Model 2 Upgrade Plan

Nakayama Takuya left the arcade testing lab and followed the corridor toward the development team area at the other end.

The office area was thick with the scorched smell of coffee beans, and several programmers were sprawled over their desks, catching up on sleep.

When he reached Yu Suzuki's workstation, Sega's ace producer was staring at the CRT monitor in front of him, a red-and-blue pencil in hand as he sketched a force analysis diagram for physics feedback on a sheet of draft paper.

On the monitor, two wireframe figures were running a combat test on a slanted set of steps.

The clipping was severe. One character's ankle had sunk straight into the ground polygons.

"Director Takahashi was complaining to me just now that the speed of your hair loss has caught up with the speed of the project going over budget." Nakayama Takuya pulled over an empty chair and sat down. "He asked me to come see what kind of hurdle you've run into that you can't get past."

Yu Suzuki tossed the pencil onto the desk and rubbed the space between his brows.

"The Model 2 board's computing power has hit the ceiling." He pointed at the clipping on the screen. "Virtua Fighter 3 needs to realize fully 3D battles on terrain with height differences. When a character stands on a slope or steps, their center of gravity, points of force, and attack judgment all have to be recalculated. With the current hardware, once the physics judgment finishes running, there are no extra resources left to handle polygon rendering. The frame rate drops so badly it's unwatchable."

Nakayama Takuya looked at the screen.

"What do you want to do?"

"Modify the board. Do a minor upgrade." Yu Suzuki pulled open a drawer and took out a hand-drawn hardware