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Silent Hill 3

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Silent Hill 3
Silent Hill 3 cover
Developers
Team Silent
Publishers
Konami
Release dates
Windows October 31, 2003
Reception
Metacritic 72
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Cinematic camera, Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Survival horror
Art styles Realistic
Themes Contemporary, Horror, North America
Series Silent Hill
Silent Hill 3 on HowLongToBeat
Silent Hill 3 on IGDB
Silent Hill 3 on MobyGames
Silent Hill 3 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

Silent Hill 3 is a singleplayer cinematic camera and third-person survival horror game in the Silent Hill series.

The PC version adds improved flashlight lighting, 60 FPS gameplay and the ability to save at any time during the game.
All fourteen of Heather's promotional outfits from the PlayStation 2 version are not present in the PC release.[1]
The PC version also lacks the soft shadows of the PlayStation 2 version[2] and suffers from badly compressed audio and incorrect pitch, resulting in poor sound quality. See Silent Hill 3 Audio Enhancement Pack.

General information

Silent Hill Memories - Informative website

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SecuROM 4.85.00.0015 DRM
Windows
The North American and Asians physical releases include the soundtrack CD.
The North American and Asians physical releases had 5 CDs, while the European PC physical release features only a DVD.
This game is not available digitally.

Essential improvements

Silent Hill 3 with corrected FOV
Silent Hill 3 with corrected FOV

Silent Hill 3 PC Fix by Steam006

Includes all fixes and features from all other patches.
Adds widescreen and graphical fixes, borderless mode, window positioning, ability to force Vsync and more.
Restores missing audio and unused beta sounds.

Silent Hill 3 Audio Enhancement Pack

Offers uncompressed PS2 audio quality with correct pitch for music and sound effects.
Has an online updater.
Compatible with Steam006's fix and HD Collection Voice Pack.
Requires Reloaded II.

Skip intro videos

Use Silent Hill 3 intro skip[3]

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

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

Save game data location

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

Video

In-game display settings
In-game display settings
External display settings (1/2)
External display settings (1/2)
External display settings (2/2)
External display settings (2/2)

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Use Steam006's Fix or see Modifications
Multi-monitor
Use Steam006's Fix or see Modifications
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Use Steam006's Fix or see Modifications
Field of view (FOV)
Use Flawless Widescreen[4]
Windowed
Toggle with Alt+ Enter
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Use Steam006's Fix
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Use Steam006's Fix
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Forcing MSAA breaks depth of field effect. Use FXAA or MLAA only.
High-fidelity upscaling
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Vsync does not work on Windows 10.
Use Steam006's Fix for Windows 10 users (off by default).
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
See Frame rate fluctuation between 30 and 60 FPS.
Increases the game speed if the frame rate is uncapped or above 60 FPS.
To prevent this latter issue, cap the frame rate to 60 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Input

In-game keyboard and gamepad settings (1/3)
In-game keyboard and gamepad settings (1/3)
In-game keyboard and gamepad settings (2/3)
In-game keyboard and gamepad settings (2/3)
In-game keyboard and gamepad settings (3/3)
In-game keyboard and gamepad settings (3/3)
External keyboard and gamepad settings (1/2)
External keyboard and gamepad settings (1/2)
External keyboard and gamepad settings (2/2)
External keyboard and gamepad settings (2/2)

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Strong negative mouse acceleration by default
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
DirectInput only. For XInput controllers, see Controller support.
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion
Controller types
XInput-compatible controllers
See Controller support
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration
PlayStation controllers
PlayStation button prompts
Recognizes every button natively while playing.
However, both SH3Config.exe and built-in button config do not detect L2/R2.
Light bar support
Adaptive trigger support
DualSense haptic feedback support
Connection modes Wireless (Bluetooth)
Generic/other controllers
Button prompts Input settings icon - Generic Controller.svg
Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Can be set between Soft, Normal, Hard or Off.
For XInput controllers, see Controller support.
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Controller support

A fix is required for the game to recognize XInput Right Stick, LT/RT, LS/RS and D-pad when assigning controls.
Use XInput Plus[5][6]
  1. Download and run XInput Plus.
  2. Set Target Program to sh3.exe.
  3. Go to the DirectInput tab and check Enable DirectInput Output.
  4. Assign Right Stick to Z Axis/Z Rot.
  5. Assign LT/RT to Button11/12.
  6. Assign DPAD to Button 13-16.
  7. Click Apply and a DLL file will be added to the game directory.

Notes

In the DirectInput tab, ForceFeedBack Emulation can also be enabled for XInput controllers.
If using Silent Hill 3 Widescreen Fix, rename dinput8.dll to d3d8.dll.
If used in conjunction with Silent Hill 3 Audio Enhancement Pack, set UseInitBeep to False in XInputPlus.ini for preventing crashes at startup.
L2/R2 triggers recognition for PlayStation controllers
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\savedata.
  2. Open key.ini with Notepad.
  3. Apply the following changes:
    • Set searh_view to button6.
    • Set ready to button7.
  4. Save the changes.
Use Steam Input to bind triggers with keyboard bindings[7][8]
  1. Add sh3.exe to Steam as a Non-Steam Game.
  2. Run Steam in Big Picture mode and navigate to the SH3 shortcut.
  3. Select the shortcut, then Manage Shortcut and Controller Configuration.
  4. For both triggers, select the trigger and click the box underneath Full Pull Action.
  5. In the Select Binding window, select the keyboard binding for the action you want to perform in the game.
  6. Once both triggers have been bound, go back to the SH3 shortcut and select Controller Options.
  7. Make sure that Steam Input Per-Game Setting is set to Forced On.
  8. Run the game through Big Picture mode and if Steam Input was successfully applied, a dialog box should appear.

Notes

To use triggers, it's necessary to run the game through Big Picture mode.
This method won't work with the Steam006's fix because a separate injector is required to be used, which unfortunately Steam can't apply through Steam Input.

Audio

General settings
General settings
Extra options
Extra options

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Separate sliders for BGM and SE
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
See Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Mute on focus lost

Set mute in background[citation needed]
  1. Download d3d8to9.
  2. Copy d3d8.dll to the installation folder.
  3. Download Special K.
  4. Copy SpecialK32.dll to the installation folder.
  5. Rename SpecialK32.dll to d3d9.dll.
  6. Run the game and exit.
  7. Edit d3d9.ini in the installation folder.
  8. Find [Window.System] and set MuteInBackground to true.

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Polish
Fan translation, download.
Brazilian Portuguese
Fan translation, download.
Brazilian Portuguese
Silent Fandub
Russian
Full fan localization, download.
Spanish
Turkish
Fan translation, download.

Silent Hill 3 HD Collection Voice Pack

Ports voices from the HD Collection to the PC version.[9]
Requires Reloaded II.
Has an online updater.
Compatible with Steam006's fix and the Audio Enhancement Pack.
Includes higher resolution FMVs from the HD Collection.

Issues unresolved

Forcing anti-aliasing

If using anti-aliasing (MSAA, at least), the depth of field effect becomes corrupted (halos around objects).[citation needed]
Post-process AA (FXAA, MLAA) works as intended (best compatibility in conjunction with the D3D9-11 wrappers).

Issues fixed

Motion trails

The light sources affected by bloom leave long dark motion trails on screen when camera is moving.
Turn Off Fullscreen Smoothing Filter[citation needed]
  1. Go to the in-game Extra Options (second options tab).
  2. Set Display Mode to Sharp.

Notes

Leads to more pronounced aliasing.

Frame rate fluctuation between 30 and 60 FPS

This solution and the other ones won't work properly with low FPS. Minimum frame rate must be at least 50 FPS.[10]
Use Silent Hill 3 PC Fix by Steam006

Freezes in the options menu

Use Silent Hill 3 PC Fix by Steam006
Force CPU affinity to one core

White border on Windows 10

Use Silent Hill 3 PC Fix by Steam006

A warning message pops up when the game crashes or when Alt+F4 is pressed to exit

Warning: "A crash occurred the last time the game was played. Using safe graphics options."
If this occurs, the game settings will be restored to their initial state.
Set INI file to read-only mode
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\savedata.
  2. Right-click on disp.ini and select Properties.
  3. Tick Read-only, then click Apply and OK.

OBS displays stuttering when recording or streaming the game

Decrease rendering resolution
  1. Go to the in-game Configuration (third options tab).
  2. Set Rendering Resolution to 1024x512 or lower.

Settings or game saves not saved

Error: "An error occurred during system data saving. Data not saved."
Run sh3.exe as administrator

Random crashes

Enable compatibility mode in the properties of sh3.exe, and set it to Windows XP (Service Pack 3).[11][12]

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 8.1
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Modifications

Silent Hill 3 Widescreen Fix by ThirteenAG

Listed here for archival purposes; see Steam006's Fix instead.
Fixed Resolution
Fixed Aspect Ratio
Fixed HUD
Fixed Field of View
Fixed FMVs
Added an option to make FMVs fullscreen
Added an option to disable cutscene borders
Added an option to disable safe mode
Added options to increase resolution of dynamic shadows and other effects
Added an option to increase fog complexity

Silent Hill 3 Widescreen fix by nemesis2000

Listed here for archival purposes; see Steam006's Fix instead.
Custom screen resolutions and internal resolutions
Custom depth of field resolution with ability to toggle
Cutscene letterbox disabler
Custom render distance
Custom shadow resolution
Custom fog values

sh3proxy

Listed here for archival purposes; see Steam006's Fix instead.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98, ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III 1.0 GHz or AMD Athlon
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 4.7 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 3 Ti
ATI Radeon 8500
32 MB of VRAM
DirectX 8.1b compatible
Sound (audio device) DirectX 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

  1. Silent Hill 3 Costumes - Silent Hill Memories - last accessed on May 2023
  2. Silent Hill 3 - PS2 vs PC vs PS3 - last accessed on August 2023
  3. Verified by User:AmethystViper on 2020-02-22
    Can confirm this fix is able to skip the intro splash screens and videos without crashing the game.
  4. Flawless Widescreen changelog - last accessed on 2023-06-19
    "15/11/2013: Added Silent Hill 3, requested by Marty."
  5. [REQ] Provide Controller config for Silent hill 2+3 · Issue #191 · ThirteenAG/WidescreenFixesPack - last accessed on 2017-01-21
  6. Verified by User:SavvyKat on 2018-10-13
    Tested options for the Right Stick to fix issues regarding the need to use the mouse to use search mode to its full potential.
  7. If you add SH3 as a non-steam game on steam you can just bind the keyboard keys onto the triggers... - last accessed on 2020-02-19
  8. Verified by User:Infogram on 2020-02-19
    XInput Plus had no effect for me, but adding SH3 to steam and binding the triggers to keyboard bindings allowed me to use them in-game.
  9. Voice Comparison - last accessed on May 2023
  10. New features · Issue #1 · 07151129/sh3proxy - last accessed on 9 June 2023
  11. Verified by User:If and while on 2023-08-25
  12. Silent Hill 3 (PC) -Forums - Random Crash - Speedrun.net - last accessed on 2023-08-25