sh23ds v0.2.0

An experimental build with a new two-screen interface, reworked controls and a round of console fixes. Most of it was shaped by the first runs on a New 3DS, and some of the console fixes below still wait for a retest on hardware, so expect rough edges and please report what you find.

The two screens

• Every list now lives on the touch screen and the thing you picked shows on top: the item's model and text, the chosen save file, the setting, the memo, the map. Nothing is drawn twice.
• The touch screen takes the look of the PC's menus, with the red selection band, film grain and button prompts that show the button each action is bound to.
• The play page has the mini map, James' condition, the weapon in hand (tap it for the next one) and your healing items as quick slots.
• Messages and subtitles are on the top screen by default. The Advanced Options can move them back to the touch screen.

Controls

• The D-Pad walks James like the Circle Pad, in every direction no action uses. On the New 3DS that's all four, and on the original 3DS left and right.
• Directional Style (walk where you point) is the default control type. Every action can be rebound per console in the Control Options.
• New Cheats page in the Options: Infinite Stamina (on by default, so James never stops to catch his breath) and Infinite Ammo (off).

Scenes and movies

• Movies fade in from the room's last picture and out to black, instead of cutting.
• The room fades to black before an in-engine scene starts, and a scene that leads into a movie hands its last picture to the movie.

Fixed for consoles

• Freeze when closing from the HOME Menu. The game waited for GPU frames that never come once the app is closing, so HOME and then Close hung the console.
• Flashing white rectangles in the fog. The fog sprites are now cut to the near and far planes before they are drawn, which is the suspected cause on the town roads. This one still needs a retest on a console. SELECT held with R steps through a fog test to help narrow it down.
• Frame captures that looked like a freeze. dumpframe now writes straight to the SD card in a few large writes.

Also new

• The figure on the road in the town's first fog, created by the stage program as on the PC.
• The map lying on the car seat, drawn from the PC's own picture.
• Saves remember the weapon in hand.

Updating from 0.1.2

Install the new sh23ds.cia over the old one; saves carry over. The map on the car seat is a new picture, so run the packer again to get it.

A native 3DS port of Silent Hill 2 (PC Director's Cut). These files contain no game data: you build that from your own copy of the PC game with the packer.

Install

1. Build the game data from your Silent Hill 2 folder with the packer page in a desktop browser, or with Docker:
   docker run --rm -v "/path/to/Silent Hill 2:/game:ro" -v "$PWD/sd:/out" ghcr.io/ankushkun/sh23ds-packer
2. Copy the 3ds folder it makes to the root of the SD card (about 1.3 GB).
3. Run DSP1 once if sdmc:/3ds/dspfirm.cdc doesn't exist yet.
4. Install sh23ds.cia with FBI (or put sh23ds.3dsx in sdmc:/3ds/ for the Homebrew Launcher).

Runs on the New 3DS family, and on the original 3DS, 3DS XL and 2DS with a lighter profile that targets 30 fps (tested in Azahar's Old 3DS model, not yet on hardware). The full guide is on the website and in the README. Checksums are in sh23ds.sha256.

1e6475b1f0a779bdc5ad9d66f8263f0c0df09bad91f6db6c3ccce6196dd2dff5  sh23ds.3dsx
705818922b18c90f6152be428a6dd1d607a32beabe5d8630809b228251a6f848  sh23ds.cia