I'm a big Street Fighter fan. <3 :D

I have Street Fighter I, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 3 (best one IMHO) and Street Fighter Zero 3 all running on my comp using the MAME Arcade emulator.

I always wanted to get Street Fighter 3, though, and after reading a few comments on this site, I quickly realized that Street Fighter 3: The Third Strike is the best one ever released.

I wasn't gonna shell out for a new Dreamcast only for that game though - Dreamcast production was cancelled - but they HAVE, according to Wikipedia, gone back on sale (refurbished) on Sega's online store since February 16, 2006.

So instead I decided to invest some time into emulating it on my PC like all of it's older brothers. >D Yes it is illegal. :(

DISCLAIMER: Getting Street Fighter 3: Third Strike to run on a PC involves Sega Dreamcast emulation. Emulating Sega Dreamcast games on PC, as well as obtaining the games/files associated with being able to do so, is illegal, as it deprives Sega of the profits it could make on the Dreamcast platform. Therefore, do so at your own risk. I, as author of this guide, am in no way to be held responsible for the legal issues you may get into as a result of following this guide.

1)
You will need to get the Street Fighter 3: Third Strike CDI image from the bittorrent network. It's pretty big - 250MB. The full name of the file is Dreamcast Street Fighter 3 Third Strike Pal Fixed.
Here is a link to the torrent from mininova.org. The swarm speed is altogether decent, I got the image downloaded overnight on a 512/128 connection.

2)
You will need the Dreamcast emulator, Chankast Alpha 0.25. There are other Dreamcast emulators out there but this is the one I got SF3:TS working on. Chankast download page. Do not install it yet.

3)
Now comes the part which took me the most time. You will need the Dreamcast bios to be able to run games in Chankast. You are looking for dc_bios.zip, which contains dc_flash.bin and dc_bios.bin. The reason why it is so hard to find this file is because it is illegal to share it.
I found it on driverguide.com and was able to download it with no problems after registering on the site.

'Eh, fuck, another site registration, waste of my time.' Yes I hear you, but driverguide.com has a really impressive number of drivers. Aside from the Dreamcast bios, I found some rare drivers for my IBM P260 monitor (running on Sony FD Trinitron Technology).

As aforementioned, sharing dc_bios.zip is illegal. Its a small 2MB file and I will happily upload it to this ESR server but only after an admin's approval - preferably Sujoy's - for I wouldn't want my fav forum getting into legal problems with one of my fav game designers :(

If you still dont want to spend the time registering at driverguide.com, then give me a link to some ftp that you guys have and I'll upload it there.

4)
Get Daemon Tools 3.29. Don't start arguing or bitching here, please, just get 3.29 and 3.29 only. I tried running the SF3:TS image with the latest Alcohol 120 and Daemon Tools but it just didn't work. Why does the image of SF3:TS only work on 3.29? I don't know. Just be happy it's available :)

5)
Now we can start installing everything.

Uninstall any previous versions of Daemon Tools you may have and install Daemon Tools 3.29.

Install Chankast. I suggest something on the lines of the following directory... C:\Games\Dreamcast\Chankast
That way, if you have any other Dreamcast related files / programs, you can always install them in a folder next to Chankast in the Dreamcast directory.

Find the dc_bios.zip that I hope you were able to find and download with less trouble than me. Extract the dc_bios.bin and dc_flash.bin into the Chankast directory.

6)
Now we can start running everything :D

Mount the Dreamcast Street Fighter 3 Third Strike Pal Fixed CDI image using Daemon Tools 3.29.

Run Chankast. You will be greeted with a 'Configure Plugins' dialog.
Leave the 'CDRom Plugin' at the default selected 'CDRom Interface xxxx'.
I assume at this point that you will be burning to play the game, so choose the 'Input Interface by ElSemi'.
In the 'Connected Peripherals' section, select 'None' under Port B, C, and D.
Under 'Port A', select 'Controller' and in the first drop-down menu under it, select VMS. For the rest of the drop-down menus, select 'None.'

After clicking OK, a diagram should appear showing you the Dreamcast controller and labelling its buttons and the corresponding keyboard keys. After studying it enough, click OK.

Now we are only one step away from running SF3:TS :D
Click 'Options' and 'Configure Drive.' Make sure that the selected drive label is the Dameon Tools virtual drive you are mounting the SF3:TS CDI image on.
Click 'Options' and 'Configure Video.' Select a video mode other than 640x480 because at that resolution there's a lot of GFX layering bugs.
Under the 'Configure Video' menu, also enable 'Use ZWrite' and 'Use AlphaTest ZWrite.' I think this improves video performance as well as eliminating more GFX bugs.
Last, but definitely not least, as this gives a huge performance boost, in the 'Options' menu click on 'Capcom Hack' and in the 'Priority' submenu, click on 'Above Normal.'

You're ready to go :D
Click 'Run' and 'Start.'

Doesn't work? I am running Windows XP on an AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 1024 MB RAM, X800XL. This worked for me, but if it doesn't work for you, then post your OS, system specs, and I'll try to help you out.

Have fun! :)