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Difference between revisions of "Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut"

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
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==Issues unresolved==
 
==Issues unresolved==
===Side effects playing the game at 60 FPS===
+
===Issues when playing the game at 60 FPS===
{{--}} Some of the game's elements play too quickly or bug out.<ref name="60fpsBugs">[https://github.com/elishacloud/Silent-Hill-2-Enhancements/issues/28 Side effects playing the game at 60 FPS · Issue #28 · elishacloud/Silent-Hill-2-Enhancements]</ref>
+
* The bullet casing sound effects for the handgun and shotgun wig out.<ref>[https://github.com/elishacloud/Silent-Hill-2-Enhancements/issues/28 Side effects playing the game at 60 FPS · Issue #28 · elishacloud/Silent-Hill-2-Enhancements]</ref>
{{--}} The handgun and shotgun bullet casing sound effects don't play correctly.<ref name="60fpsBugs"/>
+
* Camera speed movement fix (<code>PS2CameraSpeed</code>) moves twice as fast.
 +
* Animation for James transcribing notes onto his map is twice as fast.
 +
* James' inner monologue (immediately upon exiting the hospital) may run twice as fast now.
 +
* The lake water (when James is rowing) moves twice as fast now.
 +
* The flames in Angela's staircase move twice as fast now.
 +
* The flashlight dies out very quickly in the prison bug room.
 +
* The water animates/moves quicker and drains twice as fast during the RPT Apartment boss fight. The animation part also goes for the water in the hallways during the labyrinth parts.
 +
* The "Ritual" prison monster's footsteps go crazy fast.
  
 
===No soft shadows===
 
===No soft shadows===

Revision as of 06:08, 8 October 2019

Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut
Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut cover
Developers
Team Silent
Windows Creature Labs
Publishers
Konami
Release dates
Windows December 2, 2002
Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut guide on StrategyWiki
Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut on Wikipedia
Silent Hill
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

Silent Hill 2 PC comes with improved flashlight lighting, a quick-save function, real-time weapon swapping and a movie gallery.

General information

Silent Hill Wiki - A wiki for the series
Silent Hill Memories - Informative site
Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition Installation Guide

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SecuROM 4 DRM. Patch 1.1 removes the DRM.
Released on 3 CDs.
Windows
There are two versions: the North American version and the European Director's Cut version. If the title screen lacks "Director's Cut" on it, it's the North American version. Both versions include the extra scenario Born from a Wish along with an extra UFO ending.

Essential improvements

Silent Hill 2 running at 1920x1080
Silent Hill 2 running at 1920x1080

Silent Hill 2 Enhancements

Silent Hill 2 Enhancements is a collection of unofficial mods which implement widescreen resolution support, add PlayStation 2 quality audio and fog that were missing from the PC version, improve controller support and much more.[1]
See also Enhanced Edition Essential Files and Enhanced EXE.

Silent Hill 2 Audio Enhancement Pack

The PC version's audio is compressed and lacks detail in comparison to the PlayStation 2 version.[2]
The Audio Enhancement Pack replaces the PC version's audio files with the original, higher quality PlayStation 2 ones.

Silent Hill 2 FMV Enhancement Pack

The PC version's FMV videos were re-encoded in Bink format and run at 30FPS instead of 60 on PlayStation 2.[3]
The FMV Enhancement Pack improves the quality and upscales the resolution of the FMVs.

Silent Hill 2 PC Fix by Steam006

A fix which adds new features and fixes some bugs.
  1. Copy all the files to <path-to-game>
  2. Configure the width and height and other options in Silent_Hill_2_PC_Fix.ini.
  3. Start the game with DLLInjector.exe.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\[Note 1]
keyconf.dat stores input bindings.
language.ini stores language settings.
options.ini stores gameplay and volume settings.
settings.ini stores video and audio settings.

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\data\save\[Note 1]

Video settings

Video settings
Video settings

Template:Video settings

Increase noise effect resolution

Change IncreaseNoiseEffectRes[4]
  1. Install Silent Hill 2 Enhancements.
  2. Open d3d8.ini.
  3. Set IncreaseNoiseEffectRes to any value between 128 and 4096 to adjust the resolution.

Input settings

Template:Input settings

Controller support

Analog triggers and vibration on XInput controllers won't function without workarounds.
Fix triggers and vibration[5]
  1. Install Silent Hill 2 Enhancements to restore vibration for XInput-based controllers.
  2. Download and run XInput Plus.
  3. Set the Target Program to sh2pc.exe.
  4. Go to DirectInput and check Enable DirectInput Output.
  5. Assign LT/RT to Button 11/12.
  6. Click Apply and OK.

Audio settings

Template:Audio settings

May require DirectSound3D restoration software to restore hardware-accelerated 3D sound functionality on Windows Vista and later.

Localizations

Use Silent Hill 2 Enhancements to restore the language selection in the options menu.
Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Arabic
Fan translation, download.
Simplified Chinese
Fan translation, download.
French
German
Italian
Polish
Fan translation, download. Includes a widescreen patch.
Brazilian Portuguese
Fan translation, download.
Russian
Fan translation by «HomeTown.ru / Ashigaru».
Spanish
Indonesian
Fan translation, download.

Issues unresolved

Issues when playing the game at 60 FPS

  • The bullet casing sound effects for the handgun and shotgun wig out.[6]
  • Camera speed movement fix (PS2CameraSpeed) moves twice as fast.
  • Animation for James transcribing notes onto his map is twice as fast.
  • James' inner monologue (immediately upon exiting the hospital) may run twice as fast now.
  • The lake water (when James is rowing) moves twice as fast now.
  • The flames in Angela's staircase move twice as fast now.
  • The flashlight dies out very quickly in the prison bug room.
  • The water animates/moves quicker and drains twice as fast during the RPT Apartment boss fight. The animation part also goes for the water in the hallways during the labyrinth parts.
  • The "Ritual" prison monster's footsteps go crazy fast.

No soft shadows

The PC version lacks soft shadows present in the PlayStation 2 version.

Issues fixed

Music fades randomly and sound loops

The game can only run stably on a single core.
Limit the game to one CPU core[citation needed]
  1. Install Silent Hill 2 Enhancements.
  2. Open d3d8.ini and ensure SingleCoreAffinity = 1 is set.

Game hangs at startup

On Windows 7, having single core affinity enabled through Silent Hill 2 Enhancements may prevent the game from running.
Disable SingleCoreAffinity on Windows 7[7]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Open d3d8.ini.
  3. Change SingleCoreAffinity = 1 to SingleCoreAffinity = 0.
  4. Doing this will require manually changing the single core affinity from Task Manager every time you run the game.

Clicking or popping sound effects

Use IndirectSound[8]
  1. Download IndirectSound.
  2. Copy dsound.dll and dsound.ini to the installation folder.
  3. Open dsound.ini.
  4. Change earlyStopFadeOutTime = 0 to earlyStopFadeOutTime = 0.002.

Textures appear as solid white surfaces

Use WhiteShaderFix[9]
  1. Install Silent Hill 2 Enhancements.
  2. Ensure WhiteShaderFix is set to 1.

"Insert a disc" message in the ending

Rename ending.bik[10]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\data\movie\.
  2. Rename ending.bik to end.bik.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 8
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Make James run without slowing down

Apply unlimited stamina hack[11]
  1. Open sh2pc.exe with a hex editor such as HxD.
  2. Press Ctrl+G and go to the address 001356D1.
  3. Change the value CF to C8 and save the changes.

Disable background fog

Disable fogging[12]
  1. Download and run DxWnd.
  2. Click on Edit, then Add.
  3. Set the path to <path-to-game>\sh2pc.exe
  4. Disable Run in Window.
  5. Click on the Direct3D tab and enable Disable Fogging.
  6. Click OK, File, Save, and start the game with DxWnd running.

Add icon to executable file

sh2pc.exe may have no icon set by default.
Set icon with Rcedit[13]
  1. Download Rcedit depending on your OS bitness, and copy it to <path-to-game>.
  2. Download sh2_newicon.zip and extract sh2_new.ico to <path-to-game>.
  3. Open a Command Prompt.
  4. Type in and enter cd <path-to-game>.
    • Replace <path-to-game> with the actual path; e.g. cd C:\Games\Silent Hill 2.
  5. Type in and enter rcedit-x64.exe sh2pc.exe --set-icon sh2_new.ico.
    • If you use the 32-bit version, replace rcedit-x64.exe with rcedit-x86.exe above.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98, 2000, ME, XP
Processor (CPU) AMD Athlon - 700 MHz
Intel Pentium - 700 MHz
System memory (RAM) 64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 1.8 GB
Video card (GPU) 32 MB of VRAM
DirectX 8.1 compatible

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References