Virtua Racing
Overview | Back of the Box | Extra Information | Series Games
- Released: 1994
- Series: Virtua Racing
- System: Sega Mega Drive
- Media: Sega Mega Drive Cartridge
- Region:
- Variant: Sega Virtua Processor
- Single Player: Yes
- Competitive Offline Multiplayer: Yes (2 Max Players)
- Controller Support: Yes
From the arcade to the armchair! Sega's revolutionary SVP chip puts you in the driving seat of the most technically advanced game ever. Stunning polygon graphics, four selectable viewpoints and high speed action combine to make this the greatest race of your life.
Virtua Racing contains a custom-designed DSP chip, known officially as SVP, or Sega Virtua Processor. It allows for enhanced graphics and sound capabilities. This chip essentially serves as an extra processor, allowing the game to produce a significantly higher number of polygons than would be possible on a standard Mega Drive. It was also significantly more powerful than the Super Nintendo's Super FX chip. However, Virtua Racing released with a more expensive retail price.
The SVP chip was revealed for the Mega Drive in Summer 1993, before the Mega Drive version of Virtua Racing released in 1994. Interestingly, Virtua Racing was the first to showcase the power of the SVP chip - plans were underway to produce more games using this chip, using a "Modular Converter" cartridge to cut production costs. This converter would contain the SVP chip, with the enhanced game designed to use the SVP chip plugging into the top of the unit. However, due to the costs of production against the Mega Drive/Genesis' age and falling popularity, the project was dropped. Virtua Racing also has a cartridge roughly one-and-a-half times the size of a usual Mega Drive cartridge due to the added chip, and is incompatible with the Sega 32X add-on.
