Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut

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[[Series:|]]
Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut	2002
Silent Hill 3	2003
Silent Hill 4: The Room	2004
Silent Hill: Homecoming	2008
Silent Hill 2	2024

Key points

Can only run stably on a single core. Requires patching to fix problems on modern machines

The atmospheric fog in the town is a lot simpler and less fluid than the PS2 version

No soft shadows

Modding has made it higher resolution and for the most part graphically superior to other versions

Availability

The first four Silent Hill games have never been released on digital distribution platforms.

The Director's Cut edition is the only version available on PC. It includes the extra scenario Born From a Wish along with new areas, an extra ending and enhanced graphical effects.

Issues and Fixes

Simple Fix for Audio Bugs and Crashing

It's better to use the fanfixes and patches, as they optimize and enhance the game a lot more than a simple fix can; but these simple fixes require no downloads and cease the buggy sound and crashing that plagues the PC version when running on more than one core.

Method 1

Starting the game through a batch file that runs the executable on one core.

1. Create an empty text file in your game installation directory.
2. Type into the file:
   cmd.exe /c start /affinity 1 sh2pc.exe
3. Save the file as sh2.bat
   NOT as a .txt
4. Start the game through this .bat file each time. The game will run on a single core and the audio bugs and crashes will be gone.

Method 2

Alternative Method. Requires no batch file, but needs to be performed EVERY time you start the game.

1. Start the game and stay on the menu. Do not start a new game or load a save.
2. CTRL+ALT+DEL to the Task Manager.
3. Look up SH2.exe.
4. Right-click on the task and choose "Set Affinity".
5. Un-tick all but one CPU core and click OK.
6. Return to the game and play.

Optimization and Better Fix

Silent Hill 2 running at 1080p

The game has been fixed and optimized by fans to run at higher resolutions and aspect ratios, with high quality FMVs.

1. Install Silent Hill 2
2. Download Squizzy's Respatcher and use the fixed executable included in the archive. (The patcher does not work with the original .exe)
3. Run the patcher and select the desired resolution. If the original resolution of the game was not set to 640x480, this resolution patcher will do nothing.
4. Download the fix made by NeoGAF user Angular Graphics.
   ^{The links in the code are parts from a multi-part rar file. Download them all.}
   These improve the look of the FMVs significantly as the PC port of the game uses re-encoded versions of the Xbox port, and are far worse quality than the PS2; and have been upscaled for higher resolutions and aspect ratios and touched up overall.
5. Download this compiled executable, put it into your SH2 folder and start Silent Hill 2 through it.

• Set Triple Buffering to OFF. Having it on will cause glitches in the game geometry.

Controls

Xpadder works with Silent Hill 2, and may fix any annoyances in the controls. A pre-made profile can be found here.