Silent Hill 4: The Room.. The Graphics.. They Same for you?

[ortucis]

Only Silent Hill I have played is SH3 (which I loved.. along with the movie) so I finally bought SH4 and loaded up to find the game looking like.. well, this:

There is a way to force widescreen res but no way to change FOV so I am playing on 1280x960 res anyway. But the point is, is it just me or are the visuals like this for everyone? All screenshots I find on web are of low res as well so my guess is that this game just manages to look like shittier version of SH3. I know SH3 had blurry textures as well but it still looks better than SH4 so far.

Also the game is buggy. I had to change the resolution when playing to see anything when I started the game. I was sitting there staring at the dark screen for like a min when I realised that the game didn't hang or was loading, it just wasnt showing me black.

Pretty fucked up since the developers are the same. Probably the one year gap between SH3 and SH4 (like DA2 and Origins) is the reason.

 

[lightbane]

Fun fact: The Room originally was not mean to be a Silent Hill game, and it shows.

 

[ortucis]

Figures. All it's missing is John Cusack.

 

[Multidirectional]

Most of the actual game does not happen in The Room, and it looks a lot better. Think of the room as a safehouse that is involved in the actual gameplay. That is, shit happens there from time to time.
And how did you find a way to force widescreen? I need this due to overscan problems on my TV should I use 1024x768. It's been a while and I wouldn't mind giving this game a fresh look on da big-ass screen. It's one of those hugely flawed but hardly forgettable games for me.
And what the fuck, PLAY SILENT HILL 2 already. It still looks pretty, especially indoors.

 

[ortucis]

For widescreen gaming, just search for "Gamename+widescreengaming".

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/fo ... 31&t=20575

I visit that site regularly.

As for SH2. I only bought SH4 and Homecoming, didn't find SH1 or 2 in the store so will have to search for them later. :/

 

[Multidirectional]

Thanks. Even though widescreengamingforum is exactly where I fruitlessly looked a while ago.
I doubt you can buy SH1 PC in the store, it's a fanmade port done with emulator as far as I know. I simply use image file with emulator myself.

 

[Micmu]

PLAY SILENT HILL 2

No; fuck graphics, download some PSX emulator and play Silent Hill 1 first.

"SH"4 as a standalone game isn't that bad either, has some nice twists and weird-going-ons. I especially liked the room itself, creepy stuff that goes on there. Every time you come back, something changes. The subway SUCKS.
It is not up to par to Silent Hill, though.
And that "SH" 5 thing... wow.. just wow... avoid!!

 

[Satori (original)]

I especially liked the room itself, creepy stuff that goes on there. Every time you come back, something changes.

Deffo, really atmospheric and claustrophic. Remember to use the candles in the haunted parts of the room later on to get the best ending.

 

[Multidirectional]

PLAY SILENT HILL 2

No; fuck graphics, download some PSX emulator and play Silent Hill 1 first.

There's absolutely no need to play it first though, except for the setting they are completely unrelated. He definitely should play it eventually of course. A fine example of a game with shitty graphics and low audio quality that is scary as fuck nonetheless.

 

[spekkio]

low audio quality

 

[Multidirectional]

low audio quality

Do you have a version with good audio quality? It would be awesome, sound design and soundtrack is great in SH1.

 

[Arem]

Re: Silent Hill 4: The Room.. The Graphics.. They Same for y

http://i56.tinypic.com/1qfleb.jpg
http://i52.tinypic.com/21ln87n.jpg

I am playing on 1280x960 res anyway.

That looks more like upscaled 640x480.

There is a way to force widescreen res but no way to change FOV

True, but if you use Cheat Engine from that WSGF link, you can force the game to render in say 1920x1440 (4:3) and let it display only 1920x1200 on screen. The bottom part will be cut off, but the image won't be stretched. You will probably have to disable postprocessing and dynamic shadows.

 

[Satori (original)]

Do you have a version with good audio quality? It would be awesome, sound design and soundtrack is great in SH1.

They've released the soundtracks if you're interested.

 

[ortucis]

Re: Silent Hill 4: The Room.. The Graphics.. They Same for y

http://i56.tinypic.com/1qfleb.jpg
http://i52.tinypic.com/21ln87n.jpg

I am playing on 1280x960 res anyway.

That looks more like upscaled 640x480.

It is.. because the game keeps on reseting my ingame res to 640x480.

I just noticed it, ffs. Didn't have such issues with SH3 so how they messed up this one is a mystery. TBH it doesn't look any better at higher res. On my 24" monitor I can still see all the jaggies like the upscaled pic no matter how much AA (with transperency AA) I force.


EDIT: Actually, ingame res stays at 1280x960 but the screenshots always come out at 640x480. Weird.

 

[ghostdog]

It's a real shame about the graphics of SH4, I don't know how they fucked it up. What especially bothered me is how washed up all the colors looked, a classic problem with a bad PS2 port.

And it's strange , since SH3 at least had a very good engine and looked much better than this. Hell, I'm playing SH2 now in 1920x1080 (with a wscreen hack) and it looks way better than this.

But WTF man, you played SH3 and 4 first ? It's like getting into the Ultima series by playing IX first. Really, you should play SH1 and 2.

 

[Arem]

Re: Silent Hill 4: The Room.. The Graphics.. They Same for y

http://i56.tinypic.com/1qfleb.jpg
http://i52.tinypic.com/21ln87n.jpg

I am playing on 1280x960 res anyway.

That looks more like upscaled 640x480.

It is.. because the game keeps on reseting my ingame res to 640x480.

I just noticed it, ffs. Didn't have such issues with SH3 so how they messed up this one is a mystery. TBH it doesn't look any better at higher res. On my 24" monitor I can still see all the jaggies like the upscaled pic no matter how much AA (with transperency AA) I force.


EDIT: Actually, ingame res stays at 1280x960 but the screenshots always come out at 640x480. Weird.

There should be a CheckSpec.dll file in the game directory, rename or delete it and see if the resolution sticks then. I think I had to do the same.

 

[ortucis]

So that's what it does. I deleted it already since someone mentioned deleting it in some forum post, but I didn't bother searching for what it did (I assumed it was for checking system specs on each start).

Anyways, know of any mods for this game? Visual enhancements maybe?

 

[Ivan]

 

[Venser]

Fun fact: The Room originally was not mean to be a Silent Hill game, and it shows.

Silent Hill 2 also wasn't meant to be a Silent Hill game originally and it's the best one in the series.

 

[Wunderbar]

The first Silent Hill game also wasn't meant to be a Silent Hill game originally.

 

[ghostdog]

IMO Silent Hill 1 is the best game, the atmosphere, survival feeling, psychological horror, are the best in the series. Akira Yamaika never managed to make such superb sound design in the sequels, probably because he focused on the soundtrack (which of course isn't a bad thing).

Sh2 is really great too, and I can understand why people usually like it more. It's probably the first SH game they played, the story was more straightforward and it had pretty good graphics. On the other hand SH1 had dated graphics, even for PSX, and was obscure in every way.

Still, playing SH1 was one of my most unique experiences in gaming. I don't think there's a game that handles psychological horror as good as this one.

 

[Roguey]

Silent Hill 2 also wasn't meant to be a Silent Hill game originally and it's the best one in the series.

Responding to a post from 2011, but that's a myth http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/features/konami_interview_sep04.asp

They wanted to do something different instead of rehash Silent 2 which is what all western devs want to do.

Never got around to playing it even though I wanted to, guess I'll get on that in the near-future.

 

[Ghulgothas]

This release is a pleasant surprise but you guys’ reservations have made me unsure. This isn’t HD Collection-levels of fucked up is it?

Edit: I mean more than just bugs and resolution troubles, since those’re endemic to every classic SH game not run on PlayStation.

 

[Wunderbar]

Mister Familiar it's just an old PC port, with fan-made 15 fps lock patch and GOG's own wrapper for widescreen resolutions.

 

[schru]

Never got around to playing it even though I wanted to, guess I'll get on that in the near-future.

It's best to emulate SH2 and 4 as the PC ports have various omissions and inferior effect substitutes. From what I recall, when using PCSX2, SH4 looks right only in the software renderer, though perhaps that has changed since I tried emulating it.