PS1 Could Silent Hill for PSX be patched?

[rocking3]

Edit: I tried reposting this thread to the romhacking forum to move it to the probably more proper place, but I can't figure out how to delete this one. lol

I've noticed that Silent Hill can be run at a stable 30 FPS via Duckstation emulator's overclocking settings. This experience is better than original hardware, but with one issue. The gameplay was locked by the devs to 30 FPS, but the cut-scenes strangely were locked to 60 FPS even though the hardware probably couldn't reach that. This means that if you do overclock the emulation the gameplay is free from framerate drops, but the cut-scenes run too fast.

This lead me to wonder if the game could be patched to lock the cut-scenes to 30 FPS as well. Has anyone ever thought about this, or attempted it?

 

[rocking3]

I've noticed that Silent Hill can be run at a stable 30 FPS via Duckstation emulator's overclocking settings. This experience is better than original hardware, but with one issue. The gameplay was locked by the devs to 30 FPS, but the cut-scenes strangely were locked to 60 FPS even though the hardware probably couldn't reach that. This means that if you do overclock the emulation the gameplay is free from framerate drops, but the cut-scenes run too fast.

This lead me to wonder if the game could be patched to lock the cut-scenes to 30 FPS as well. Has anyone ever thought about this, or attempted it?

 

[Karnik 2.0: reboot]

IDK! I just stopped by because I'm looking for my car keys: has anyone found them around here? Anyway, I'll take this opportunity to say hello. ?

 

[Rusk]

I'm also not sure but it would be awesome. I love the Silent Hill series.

 

[Deleted member 288390]

I recently played SH1 on Duckstation, and didn't notice any problems at all. I forced it to run at 60Hz mode, but didn't do anything with the FPS. The game plays perfectly fine as is, does locking it at 30fps really improve it that much? I never noticed any framedrops the entire playthrough.

 

[rocking3]

I recently played SH1 on Duckstation, and didn't notice any problems at all. I forced it to run at 60Hz mode, but didn't do anything with the FPS. The game plays perfectly fine as is, does locking it at 30fps really improve it that much? I never noticed any framedrops the entire playthrough.

I think it's dependent on your render settings. Duckstation can be set up so that the framerate has no real issues, but if I start pushing things for higher detail the stock clock frequency does drag. It's not a big deal. I more just wondered what sort of things are possible with PS1 hacks.

 

[Deleted member 288390]

I know there's a setting in Duckstation for forcing it to switch back to 4:3 ratio for cutscenes, so it might be possible, but I wouldn't have a clue how. I think there was also a mod I got here on this site for turning a PAL version of SH1 into the uncensored NTSC version, which is what I did when I played it recently.

 

[Lee__Kanker]

iirc the fmvs for sh2 are Also locked at 60

 

[sunofpearl89]

The only thing I know about emulating Silent Hill is that you can make the game run at 60fps and widescreen very easily with DuckStation, but certain, very specific points of the game crash when doing so.

I would be so happy if a patch could be made to prevent these problems one day.

 

[Mago]

IDK! I just stopped by because I'm looking for my car keys: has anyone found them around here? Anyway, I'll take this opportunity to say hello. ?

I have to know. Did this guy ever find his car keys?

 

[Deleted member 132407]

For Silent Hill (NTSC-U) for PSX @ https://retrogametalk.com/repository/psx-iso/silent-hill-usa/
Use HxD to modify disc image @ https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

Search:
1A 00 40 10 18 00 BF AF

Replace with:
1A 00 00 10 18 00 BF AF

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

I recently played SH1 on Duckstation, and didn't notice any problems at all. I forced it to run at 60Hz mode, but didn't do anything with the FPS. The game plays perfectly fine as is, does locking it at 30fps really improve it that much? I never noticed any framedrops the entire playthrough.

Same boat,

I only had to temporarily disable PGXP for the cutscene when entering the church, as it was crashing the game.

 

[rocking3]

For Silent Hill (NTSC-U) for PSX @ https://retrogametalk.com/repository/psx-iso/silent-hill-usa/
Use HxD to modify disc image @ https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

Search:
1A 00 40 10 18 00 BF AF

Replace with:
1A 00 00 10 18 00 BF AF

What does that do?

 

[Deleted member 132407]

What does that do?

Unlock FPS

 

[Sumea]

iirc the fmvs for sh2 are Also locked at 60

Depends on the version! The 60fps FMV's do feel somewhat... Better, it feels like TV series that historically were at "60" fps or full frame with tape cams etc. Xbox version and PC version as base are 30fps bink videos, likely because they transferred over to bink for these platforms and bink likely was bit more limited when it came to high FPS efficiency of the codec. I think enhanced edition took time, or still has not gotten 60fps versions of the FMC's work in their thing, but speaking "from top of my head" I think they are there now, but it was a lacking aspect for surprisingly long.

 

[DAOWAce]

The only thing I know about emulating Silent Hill is that you can make the game run at 60fps and widescreen very easily with DuckStation, but certain, very specific points of the game crash when doing so.

I would be so happy if a patch could be made to prevent these problems one day.

Fond someone (Unicorngoulash) did actually fix this, code over at https://gamehacking.org/game/89837 right at the top under duckstation. Should probably get merged into the emulator at some point.

A7038C0A 10621000

Problem I discovered with the game was that using the 60FPS patch, whether via the actual patch included in the emulator, or via the cheats (raw unlock FPS included), speeds up some of the game logic. The timing for your attacks halves, resulting in a much more difficult time trying to use the quick swings vs heavy swing. Same for the virtual mouse cursor accelerating. Not sure what else is affected.

Was trying to look up updated patches/cheats to find if anyone fixed this issue and ended up getting spoiled, so that was great.

But yeah, the game is quite a great experience on Duckstation; PGXP is amazing, having games run in proper widescreen (even ultrawide) is amazing, as well as having a higher framerate and well known game slowdowns fixable with overclocking. Just a shame that there are some issues with some things that somewhat sour the experience. Emulation today is objectively better than real hardware, and I love it.