[Silent Hill 2] Checklist of Remaining/Wishlist Fixes

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on October 17, 2017 23:59

(Note: This thread was made a few days before the creation of the SH2 Enhancements Repository)

I'm doing a play through of Silent Hill 2 again for the Enhanced Audio project and I was making mental notes of the remaining "wishlist" fixes and wanted to post them for posterity purposes.

Noted areas for improvement:

Discussion thread

• [ ] Fix "Eddie/Laura bowling scene" black fade out regardless if Fix2D or similar is on/off GIF example
• [ ] Have the game cursor (used for interacting with full screen images) default to center of the screen each time like the console versions. This is due to the cursor being off-screen whenever Fix2D and FullScreenImages are enabled in the Widescreen Fix. FIX IN PROGRESS Solution
• [ ] Fix luminescence of James, dress, and Mannequin in Room 205. A FIX HAS BEEN FOUND Discussion Post | Solution

Fixed!:

• [x] Integration of soft shadows
• [x] Shadows do not cast on dynamic (movable) objects (they do on the console versions) Discussion thread
• [x] Integration of PS2 quality sound files ("Enhanced Audio" project)
• [X] Game map & save screen fix: Currently, if you're on the streets of Silent Hill during the day time the pillar boxes are grey, not black. This is true for any area where the game has set the time of day to "day" (and not "night"). Image example | Discussion post There has been breakthrough discoveries in implementing high res, widescreen images for the game so this fix will be redundant if a HD image mod comes to fruition.
• [X] Game map & save screen fix: Currently, the markings on the maps and save file's floating, enlarged text are always visible and stay above the pillar boxes. They should be behind the pillar boxes. Video example There has been breakthrough discoveries in implementing high res, widescreen images for the game so this fix will be redundant if a HD image mod comes to fruition.
• [X] Game map fix: There are no pillar boxes at all whenever James transcribes notes onto his own map. (James transcribes notes onto his own map several times throughout the game.) You can see the game environment instead where the pillar boxes should be. Video example There has been breakthrough discoveries in implementing high res, widescreen images for the game so this fix will be redundant if a HD image mod comes to fruition.
• [x] Fix Lying Figure cutscene camera "pop" and looped animation Video example | Discussion thread
• [X] Integration of anti-aliasing (possibly done through SMAA?) Alternate solutions have been found for anti-aliasing which have been reflected in the Installation Guide.
• [x] Integration of WineD3D's fixes without having to use WineD3D (wise to do so?) It is no longer necessary to do this.
• [x] Adjust WSF to accommodate new 16:9 FMVs (currently there are still small pillar boxes when FMVWidescreenEnhancementPackCompatibility is turned on). Discussion thread
• [x] Fix bugged lighting sources for a few areas in the game Video Example 1 | 2 | Discussion thread
• [x] Increase draw distance for either just Woodside Apt 2F Hallway or whole game Video example | Solution
• [x] Adjust fixed camera angles in several spots to hide camera clipping through wall Discussion thread
• [x] Fix camera stutter in Hospital, 3F, Rm S3 Video example | Discussion thread
• [x] Remove one-frame flicker when an in-game cutscene changes to motion blur. (If not possible then have the option to disable the game's motion blur altogether then in the ini file?)
• [x] Keep hanging meat always "loaded in" during final Eddie confrontation cutscene. Video example | Discussion posts
• [x] Fix the very silly animation bug for when James gets on the rowboat. Video example | Solution
• [x] Implement language subtitle "packs" for the game? Discussion post
• [x] Fix loading zone color values for cemetery area to fix environment Quick Save load bug. Video example | Solution

Copied from original issue: elishacloud/dxwrapper#9

[elishacloud]

From @AeroWidescreen on October 19, 2017 19:9

Adjust WSF to accommodate new 16:9 FMVs (currently there are still small pillar boxes when FMVWidescreenEnhancementPackCompatibility is turned on).

ThirteenAG says he's going to take a look at it, so I'm guessing this should be fixed in the upcoming stable build. I'll let you know otherwise.

16x10FMVWidescreenEnhancementPackCompatibility and 16x9FMVWidescreenEnhancementPackCompatibility in case some people prefer to use the originals still?

The issue with that idea is there are some videos you didn't change at all, so if we were to reduce the width to pillarbox them again (16:10) then those videos would get squished in the process.

Alternatively, we could simply offer different downloads. One for angular_graphics' videos, and another for your edited videos. Then nothing with our scaling would have to be changed.

Black backdrop for pillar boxes when James is transcribing notes on his map

Make map markings and save screen wording hide behind pillar boxes (possible?)

I feel like we shouldn't spend time on this kind of stuff when we could be working towards a proper solution instead. In this case, replacing the save screen background with an extended version, and fixing the pillarboxing of the maps. Both easier said than done of course.

Fix "Eddie/Laura bowling scene" black fade out regardless if Fix2D or similar is on/off

I think I understand why the developers did what they did here. I believe the black overlay is used to emphasize Eddie's last bit of dialogue "Nobody will ever forgive me." while the cutscene appears to end. My solution skips the overlay entirely and goes straight into the transition, but that means the subtitles for that last bit are not visible and some of the emphasis is lost. I'll have to find another way.

Fix camera "pop" during "blood on the road" cutscene when ReduceCutsceneFOV is on

You already know what idea I have to fix this, so I'll let you know how it turns out as soon as I have a chance to test it.

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on October 19, 2017 19:23

The issue with that idea is there are some videos you didn't change at all, so if we were to reduce the width to pillarbox them again (16:10) then those videos would get squished in the process.

True. But the only ones I didn't change were the bonus trailers for SH2 & 3 not pertaining to the game themselves. However I do see your point. But...

Alternatively, we could simply offer different downloads. One for angular_graphics' videos, and another for your edited videos. Then nothing with our scaling would have to be changed.

Good point. So long as the user's resolution is set for 16:9 then our newly edited videos should play with no black bars anywhere (after ThirteenAG adjusts things) so long as they disable FMVWidescreenEnhancementPackCompatibility. Once we get a little further along I'll update the Installation Guide to offer both video formats and the installation instructions.

I feel like we shouldn't spend time on this kind of stuff when we could be working towards a proper solution instead. In this case, replacing the save screen background with an extended version, and fixing the pillarboxing of the maps. Both easier said than done of course.

I know that it may be nearly impossible to allow for different size/resolution full screen images due to complications you mentioned. That got me wondering about an alternative solution:

Could you combine several of your full screen fixes into one? Basically doing what I did for the 16:9 FMVs? So you'd zoom in on the full screen images as you've done to remove the letter boxing and then stretch the images horizontally ever-so-slightly to remove the pillar boxes. While there would be some image stretching you wouldn't crop off any of the images as what's currently being done to remove the pillar boxes, if that makes sense.

This may also fix the Hotel elevator button dilemma. But on that same note, there's no saying how the interactive full screen images would behave stretching them like that.

I think I understand why the developers did what they did here. I believe the black overlay is used to emphasize Eddie's last bit of dialogue "Nobody will ever forgive me."

You're probably right. Team Silent were masters at this. Notice how, when you first meet Eddie in the apartment bathroom, when he says, "Honest," it's extra loud compared to his other dialog? I always loved that little detail...

[elishacloud]

From @Bigmanjapan on March 19, 2018 18:27

Game map & save screen fix: Currently, if you're on the streets of Silent Hill during the day time the pillar boxes are grey, not black. This is true for any area where the game has set the time of day to "day" (and not "night"). Image Example.

Since the grey pillar boxes' color is actually a loading zone color, it is possible to change the color manually.

In my sh2pc.exe these three addresses hold RGB values for loading zone color:

sh2pc.exe+542C50 (00942C50) byte = red channel sh2pc.exe+542C51 (00942C51) byte = green channel sh2pc.exe+542C52 (00942C52) byte = blue channel

Setting them to 0 would output pure black loading zone color and therefore black pillars on map and save screen. You could make a function that would store loading zone color values upon opening map / save screen and swap them with zeros to make it black. Then load the stored loading zone color values back upon closing map / save screen. It's not an elegant solution but it could work.

[elishacloud]

From @Bigmanjapan on March 19, 2018 18:45

I also managed to investigate an issue with James' split animation during boat cutscene.

In my sh2pc.exe file this 4 byte address sh2pc.exe+4BB78C (008BB78C) holds a value of FFFFFFFF (4294967295) before the boat cutscene is triggered for the first time and it gets nullified (value is changed to 00000000) upon triggering the cutscene. It stays nulled afterwards. If you reload and manually change the value back to FFFFFFFF and then trigger the cutscene again — James animation won't be split.

I guess a solution here could be making a function that would do a conditional check of sh2pc.exe+4BB78C being 00000000 and changing it to FFFFFFFF in such case. Since I don't know if that address has any impact on the gameplay somewhere else apart from that boat scene, I would make such function based on current room index or something that could make the check work only in location after Eddie's boss arena and before the actual boat sequence (pier location).

Edit: or you could simply NOP the function during initial game launch but again, I don't know if that function is responsible for anything else in the game.

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on March 19, 2018 18:52

Mentioning @AeroWidescreen in this discussion.

@Bigmanjapan would you be able to find a way to keep the hanging meat loaded the entire time during this cutscene?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY5kRFLcYO8

Also, I didn't catch it at the time, but at the 0:35 mark in the video the meat directly behind Eddie also disappears.

[elishacloud]

From @mirh on March 19, 2018 19:14

Random stupid showerthought (aside of still thinking maybe this kind of stuff should go in the SH enhancement repo): there's a point where rewriting the engine starts to feel easier

[elishacloud]

From @Bigmanjapan on March 19, 2018 21:18

@jdkubiak what was the internal resolution in the game when you made that video? If I watch the cutscene in 1920x1080p internal resolution, then I won't observe the glitches you had.

https://youtu.be/Vt6zMl8aMJM (I have one glitch on 00:09 but I don't have ones you had)

Also your video is more "zoomed-in" than mine, which, I believe, is directly tied to the "meat" glitches. In SH speedrunning Discord server it was recently discovered that some camera aspects change depending on the resolution (making camera more tilted down if resolution is progressively lowered). I know how to control camera boundary boxes, trigger (switch) areas, projection, various rotations etc but I have no idea what is that dynamic parameter that is changed in accordance to resolution. Will search more.

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on March 19, 2018 21:33

The internal resolution is set to 320 x 240 on mine. I believe this is the reason why. This is in reference to how the camera wasn't positioned correctly in certain areas of the game when a higher resolution was used injunction with the Widescreen Fix. Here is one video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eiq3XdYot14

Edit: Yeah, I see what you mean about my cutscene being more zoomed in now. Must be directly tied to the much smaller resolution.

[elishacloud]

From @AeroWidescreen on March 19, 2018 21:41

@Bigmanjapan

it was recently discovered that some camera aspects change depending on the resolution (making camera more tilted down if resolution is progressively lowered).

This was changed in the widescreen fix to have the camera always behave the way it does in 640x480. I don't know if that's the cause of this issue though.

@jdkubiak

Edit: Yeah, I see what you mean about my cutscene being more zoomed in now. Must be directly tied to the much smaller resolution.

Are you sure it's not because you have ReduceCutsceneFOV enabled?

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on March 19, 2018 21:53

Are you sure it's not because you have ReduceCutsceneFOV enabled?

Ah! So many variables! Yes, that was the issue. When I disabled ReduceCutsceneFOV my camera was zoomed the same as @Bigmanjapan .

More importantly, when ReduceCutsceneFOV was disabled the "meat glitch" didn't happen except for one quick instance that is seen in Bigmanjapan's video at the 0:09 mark: https://youtu.be/Vt6zMl8aMJM

@AeroWidescreen is there a way to disable ReduceCutsceneFOV just for this particular cutscene whether it's enabled or not by the user?

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on March 19, 2018 21:55

*I personally think that quick glitch at the 0:09 mark is acceptable to not worry about if ReduceCutsceneFOV can be disabled for the entirety of the cutscene. That particular glitch at 0:09 is so fast, and at the edge of the screen, I wouldn't consider it to have a major impact on the tone/mood of the cutscene. And if advanced fog is enabled it would be even harder to notice.

[elishacloud]

From @Bigmanjapan on March 19, 2018 22:10

@AeroWidescreen I see, that's interesting. Seems that 640x480 camera fix solves more issues than it creates, so no point in fixing meat glitches by reverting it back to default. I will just in case try to adjust camera angles' values via game files to fix that one gitch at 0:09.

[elishacloud]

From @Bigmanjapan on March 19, 2018 22:37

Have the cursor (used for interacting with full screen images) default to center of the user's screen/resolution each time

Do you want to mimic a consoles' pointer which is always initially centered?

As far as I can tell on PC version mouse pointer's travel area is limited by 640x480 (512x480 visible area) size regardless of set resolution (pointer area gets "stretched" on screen area created by resolution). I guess it wouldn't be much of a problem to find a check that game engine has on entering 2D events (inventory, map, puzzles etc). Set mouse pointer coordinates to 256x240 each time the check is performed.

sh2pc.exe+541358 (00941358) = pointer horizontal position sh2pc.exe+54135C (0094135C) = pointer vertical position

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on March 19, 2018 22:55

Do you want to mimic a consoles' pointer which is always initially centered?

That may be preferable. This fix was suggested because when both Fix2D and FullscreenImages are enabled the cursor is initially completely off screen (this is because the fullscreen images are scaled to crop the letter boxing) during the first interactible fullscreen image.

You have to start moving the cursor around randomly until it comes back into view. But if the cursor was always centered by default you wouldn't have to wonder which direction the cursor is hiding off screen.

Here was the original thread on scaling the fullscreen images: https://github.com/ThirteenAG/WidescreenFixesPack/issues/337

[elishacloud]

From @AeroWidescreen on March 19, 2018 23:1

@Bigmanjapan By the way, I think the solution you're proposing for the boat animation is great. I gave it a look a few weeks ago, but I had no luck finding anything. If I remember correctly, each cutscene has its own number assigned to it: 00, 01, 02, 03, etc. so changing the value back for that one cutscene should be trivial.

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on March 23, 2018 15:53

@AeroWidescreen I may be completely off with my understanding of this but if you'd humor a non-programmer/-modder's thoughts:

So the internal resolution of the game's camera determines how severe the meat glitch is, yes? Meaning, if I were NOT using the WSF, and had the game's resolution set to something very small like 320 x 240, a lot of the hanging meat would disappear because it would be actually be off-camera in that tiny resolution? And so the larger the resolution the more meat will show due to the increase in camera size?

And the way the WSF works is that while the projection I'm seeing is 1920 x 1080 the game is "rendering" the environment under the pretense of 640 x 480? (Apologies for probably grossly minimizing this concept.)

You mentioned how you adjusted this to fix prevalent camera bugs while in-game here.

That fix was to alleviate "live" camera angles; ones that change on-the-fly depending on how you move James. Because the Eddie cutscene uses "pre-made" camera angles (the player can't adjust these) can you tell the WSF to temporarily change the internal resolution from 640 x 480 to something larger while this cutscene plays (by using the cutscene's unique identifier)? Then, when the cutscene ends, the WSF goes back to using 640 x 480 like before?

Again, I may be totally off mark here with all of this but if any of this is remotely how the WSF works/fixes things could that be a possibility to fix the meat glitch?

EDIT: This is all under the notion of a player having ReduceCutsceneFOV activated.

[elishacloud]

From @Bigmanjapan on April 5, 2018 15:58

By the way it is possible to make SH2 PC builds display Japanese language if you replace .mes files with those from an Xbox original build. Could make it a part of the project.

[elishacloud]

From @mirh on April 5, 2018 16:17

I don't know a thing about how this game works, but if any the target should just be have independent interface/subtitles/dubbing language.

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on April 5, 2018 16:29

By the way it is possible to make SH2 PC display japanese language if you replaced .mes files with those from Xbox ISOs. Could make it a part of the project.

Nice! If you wouldn't mind sharing the .mes file I can add this as an option to the Installation Guide at a later date.

Are there additional language options for the subtitles as well in the Xbox version? (I no longer own an original Xbox to test...) Would the European Xbox releases have more language options than the North American versions?

[elishacloud]

From @Bigmanjapan on April 5, 2018 19:42

Are there additional language options for the subtitles as well in the Xbox version? (I no longer own an original Xbox to test...) Would the European Xbox releases have more language options than the North American versions?

As far as I remember Xbox versions work just like PS2 versions when it comes to language selection. NTSC-U and NTSC-J versions of both platforms have Japanese and English language available to select in Options menu. PAL versions of both patfroms have English, French, German, Italian, Spanish.

NTSC-U PC version have Japanese language "cut" and only have English available and PC PAL version have English, French, German, Italian, Spanish.

The thing is, these language selection restrictions are artificial. Every region version of every platfrom has all message files in their file structure and it is possible to select any language including Japanese by bypassing language selector restriction via memory editor.

There is an issue with PC build tho. Japanse message files in PC builds are "empty" and render Japanese text to "??? ??? ?????" signs. Transfering Japanese message files from an Xbox build solves this issue.

One additional issue with PC build is that there is no japanese text for PC menu (which appears when you press Esc button during gameplay), since there is no such menu on console versions and PC build was never released in Japan. Someone would have to make translations for menus and find a way to inject them into game's message file structure.

This video shows how easy it is to hack language selector and issues with original Japanese message files (this is done on NTSC-U version which only have English available by default): https://youtu.be/n3W73pCOZIc

Nice! If you wouldn't mind sharing the .mes file I can add this as an option to the Installation Guide at a later date.

Xbox_japanese_mes_files.zip

In conclusion, first step would be unlocking language selector by modyfing sh2pc.exe to provide access to all languages, second step would be adding lacking Japanese texts in the game's message structure.

Language selector address: sh2pc.exe+19BC006 (01DBC006) byte Values are: 0=Japanese, 1=English, 2=French, 3=German, 4=Italian, 5=Spanish

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on April 5, 2018 20:4

Thanks for this info! Accessibility to non-English speakers (Japanese in this case) would be very beneficial. With fans all around the world, inclusiveness would be great.

In conclusion, first step would be unlocking language selector by modyfing sh2pc.exe to provide access to all languages

So if this can be unlocked could users simply click the < and > arrows beside the language choice to switch? (The same as adjusting other options.) Theoretically it wouldn't crash the game or anything?

second step would be adding lacking Japanese texts in the game's message structure.

Would that be as simple as dropping the Japanese message files back into the PC game's directory? Or would there be more steps involved?

I understand now. I just saw all the different language .mes files under /data/etc/message/ . Each file ends in e (English), f (French), g (German), i (Italian), and j (Japanese).

[elishacloud]

From @Bigmanjapan on April 5, 2018 20:32

So if this can be unlocked could users simply click the < and > arrows beside the language choice to switch? (The same as adjusting other options.) Theoretically it wouldn't crash the game or anything?

In theory, yes. Languages should be switchable via game's own "<" and ">" buttons without any crashes. I do that in the video via memory scanner and game doesn't crash, no reason why it would crash once language selector is "unbound".

Would that be as simple as dropping the Japanese message files back into the PC game's directory? Or would there be more steps involved?

I don't know yet. I (or someone else) would have to see from what files menu polls it's text data and try to change it as an experiment.

To confirm: Your title screen shows "Director's Cut" on the logo. Do you mean that you are using NTSC .exe with a PAL install of the game?

I always thought that if there is an aura around texts in main menu, then it is an NTSC build, if there is a plain text, then it's a PAL build.

Either way, my build have only English available by default, so it should be NTSC one regardless of logo in the main menu.

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on April 5, 2018 20:50

I always thought that if there is an aura around texts in main menu, then it is an NTSC build, if there is a plain text, then it's a PAL build.

I believe you are correct. But if you install the PAL version then swap out the .exe with the NTSC version you will keep the PAL menu background image but have the NTSC "fat" menu font. But the "fat" menu font is the only true menu font for this game. :)

@AeroWidescreen if this can be looked in to and patched in the WSF (or patching the actual .exe? But that would require people using only the .exe provided) I can include the corrected Japanese message files (after they've been tested) as a packaged download with the .exe on the Installation Guide no-CD step.

[elishacloud]

From @Bigmanjapan on April 7, 2018 9:58

More importantly, when ReduceCutsceneFOV was disabled the "meat glitch" didn't happen except for one quick instance that is seen in Bigmanjapan's video at the 0:09 mark:

What about increasing FOV slightly for that cutscene? Seems to solve the issue entirely: https://youtu.be/3z_9o7atcFc

It is probably possible to increase FOV even less (to stay closer to the original) than I did to solve the issue.

@jdkubiak @AeroWidescreen

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on April 7, 2018 15:28

Nice! How much could the FOV be decreased (to stay closer to the original) while preserving all the hanging meat? Is there a set threshold/limit?

[elishacloud]

From @Bigmanjapan on April 11, 2018 16:33

In my tests the minimum amount of change needed for the meat to be loaded in fast enough is 12%.

Original FOV is 1.147019982. New FOV is 1.147019982 * 0.88 =1,00937758416

[elishacloud]

From @AeroWidescreen on April 14, 2018 0:29

So for the cursor starting position, how about we modify the vertical boundaries so that it can't go off-screen to begin with? I was hesitant to do it before because I wasn't able to fix the other mouse problems until now.

Original value = 240 New value = 190

Vert Mouse Boundary (fullscreen images) 006B2210 43340000 // 190.0f 004A2D6C 000000B4 // 190 integer

Vert Gamepad Boundary (fullscreen images) 006B001C C3340000 // -190.0f 004A314F C3340000 // -190.0f 004A2DD2 C3340000 // -190.0f

@Bigmanjapan

In my tests the minimum amount of change needed for the meat to be loaded in fast enough is 12%.

Original FOV is 1.147019982. New FOV is 1.147019982 * 0.88 =1,00937758416

Sorry, I forgot all about this. Too many topics right now. I'll see about this soon.

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on April 14, 2018 19:0

how about we modify the vertical boundaries so that it can't go off-screen to begin with?

The primary purpose of centering the cursor was to help players if their cursor stayed off-screen from a previous puzzle, so if you can prevent it from going off screen to begin with then that would be an even better solution to the issue!

Never realized that could've been a solution; nice one, Aero.

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on April 28, 2018 18:59

I'm recording footage for the upcoming, updated demonstration trailer showcasing more of the game's fixes and am currently capturing how ReduceCutsceneFOV benefits the game. It especially helps with most of the ending cutscenes.

Anyways, while recording, I think I found the true monster of Silent Hill 2, lol! Pay attention to Jame's jaw, or lack thereof: https://youtu.be/8cxeUV1ianQ ^ Ending spoilers in the video

Just sharing for laughs. :)

[elishacloud]

From @Bigmanjapan on April 29, 2018 14:51

Never seen body parts disappear like that but I gotta tell you, once you skin Eddie's textures on James model — that is also a worthy nightmare material.

Does anyone here possess a physical SH2 PC NTSC copy? I mean a yellow box version, either small or big one (http://crimson-ceremony.net/lostreleases/item.php?id=shgame_sh2dc-pc-usa1 / http://crimson-ceremony.net/lostreleases/item.php?id=shgame_sh2dc-pc-usa2)

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on April 29, 2018 16:22

Does anyone here possess a physical SH2 PC NTSC copy?

I own a copy. Do you need an unmodified copy of the NTSC's .exe? Or other files from it? Just let me know.

[elishacloud]

From @Bigmanjapan on April 29, 2018 17:8

I need images of all 3 CDs made via Alcohol120% with "Securom NEW 4/5/7" Datatype option selected.

[elishacloud]

From @AeroWidescreen on April 29, 2018 17:44

Anyways, while recording, I think I found the true monster of Silent Hill 2, lol! Pay attention to Jame's jaw, or lack thereof:

Still not as nightmare inducing as Maria's eye teeth from the HD collection. ugh

[elishacloud]

From @Polymega on April 29, 2018 19:6

@Bigmanjapan send me a message through this contact form: http://www.igotaletter.com/siteinfo/contact/

Still not as nightmare inducing as Maria's eye teeth from the HD collection. ugh

lol! Indeed! One day I want to catalog all the weird, dumb, and overall stupid things the HD Collection did to SH2 & 3 in website article form.

[elishacloud]

In case you missed it, we put a fix into d3d8to9 for the red tint issue in the FMVs when using Intel GPUs.

[elishacloud]

Issued Moved from dxwrapper / Checklist of Remaining/Wishlist Fixes

Everyone, I am moved this issue from the dxwrapper project. Not all of the comments get moved.

You can reference any of the old comments here.

@Polymega @AeroWidescreen @Bigmanjapan @mirh @lakeviewhotel @Nisto

[Bigmanjapan]

@Polymega

Apparently the boat glitch is present even on PS2 builds? Was doing some research on SLPM-65098 and the glitch occured:

https://youtu.be/LcAVQMdTino

[Polymega]

Oh wow. I also noticed the "Maria" ending is glitched on SLUS-20228GH when I played it through PCSX2. I wonder if it's the emulator causing these issues or we just totally missed these growing up?

[AeroWidescreen]

@elishacloud So what did you want to do with the widescreen fix? Add all the non-widescreen features to this project? Completely integrate the entire thing?

I much rather keep the widescreen fix as its own thing, but I don't know how open source development works in that regard or what the proper etiquette is.

Edit: So basically Elisha is merging all the different mods into one for convenience. Widescreen Fix will continue to be it's own thing; he'll basically do a pull to keep this project up-to-date with the latest changes. OK, got it.

[Polymega]

Check your email when you have moment please, Aero. There's some previous messages Elisha had questions about.

[AeroWidescreen]

I see, I had no clue, sorry. Will start reading to catch-up...

[Bigmanjapan]

@Polymega Same issue on SLPM-65098 on PCSX2. Also Aaron confirmed that the glitch in Maria ending cutscene happens on a real PS2.

Edit: Numzombie provided a screenshot of the cutscene on Xbox:

[Polymega]

:open_mouth: How is that something I forgot happened?! The cool news is, for the SH2 PC naysayers out there, that this is yet another great example of why the PC version is becoming the defacto way to play this game in HD then.

[Polymega]

Apparently the boat glitch is present even on PS2 builds? Was doing some research on SLPM-65098 and the glitch occured:

@Bigmanjapan A random thought just now: While doing testing on my real PS2 I've been doing a lot of soft game resets (holding L1 + L2 + R1 + R2 + Start + Select) to save time. I wonder if you also did a soft reset after getting on the boat and, upon getting on the boat again, is how you replicated the issue? I'm not at home to test but I bet that's how it happened.

[Bigmanjapan]

@Polymega I didn't use soft resets during my recent playthroughs on PCSX2. It's either one continuous boot or fully restarting the emulator.

[Polymega]

Huh. Well that's even weirder then. Not that it is ultimately of concern for our purposes here (being on the PS2 version and all), but I just happened to think about your discovery again today.

[angularGraphics]

Hello community! "angular graphics" here of "FMV Widescreen Enhancement Pack" fame (and my lame "modern compatibility" bundle of fixes which has since been well superseded).

Excellent work on improving the PC port! Since I made my pack, I've been checking the progress of fixes and improvements, like once or twice every year, and I've always been pleasantly surprised.. But since last time I checked, I see there has been a lot more work done. Like, A LOT MORE. And everything is super organized and people collaborate and.. WOW. Great community!

So for a long time now I've been meaning to redo my FMV pack.. I'm aware of at least 1 glitched frame in it and in general I would try to make it look better, less glitchy, maybe smaller, etc. And I think it was last year that I redid 1/3rd of it, but then I gave up for one reason or another.. One of them, I seem to remember, was that even with the improved FMVs, the PC version was still somewhat noticeably inferior to the PS2 version emulated. But now that I see the sounds have been ported among other improvements, perhaps it's time to give this another try..

My question is are there any requests you have about a v2.0?

Like, should I aim for ~720p again? (I think so.) Should the aspect ratio be slightly stretched, as the variant which I see has been created? Is there demand for a max file size? Or whatever else you might be thinking.

Let me know! There's no hurry, as if I end up doing it, it will probably take me quite some time.

[mirh]

Remember me why we just cannot hack in the original pristine files, rather than go the dirty recompressing way?

EDIT: as for your procedure I guess like it could be streamlined with this

[angularGraphics]

• PC version reads bink files, until one makes it read mpeg2 the re-compression step is necessary.
• There's potential to improve upon the PS2 source videos.

edit Regarding Vidsquish, looks like a tool that can help with resizing, stretching, and cropping, but there were far more steps than those involved in making the first version of the pack and I'd rather do everything manually anyway.

[Polymega]

Hi @angularGraphics ,

Thanks for stopping by! To start:

but there were far more steps than those involved in making the first version of the pack and I'd rather do everything manually anyway.

Many thanks for all that you did for the FMV Enhancement Pack. When I was doing the 16:9 stretched variants of the videos I first took the source PS2 .mpeg files and blew them up to 720p and they looked no where near as nice as yours. It's obvious you spent a lot of TLC with making them look the best they can be. I also read your notes on the matter sometime back and am thoroughly impressed at everything you did to get them looking as nice as they do.

Next up: Do you have a website and/or contact method you'd like me to include on the Installation Guide? Right now I'm linking to your defunct NeoGAF account as that was all I could find on you.

But since last time I checked, I see there has been a lot more work done. Like, A LOT MORE. And everything is super organized and people collaborate and.. WOW. Great community!

Thanks! There is a wealth of wonderful people all contributing to fixes and improvements for the game spearheaded mostly by @elishacloud , @AeroWidescreen , and @Bigmanjapan . These guys are my heroes!

I'm aware of at least 1 glitched frame in it and in general I would try to make it look better, less glitchy, maybe smaller, etc.

I actually fixed this one for you. If you download your FMV pack from the Installation Guide's page it'll have that single frame removed from the video file. It still plays fine without it.

One of them, I seem to remember, was that even with the improved FMVs, the PC version was still somewhat noticeably inferior to the PS2 version emulated. But now that I see the sounds have been ported among other improvements, perhaps it's time to give this another try..

With the exception of the PC's videos being 30 fps vs. PS2's 60 your conversions are really top notch. Both being played in-game and the comparison photos you included in your download package, they look virtually indistinguishable to their PS2 counterparts. And really, it doesn't matter how it's done or what format they're in: So long as the PC version can play them without issue and they look indistinguishable from the source files then it gets the job done.

My question is are there any requests you have about a v2.0? [...] There's potential to improve upon the PS2 source videos.

If there's any possibility for them to be at 60 fps (without cheating the process like trying to time blend source 30 fps files) that'd be my personal request. Besides that, as I said, your videos already look primo. But if you know of additional potential improvements you can do and are feeling motivated by the surge of other enhancements going on then I say do your magic once more!

Like, should I aim for ~720p again? (I think so.) Should the aspect ratio be slightly stretched, as the variant which I see has been created? Is there demand for a max file size?

I definitely suggest keeping them in a 16:9 ratio. Perhaps offer variants for users to choose from? Me personally, I don't mind minor image cropping to remove pillar bars. But I wouldn't want the videos stretched. But I know others who wouldn't want any cropping or stretching at all.

Or whatever else you might be thinking.

The only possible concern that came to my mind is @ThirteenAG and @AeroWidescreen made custom code in their Widescreen Fix project to accommodate displaying your current FMV Enhancement Pack correctly. I'm not sure how that would affect a newer version if size/resolution would be changed. They'd be best suited to answer this.