v1.02

Silent Hill 2 (Director's Cut / Restless Dreams) on the Switch: the PC game's executable recompiled to native ARM64, no emulator, with support for the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition packs.

What's changed in v1.02

• Launcher: the game now opens with a warning screen (sh2-nx is free; the only official source is this repository), then a menu with Play and Options, with fades and the game's own menu sounds.
• Options on the console: resolution, handheld and docked render size, movies (original or Enhanced Edition), Enhanced Edition load/save sounds and game threads. They're saved to sh2e.ini when you leave the screen; your other lines and comments stay as they are.

Features

• Native code: every function of sh2pc.exe runs as ARM64 code; no emulator, no Wine.
• Launcher: Play and Options before the game; Options changes the main sh2e.ini settings on the console.
• Widescreen: 16:9, drawn at 720p handheld and 1080p docked, or the original 4:3 (ThirteenAG's WidescreenFix, ported).
• Enhanced Edition packs: HD textures and maps, the EE title and save screens, the restored music, voices and sound effects, EE menus and fonts, and the FMV pack's 1080p60 movies with their subtitles (movie=1).
• Enhanced Edition fixes: search camera on the right stick, movement on the d-pad, pause menu fix, vibration fixes.
• Controller: SH2EE's button layout with Nintendo's A/B, HD rumble following the in-game Vibration option.
• Saving and loading, movies with synced audio, every menu.
• Shader cache: shaders are compiled once and kept on the SD card, so areas only stutter the first time.
• Also builds for Linux (x86-64), which is where most of the debugging happens.

Install

1. On your PC, install Silent Hill 2 and run the Enhanced Edition setup with at least the Enhanced Executable, Essential Files, Image Enhancement Pack and Audio Enhancement Pack (plus the FMV Enhancement Pack for the HD movies). The port is built for that sh2pc.exe (5,685,248 bytes, SHA-1 3201a5e1029f3ae3b77770255dcbe10360b3cd09).
2. Put sh2-nx.nro in /switch/sh2-nx/ on the SD card, together with sh2pc.exe, data/ and sh2e/ from your PC install, and an sh2e.ini (example). Updating from an older version: replace the NRO.
3. Launch it from the homebrew menu in title takeover mode (hold R while starting an installed game), not from the album.

Full instructions, controls and settings: see the README. No game files are included.

v1.01

Silent Hill 2 (Director's Cut / Restless Dreams) on the Switch: the PC game's executable recompiled to native ARM64, no emulator, with support for the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition packs.

What's changed in v1.01

• The game runs at its original 30 fps: the experimental 60 fps mode (fps=60) was removed.
• Sharper by default: 1920x1080, drawn at 720p handheld and 1080p docked (resolution, handheld and docked in sh2e.ini). If your sh2e.ini sets resolution=1280x720, handheld=480 or docked=720, remove those lines to get the new defaults.
• Russian, Japanese and other non-Latin text (#14): the Enhanced Edition's high resolution font (sh2e/font) is used now, and translations made for the Enhanced Edition load from a lang folder next to the NRO.

Features

• Native code: every function of sh2pc.exe runs as ARM64 code; no emulator, no Wine.
• Widescreen: 16:9, drawn at 720p handheld and 1080p docked, or the original 4:3 (ThirteenAG's WidescreenFix, ported).
• Enhanced Edition packs: HD textures and maps, the EE title and save screens, the restored music, voices and sound effects, EE menus and fonts, and the FMV pack's 1080p60 movies with their subtitles (movie=1).
• Enhanced Edition fixes: search camera on the right stick, movement on the d-pad, pause menu fix, vibration fixes.
• Controller: SH2EE's button layout with Nintendo's A/B, HD rumble following the in-game Vibration option.
• Saving and loading, movies with synced audio, every menu.
• Shader cache: shaders are compiled once and kept on the SD card, so areas only stutter the first time.
• Also builds for Linux (x86-64), which is where most of the debugging happens.

Install

1. On your PC, install Silent Hill 2 and run the Enhanced Edition setup with at least the Enhanced Executable, Essential Files, Image Enhancement Pack and Audio Enhancement Pack (plus the FMV Enhancement Pack for the HD movies). The port is built for that sh2pc.exe (5,685,248 bytes, SHA-1 3201a5e1029f3ae3b77770255dcbe10360b3cd09).
2. Put sh2-nx.nro in /switch/sh2-nx/ on the SD card, together with sh2pc.exe, data/ and sh2e/ from your PC install, and an sh2e.ini (example). Updating from an older version: replace the NRO; for the HD movies also copy sh2e/movie and set movie=1 in your sh2e.ini.
3. Launch it from the homebrew menu in title takeover mode (hold R while starting an installed game), not from the album.

Full instructions, controls and settings: see the README. No game files are included.

v1.00

Silent Hill 2 (Director's Cut / Restless Dreams) on the Switch: the PC game's executable recompiled to native ARM64, no emulator, with support for the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition packs.

Features

• Native code: every function of sh2pc.exe runs as ARM64 code; no emulator, no Wine.
• Widescreen: 16:9 at 1280x720 by default, 1920x1080 for docked play, or the original 4:3 (ThirteenAG's WidescreenFix, ported).
• Enhanced Edition packs: HD textures and maps, the EE title and save screens, the restored music, voices and sound effects, EE menus and fonts, and the FMV pack's 1080p60 movies with their subtitles (movie=1).
• Enhanced Edition fixes: search camera on the right stick, movement on the d-pad, pause menu fix, vibration fixes.
• Controller: SH2EE's button layout with Nintendo's A/B, HD rumble following the in-game Vibration option.
• Saving and loading, movies with synced audio, every menu.
• 60 fps (experimental): fps=60 in sh2e.ini turns on the Enhanced Edition's 60 fps mode. The default is the original 30, since the Switch can't hold 60 everywhere yet (60 fps).
• Shader cache: shaders are compiled once and kept on the SD card, so areas only stutter the first time.
• Also builds for Linux (x86-64), which is where most of the debugging happens.

Install

1. On your PC, install Silent Hill 2 and run the Enhanced Edition setup with at least the Enhanced Executable, Essential Files, Image Enhancement Pack and Audio Enhancement Pack (plus the FMV Enhancement Pack for the HD movies). The port is built for that sh2pc.exe (5,685,248 bytes, SHA-1 3201a5e1029f3ae3b77770255dcbe10360b3cd09).
2. Put sh2-nx.nro in /switch/sh2-nx/ on the SD card, together with sh2pc.exe, data/ and sh2e/ from your PC install, and an sh2e.ini (example). Updating from an older version: replace the NRO; for the HD movies also copy sh2e/movie and set movie=1 in your sh2e.ini.
3. Launch it from the homebrew menu in title takeover mode (hold R while starting an installed game), not from the album.

Full instructions, controls and settings: see the README. No game files are included.

v0.66

Silent Hill 2 (Director's Cut / Restless Dreams) on the Switch: the PC game's executable recompiled to native ARM64, no emulator, with support for the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition packs.

What's new in v0.66

• Enhanced Edition movies (the FMV pack, movie=1) now work all the way through. After a movie the game no longer stays on a black screen (with the sound still playing) until the cutscene is skipped: when the Switch fell behind decoding the 1080p60 videos, the frames it dropped to keep up could skip the very frame the game waits for to end the movie. Reported by GloriousCheese (e.g. James at the mirror, right after New Game).
• Movie subtitles keep up with those movies: they followed how many frames the game had drawn, not where the video was, so with dropped frames they came late and most never showed.
• movie=1 is on in the example sh2e.ini, and tools/make_sd.py now copies sh2e/movie (about 1.9 GB).

Also in this build: everything from v0.65 (coin cabinet crash fix, full-screen cutscene fades, faster rendering, experimental 60 fps) and the earlier fixes.

Install

1. On your PC, install Silent Hill 2 and run the Enhanced Edition setup with at least the Enhanced Executable, Essential Files, Image Enhancement Pack and Audio Enhancement Pack (plus the FMV Enhancement Pack for the HD movies). The port is built for that sh2pc.exe (5,685,248 bytes, SHA-1 3201a5e1029f3ae3b77770255dcbe10360b3cd09).
2. Put sh2-nx.nro in /switch/sh2-nx/ on the SD card, together with sh2pc.exe, data/ and sh2e/ from your PC install, and an sh2e.ini (example). Updating from an older version: replace the NRO; for the HD movies also copy sh2e/movie and set movie=1 in your sh2e.ini.
3. Launch it from the homebrew menu in title takeover mode (hold R while starting an installed game), not from the album.

Full instructions, controls and settings: see the README. No game files are included.

v0.65

Silent Hill 2 (Director's Cut / Restless Dreams) on the Switch: the PC game's executable recompiled to native ARM64, no emulator, with support for the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition packs.

What's new in v0.65

• Crash at the coin cabinet fixed (Blue Creek Apartments, room 105: examining the coin box a second time closed the game, on the Switch only). Files are now read through a buffer of the port's own instead of straight into the game's memory, which the Switch takes away from the game while it reads.
• Cutscene fades cover the whole screen in widescreen (e.g. Eddie in the bowling alley faded only the 4:3 middle).
• Faster rendering: far fewer OpenGL calls per frame, and the screen-sized render targets are drawn with 480 lines in handheld mode and 720 docked, then scaled to the screen (handheld= / docked= in sh2e.ini; 0 draws them at the game's resolution).
• Movies: the movie loop no longer waits for the 30 Hz limiter and subtitles follow the video's frame rate (EE FixFMVSpeed, FmvSubtitlesSyncFix), so the FMV pack's 60 fps videos play at speed (movie=1; the Switch drops frames decoding them).
• Experimental 60 fps: fps=60 in sh2e.ini turns on the Enhanced Edition's SetSixtyFPS with its frame-timing fixes. Off by default: the Switch can't hold 60 everywhere.

Also in this build: the extra sounds from v0.64, the bowling alley fix from v0.63, the Blue Creek crash fix from v0.62, the gun crash fix from v0.61, and the map and save screen fixes from v0.60.

Install

1. On your PC, install Silent Hill 2 and run the Enhanced Edition setup with at least the Enhanced Executable, Essential Files, Image Enhancement Pack and Audio Enhancement Pack. The port is built for that sh2pc.exe (5,685,248 bytes, SHA-1 3201a5e1029f3ae3b77770255dcbe10360b3cd09).
2. Put sh2-nx.nro in /switch/sh2-nx/ on the SD card, together with sh2pc.exe, data/ and sh2e/ (without sh2e/movie) from your PC install, and an sh2e.ini (example). Updating from an older version: just replace the NRO.
3. Launch it from the homebrew menu in title takeover mode (hold R while starting an installed game), not from the album.

Full instructions, controls and settings: see the README. No game files are included.

v0.64

Silent Hill 2 (Director's Cut / Restless Dreams) on the Switch: the PC game's executable recompiled to native ARM64, no emulator, with support for the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition packs.

What's new in v0.64

• Enhanced Edition extra sounds: a click when the flashlight is switched, and load and save sounds that play through the loading screen instead of being cut off. They come from sh2e/sound/extra and are on by default; FlashlightToggleSFX=0 and PreserveSoundsOnLoad=0 in sh2e.ini turn them off. Thanks to GloriousCheese for the request (#11).

Also in this build: the bowling alley fix from v0.63, the Blue Creek crash fix from v0.62, the gun crash fix from v0.61, and the map and save screen fixes from v0.60.

Install

1. On your PC, install Silent Hill 2 and run the Enhanced Edition setup with at least the Enhanced Executable, Essential Files, Image Enhancement Pack and Audio Enhancement Pack. The port is built for that sh2pc.exe (5,685,248 bytes, SHA-1 3201a5e1029f3ae3b77770255dcbe10360b3cd09).
2. Put sh2-nx.nro in /switch/sh2-nx/ on the SD card, together with sh2pc.exe, data/ and sh2e/ (without sh2e/movie) from your PC install, and an sh2e.ini (example). Updating from an older version: just replace the NRO.
3. Launch it from the homebrew menu in title takeover mode (hold R while starting an installed game), not from the album.

Full instructions, controls and settings: see the README. No game files are included.

v0.63

Silent Hill 2 (Director's Cut / Restless Dreams) on the Switch: the PC game's executable recompiled to native ARM64, no emulator, with support for the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition packs.

What's new in v0.63

• Fixed the black rooms in Pete's Bowl-O-Rama (after the Eddie and Laura cutscene, every room drew black): a function the room lighting jumps to had been missed by the recompiler. Thanks to GloriousCheese for the report and the save (#10).

Also in this build: the Blue Creek crash fix and missing-file logging from v0.62, the gun crash fix from v0.61, and the map and save screen fixes from v0.60.

Install

1. On your PC, install Silent Hill 2 and run the Enhanced Edition setup with at least the Enhanced Executable, Essential Files, Image Enhancement Pack and Audio Enhancement Pack. The port is built for that sh2pc.exe (5,685,248 bytes, SHA-1 3201a5e1029f3ae3b77770255dcbe10360b3cd09).
2. Put sh2-nx.nro in /switch/sh2-nx/ on the SD card, together with sh2pc.exe, data/ and sh2e/ (without sh2e/movie) from your PC install, and an sh2e.ini (example). Updating from an older version: just replace the NRO.
3. Launch it from the homebrew menu in title takeover mode (hold R while starting an installed game), not from the album.

Full instructions, controls and settings: see the README. No game files are included.

v0.62

Silent Hill 2 (Director's Cut / Restless Dreams) on the Switch: the PC game's executable recompiled to native ARM64, no emulator, with support for the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition packs.

What's new in v0.62

• Fixed the crash in Blue Creek Apartments (using the save point, or leaving the room past the fire exit, closed the game): part of an effect's update code had been missed by the recompiler. Thanks to Jlancaster94 for the report and the save.
• With log=1 in sh2e.ini, sh2.log now names every file the game could not open, which pins down "Files are missing" errors.

Also in this build: the gun crash fix from v0.61, and the map and save screen fixes from v0.60.

Install

1. On your PC, install Silent Hill 2 and run the Enhanced Edition setup with at least the Enhanced Executable, Essential Files, Image Enhancement Pack and Audio Enhancement Pack. The port is built for that sh2pc.exe (5,685,248 bytes, SHA-1 3201a5e1029f3ae3b77770255dcbe10360b3cd09).
2. Put sh2-nx.nro in /switch/sh2-nx/ on the SD card, together with sh2pc.exe, data/ and sh2e/ (without sh2e/movie) from your PC install, and an sh2e.ini (example). Updating from an older version: just replace the NRO.
3. Launch it from the homebrew menu in title takeover mode (hold R while starting an installed game), not from the album.

Full instructions, controls and settings: see the README. No game files are included.

v0.61

Silent Hill 2 (Director's Cut / Restless Dreams) on the Switch: the PC game's executable recompiled to native ARM64, no emulator, with support for the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition packs.

What's new in v0.61

• Fixed the crash when firing a gun ("indirect call to untranslated address 004F12C0"): a function the game calls on every shot had been missed by the recompiler. Thanks to GloriousCheese for the report.

Also in this build, from v0.60: the map's player arrow and markings fixed (EE HD maps), and no giant save names over James's face on the save/load screens.

Install

1. On your PC, install Silent Hill 2 and run the Enhanced Edition setup with at least the Enhanced Executable, Essential Files, Image Enhancement Pack and Audio Enhancement Pack. The port is built for that sh2pc.exe (5,685,248 bytes, SHA-1 3201a5e1029f3ae3b77770255dcbe10360b3cd09).
2. Put sh2-nx.nro in /switch/sh2-nx/ on the SD card, together with sh2pc.exe, data/ and sh2e/ (without sh2e/movie) from your PC install, and an sh2e.ini (example). Updating from an older version: just replace the NRO.
3. Launch it from the homebrew menu in title takeover mode (hold R while starting an installed game), not from the album.

Full instructions, controls and settings: see the README. No game files are included.

v0.60

Silent Hill 2 (Director's Cut / Restless Dreams) on the Switch: the PC game's executable recompiled to native ARM64, no emulator, with support for the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition packs.

What's new in v0.60

• Map: James's arrow is back, and map markings (like the red notes on Rosewater Park) no longer spill past the map into the side bars. The Enhanced Edition's map code is ported, so the map now uses the EE HD map pages and fills the wide screen. The hdmaps setting is gone.
• Save and load screens: the giant names of the saves no longer cover James's face.

Install

1. On your PC, install Silent Hill 2 and run the Enhanced Edition setup with at least the Enhanced Executable, Essential Files, Image Enhancement Pack and Audio Enhancement Pack. The port is built for that sh2pc.exe (5,685,248 bytes, SHA-1 3201a5e1029f3ae3b77770255dcbe10360b3cd09).
2. Put sh2-nx.nro in /switch/sh2-nx/ on the SD card, together with sh2pc.exe, data/ and sh2e/ (without sh2e/movie) from your PC install, and an sh2e.ini (example). Updating from v0.55: just replace the NRO.
3. Launch it from the homebrew menu in title takeover mode (hold R while starting an installed game), not from the album.

Full instructions, controls and settings: see the README. No game files are included.