Silent Hill 2 PC

[mrk]

Ray Reconstruction in a better comparison:

Edit*

And new HDR, this time spent more time tweaking the settings for HDR and man, in areas like this it pops. True Black 400 mode on the monitor is the most accurate across the entire panel, and to my eyes is more pleasing than the peak highlights of 1000 nits mode. It is known though that the AW3225QF has a better black level range when in the 400 mode so this makes sense.

 

[mrk]

Is this game locked at wide-screen? My monitor is a slightly weird resolution of 3840x2560 and that option is available in the list of resolutions in game but when the game loads up it's still letterboxed 16:9
I've also tried forcing the resolution in the steam parameters but it stays the same?

It's a non standard res, could be UE5 isn't scaled for such a resolution, you could try the fix geared for cutscenes which may apply to gameplay as well:

Release Silent Hill 2 (2024) cutscene improvements · RoseTheFlower/UltrawideIndex

The solutions remove the black bars from the cutscenes in anything other than 16:9 and unlock the FPS from 30. Download the preferred archive(s) below. Unpack to \SHProto\Binaries\Win64\ inside th...

github.com

Quite likes this game, the atmosphere is nice, graphics are very good, performance is a bit meh, I had DLSS Balanced, I went into advanced and set rendering to 50% (not sure if I should have or if it does anything) and I'm not sure if that made much performance difference, I'm streaming from my desktop to my Ally onto my TV at 4k 60, performance was around 60 sometimes below but that seemed ok. Wouldn't mind frame gen, perhaps might try lossless scaling.

It turns out resolution scaling setting makes no difference if an upscaler is being used, so using DLSS makes the scaling setting defunct.

The main issue is traversal stutter I think.

I'm 6 hours in, at the hospital.

Never played Silent Hill 2 before (despite being a big Playstation gamer back in the day) so am enjoying it. It's not dissimilar to Resident Evil 2 remake really.

Though with less action I guess.

I'm 8 hours into the story and also half way through the hospital, it is now night outside and the hospital has power, it's a different experience here now compared to the yellow sunlight shining through the windows covered in newspaper from earlier. According to Steam I've "played" 17 hours but I suspect the game's timer counts active playtime of the main story only whereas Steam counts the total hours inc how long the game has been open etc.

I like that James gets dirtier as time goes on:

 

[mrk]

No Diddy.

 

[mrk]

My review is up, I think I covered all bases

Silent Hill 2 PC Review—The definitive way to re-visit the foggiest town ever seen

Online opinions were divided when Bloober Team released early footage of the remake. Many were sure it would be a failure, but in reality, it is easily GOTY material from what I've experienced.

www.neowin.net

 

[mrk]

Only if you pay the Steam price, it's £42 on cdkeys^

 

[mrk]

Great review mate apart from the (deliberate!?) spelling mistake LOL "compared to other games with arrifical lighting bathing a whole scene"

That's just the accent


Fixed!

just one question how do i see how much health i have?

You don't!

Though there is a mod:

Classic Health Indicator

Changes the full on-screen blood effect to the classic cross indicator.

www.nexusmods.com

 

[mrk]

Sh2 on PS2 running at 8K render so much higher texture quality than stock:

Vs the remake:

The inside of James' car:

James inside a bit he should not be

 

[mrk]

Just left Brookhaven Hospital and man, what a ride. The audio score and effects are sensational. Whack up the volume on your hifi speakers or headphones because every ounce of sound is directed just right.

I'll do a replay once a patch is out and experience one of the other 8 endings I guess once I'm done with the first run.

 

[mrk]

CPU mod out that seems to greatly help mitigate much of the traversal stutter or frametime issues with the engine currently:

Anti-Stutter - High CPU and Disk Priority - Silent Hill 2

Simple registry edit to enable High CPU and Disk Priority for the Silent Hill 2 executable. This can help with performance on weaker CPUs and slower disks. Helps reduce stuttering on all CPUs and disk

www.nexusmods.com

Before

• Average framerate : 53.0 FPS
• Minimum framerate : 42.2 FPS
• Maximum framerate : 63.5 FPS
• 1% low framerate : 37.8 FPS
• 0.1% low framerate : 31.4 FPS

After

• Average framerate : 65.7 FPS
• Minimum framerate : 53.7 FPS
• Maximum framerate : 80.8 FPS
• 1% low framerate : 36.5 FPS
• 0.1% low framerate : 28.3 FPS

This is in an unusually demanding area after Brookhaven chasing Laura. I am also using ray reconstruction mod so 10fps lost via that too.

 

[mrk]

This mod:

Ultra Plus Fixes and Visual Improvements

An all-in-one fix for stutter, particle trails, fog noise, and reflections with visual improvements. 100% of donations go to Wildlife Society.

www.nexusmods.com

Adjusts the black floor and makes it properly suitable on OLED now.

Before:

After:

Edit* that is SDR btw, not HDR, if playing HDR then leave stock as it's excellent and instead use the other mod that fixes most performance issues people are seeing.

 

[mrk]

The phone camera does overexpose slightly even when manually controlling the exposure, but the difference between the two is clear even with the overexposure on the after shot too.

 

[mrk]

This mod is probably even better as it addresses a lot of internal caching and pipeline issues that can/do cause frametime and CPU utilisation problems:

SH2 - SPF

The ultimate solution to low performance and stuttering without reducing visual quality (plus extras).

www.nexusmods.com

I'm using it now instead of the other one and there are far fewer traversal stutters and when there are, they are less noticeable.

Also, these guys can literally do one!

Even though I was playing on stereo speakers then not headphones, I was still able to pinpoint from the scuttling and noise where it was coming from and dodge just in time. The sound in this game is among the best I have ever heard for spatial positioning without having to use any fancy software or tech you need to pay for (cough Cyberpunk with that 3D audio update cough).

Edit*

Neat stat!

 

[mrk]

I've completely fixed the black floor lift in this game without any mods btw in HDR by simply spending some time figuring out the optimum HDR ingame settings so no need for reshade, plus I dislike reshade

 

[mrk]

What GPU!

 

[mrk]

Nice, I think I am on the last level, the bit with the square that rotates, highly annoying lol.

 

[mrk]

Mod on nexus to restore the OG gangsta James jacket

Also now at Lakeview Hotel and the Ray reconstruction really shows off its capability here, was also able to test properly that it works using software Lumen too so you don't actually have to be using the hardware RT ingame option option to benefit it seems.

Also a mod for the classic health drink bottles:

Classic Health Drink

Retexture mod which makes the health drink look like in the SH2 from 2001

www.nexusmods.com

 

[mrk]

Please leave your settings here so I can copy them in a few months when I buy the game half price

This is for HDR TB400 mode so refine them if you're on Peak 1000. I'm all about accuracy and tonal range so TB400 for all HDR on the 32" whereas Peak 1000 on the 34" AW didn't have the range issue the 32 does.

 

[mrk]

By the way, Steam screenshots are correctly SDR tonemapped when playing in HDR, sure I mentioned before but repeating again

 

[mrk]

I got the Maria ending, won't bother playing a new game+ and will watch the other endings on youtube. Overall a great thrill and Lakeview Hotel was obviously the best part of the game with the most horros and jumpy bits which were mostly excellent. I also am chuffed I sat there figuring out the music box there although I never found where a spare bulb was for the vanity mirror broken bulb and what that actually was all about

Can't beat the steel pipe

Oh yeah, was this a The Shining reference?

 

[mrk]

This commentary of each ending is great for those who also don't want to replay: