn't have established characters in abundance. SF4 eventually got the balance right to a good degree in gradually introducing a couple new characters over time, not just suddenly dropping half the OG roster for newbies.

And SF5 and SF6 have continued that approach, refining it etc. Seems to be doing well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

[arstechnica]. Microsoft makes Zork I, II, and III open source under MIT License
23
880
Bernkastel replied
Street Fighter Movie Preview
2
65
1K
falconhoof replied
Animal Crossing PC Port is here
21
157
VGEsoterica replied
Fatal Frame PC Port Demo! From PS2 Decomp to PC Port
Trailer Platform Indie 
2
163
Esppiral replied
Twilight Princess PC Port preview; from decomp to PC
23
632
MayauMiao replied
Top Bottom