Anonymous edits have been disabled on the wiki. If you want to contribute please login or create an account.

Silent Hill 3

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Silent Hill 3
Silent Hill 3 cover
Developers
Team Silent
Publishers
Konami
Release dates
Windows October 31, 2003
Silent Hill 3 on Wikipedia
Silent Hill
Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut 2002
Silent Hill 3 2003
Silent Hill 4: The Room 2004
Silent Hill: Homecoming 2008
Silent Hill 2 2024

Key points

The PC version adds improved flashlight lighting and the ability to save at any time during the game.
Fourteen of Heather's outfits from the PlayStation 2 version are not present in the PC release, so far there is no solution to this.

General information

Silent Hill Wiki - A wiki for the series
Silent Hill Memories - Informative site

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
DRM-free
Windows
The North American physical release had 5 CDs, while the European PC physical release features just one DVD. The European version requires a disc check each time you want to play.
This game is not available digitally.

Essential improvements

Silent Hill 3 with corrected FoV
Silent Hill 3 with corrected FoV

Silent Hill 3 Widescreen Fix

A D3D8 wrapper which adds some fixes and new features:
  • Widescreen support (With proper Vert- scaling to hide off-screen characters in certain cutscenes)
  • Disable cutscene letterboxing
  • Native single core affinity
  • Removes the fps fluctuation between 30 and 60 fps
  • Correct the UI/ HUD width in widescreen (Through pillar-boxing)
  • Removes the safe mode warning when closing the game through Alt-F4
  • Fixes image deformation when rendering the game at higher resolutions
  • Ability to change the status screen resolution
  • Ability to change the depth of field resolution
  • Ability to change the real time shadows resolution
  • Ability to change the fog complexity
  • Enables several SH2 references for new saves, a feature from sh3proxy

Skip intro videos

Delete data from files[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\data\movie\.
  2. Open op.000 with a text editor.
  3. Delete all contents and save the file.
  4. Go to <path-to-game>\data\pic\.
  5. Open kcet.bmp and konami.bmp with a text editor.
  6. Delete all contents and save the files.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\savedata\[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\savedata\[Note 1]

Video settings

Template:Video settings

Rendering resolution is actually internal framebuffer resolution. Use Widescreen Fix to customize.
It is highly recommended to set the Brightness Level in-game to 5 to get the most contrast.

Field of view (FOV)

Use FOV Hack[1]
  1. Download and extract Silent Hill 3 FOV Hack.
  2. Run the program alongside the game. If the program fails to run, install the Visual Basic 6 Runtime. If running the game as admin, also run the program as admin.
  3. Edit FOV options as needed. If using Widescreen Fix, simply decreasing Width FOV value is recommended.
  4. Press Numpad * to enable new FOV settings; Numpad / sets defaults. If needed, use the On-Screen Keyboard program built into Windows.

Notes

If your only intent is to run the game in widescreen, it's recommended to use the Silent Hill 3 Widescreen Fix instead, since it also corrects all the 2D items/ assets/ menus width.

Input settings

Template:Input settings

Controller support

A fix is required for the game to recognize XInput LT/RT, LS/RS and D-pad when assigning controls.
Force feedback emulation can also be enabled for XInput controllers.
Use XInput Plus[2]
  1. If using Silent Hill 3 Widescreen Fix, rename dinput8.dll to d3d8.dll.
  2. Download and run XInput Plus.
  3. Set the Target Program to sh3.exe.
  4. Go to DirectInput and check Enable DirectInput Output.
  5. Assign LT/RT to Button 11/12.
  6. Assign DPAD to Button 13-16.
  7. Click OK and Apply.

Audio settings

Template:Audio settings

Mute on focus lost

Set mute in background[citation needed]
  1. Download d3d8to9.
  2. Copy d3d8.dll to the installation folder.
  3. Download Special K.
  4. Copy SpecialK32.dll to the installation folder.
  5. Rename SpecialK32.dll to d3d9.dll.
  6. Run the game and exit.
  7. Edit d3d9.ini in the installation folder.
  8. Find [Window.System].
  9. Change MuteInBackground=false to MuteInBackground=true.

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Spanish
Russian
Retail only. Patch for digital release here.

Issues unresolved

Forcing anti-aliasing

If using anti-aliasing (MSAA, at least), the Depth of Field effect becomes corrupted (halos around objects).[citation needed]
Post-process AA (FXAA, MLAA) works as intended (best compatibility in conjunction with the D3D9-11 wrappers).

Issues fixed

Motion trails

The light sources affected by bloom leaves long dark motion trails on screen when camera is moving.
Turn off the fullscreen smoothing filter[citation needed]
  • Go to the ingame "Extra Optons" (second options tab) and set the "Display Mode" to "Sharp".

Notes

Disabling the smoothing filter leads to more pronounced aliasing.

Frame rate fluctuation

Frame rate may fluctuate between 30 and 60 FPS.
Both solutions won't work properly with a low FPS. Minimal FPS must be at least 50+.[3]
FPS fluctuation fix[citation needed]

Game freezes on options menu

Force single core affinity[citation needed]

Low resolution Depth of Field

Custom DOF resolution[citation needed]
  1. Install Widescreen Fix or sh3proxy.
  2. Adjust DOFRes value.

Low resolution Shadows

Custom shadows resolution[citation needed]
  1. Install Widescreen Fix or sh3proxy.
  2. Adjust ShadowRes value.

Windows 10 white border

Fix fullscreen issues[citation needed]

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 8
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98, 2000, ME, XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon 1 GHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 4.7 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce3 Ti
AMD Radeon 8500
Sound (audio device) DirectX compatible sound card

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References