Silent Hill 2, 3, 4 - PC or PCSX2

Spent the last few hours helping a mate clear stuff out and we found his old PS2 and the Silent Hill games, even running on an old CRT TV through composite leads they still were better looking that i remembered, and i had also forgot how much i had missed games like this.

Got me thinking that i should find these on the PC, unfortunatley no digital versions and silly money for the retail versions, and while i considered some thievery i also thought it could be an easier and possibly a better looking experience if i just emulate them.

My instincts say PC, but i have heard that like many games at this time the PC port was not just a port, but also worse in some ways than the console versions.

Anyone compared both, or have experience with either.

 

I have 2 on pc, the controls are pretty whack, it detects a 360 controller, but a lot of buttons seem missing and some don't work.

On the plus side, it looks nicer and supports quick saves.

 

PCSX2 has save states

 

I'd say go for PCSX2 at least for Silent Hill 4 with the wide screen patch (copied over to the PCSX2 Cheats directory with cheats enabled), rendered at x6 native resolution (that would be over 3000x2600 I guess) :

Spoiler

Besides you won't have to deal with exe hacking ArtMoney stuff (which is annoying). AND you won't get any input configuration nightmares like I had with the PC horrible port

 

Cheers guys, was worried about the controls being poorly ported to mouse/kb while also not being good with a controller either.

Might just try them with an emulator anyway, the good thing about that is that getting it to 19x10 and with AA is already done by the emulator, rather than me having to do it with each game as had a i remember playing the newer SH4 years back on the PC and all i remember was thinking too much brown, too much hassle to and why are the textures so horrible for such a new game, god knows what i would think now.

Great old games, even the 1-2 hours made me want to come home and start them again, think my love of shiny visuals has been pushing me towards new but ultimately mediocre games.

 

Some Silent Hill 2 screenshots using PCSX2.

3840x2160 + MSAAx4 downscaled to 1920x1080

Spoiler

 

Yeah man, emulator would be the best bet, imo.

 

lol thanks UNREAL_2004, decision made, they look great for such an old game.

Even looked at the console only HD collection, some very funny videos destroying the game/port and saying how bad it is, shame as well as they took money off people and made it worse.

 

actually, the pc version of 2 has high res textures, plus you can turn off the silly noise filter.

silent hill revelation was terribad, no even remotely scary points

 

(.)(.), saw you have gotten into emulating with Dolphin, it's great fun in my opinion, and so many good games that we have missed.

WhiteLightning it was the new "terrible" movie that made my mate dig out the PS2 and the games.

scatman839, will see if i can "grab" SH2 PC to test, i wouldn't normally but it stupid how hard it is to actually buy this game.
I actually want the noise filter, helps the atmosphere while also hiding the technical limitations due to the age of the game.

 

AFAIK Silent Hill 2,3, and 4 made use of per-pixel lighting and bump mapping on environments and characters on the Xbox and PC versions. I'm not sure you will get that through PCSX2.

 

Silent Hill 2 Pcsx2 + SweetFX shots









Using latest pcsx2 with Gsdx DX11 plugin at x6 native resolution, this sweetfx injector dumped into pcsx2 directory and this config. (replace the content of your SweetFX_settings.txt with the pastebin link provided)

 

hey looks great!

 

Silent Hill 2 PCSX2

 

You want the best Silent Hill 2 experience? Play the original on PS2.

 

I don't have CRT TV so playing on PS2 is horrible idea. PCSX2 does really good job.

 

That was the point of this thread, and it really wasn't/isn't the best experience.

Not that I spent much time testing them never mind playing the actual games, but the PS2 solution was the worst, visually anyway.
Definetly the easiest though.

Might revisit this, can't believe it's nearly 4 years since i started this thread.

Just realised I would need to grab an iso, still have the discs but ditched the BD drive when I got a new case as ruined the looks.

 

Is it available for Android with emulator?

 

@Redemption80
I've tried PC version with widescreen fix and better fog. It's still look worse than PS2@PCSX2. PC version is more clear for sure, but other things are just worse.

On PS2 we have better dynamic shadows, reflections on monsters, still better fog. And you really won't play this game with keyboard and mouse and controller support is horrible. I can't make it work with Xbox One controller (I know It's XInput and game support only Dinput but even with xpadder I've couldn't make it run proprerly).