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Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut

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Template:Infobox game/row/winporter
Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut
Cover image missing, please upload it
Developers
Team Silent
Publishers
Konami
Release dates
Windows December 2, 2002
Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut on Wikipedia
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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

Can only run stably on a single core. Requires patching to fix problems on modern machines. See Optimization and Better Fix.
The atmospheric fog in the town is a lot simpler and less fluid than the PS2 version.[1]
No soft shadows.
Modding has made it higher resolution and for the most part graphically superior to other versions.

Availability

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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.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

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System Location

Save game data location

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System Location

Save game cloud syncing

No save game cloud syncing information; you can edit this page to add it.

Video settings

Template:Video settings

Input settings

Template:Input settings

Controller support

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

Audio settings

Template:Audio settings

Issues fixed

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 sh2pc.exe or 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.[2]

  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. Don't touch the in-game resolution setting after patching.
  4. Download the fix made by NeoGAF user Angular Graphics[3] and put it into your SH2 folder.
    Original forum post. The links in the code are parts from a multi-part rar file. Download them instead if the link above isn't working.
    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.
  • Set Triple Buffering to OFF. Having it on will cause glitches in the game geometry.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98, 2000, ME, XP
Processor (CPU) Pentium or AMD Athlon 700 MHz (single core) Pentium or AMD Athlon 1 GHz (single core)
System memory (RAM)
Hard disk drive (HDD) 1.8 GB 2.3 GB
Video card (GPU) 32 MB of VRAM
DirectX 8.1 compatible 		64 MB of VRAM
DirectX 8.1 compatible

References

  1. ↑ Examples of fog on different versions, From NeoGAF user Lime, we see the lower quality fog on the PC version.
  2. ↑ NeoGAF comment on fixing and optimizing Silent Hill 2 , All information regarding the fixes and optimization comes from the user Lime.
  3. ↑ Angular Graphics' profileAngular Graphics on NeoGAF, the creator of the FMV fix.