[HELP] Silent Hill PAL to NTSC

[iCEQB]

Hi,

as some of you might know, Silent Hill got a bit of mixed up content across the different regions.

A quick rundown:
- The PAL and NTSC-J versions, got enemy models replaced that (for some) represented little children with knives. In the these regions, the enemies look like headless teddybears with claws.

- The NTSC-U version kept the children like looking enemies, but is missing a document near the end of the game, that is present in the PAL and NTSC-J versions.

Now the thing is, there is a patch for the PAL versions, to restore the children like looking enemies. The PAL version is also a Multi 5 release, so I can read the texts in my native language (which can help with certain riddles), the perfect combination it seems.

My biggest issue however is the loss of 60hz from the NTSC-U version, which is awesome for a game like SIlent Hill.
So I tried to patch the PAL image with all the well known region patchers out there (PAL4U and Zapper2k), but for the love of god, none of them managed to get the game to 60hz and on top of that, lowered the screen a bit, so it appears cropped (black bar at the top and missing content on the bottom).

The mentioned tools, have support to fix the Y-Position of the picture, but it only allows me to even further lower the picture and not raising it, where I actually need it.

I then tried some Xploder codes to see if they can do something for me, which are:

Code: Select all

PAL2NTSC 3424C5D5 BBC9
Y-Fix    842474D4 1CC8

With these the game now indeed runs with 60hz and the Y-Fix realy sticks the image to the top of the screen, but on the bottom I still have a cropped image.

With the tool "xpcrypt" I was able to decrypt these codes into RAW codes to work with them, which now look like this:

Code: Select all

PAL2NTSC 30013E36 0040
Y-Fix    80018F00 0000

I tried these with no$psx, which seems to be very accurate, because I wasted a lot of CD-R's already on all the tests here .
I can imput the cheats manually in the RAM editor and they indeed work. The Y-Pos fix however behaves the same, it sticks the image to the top but there is still a lot missing on the bottom (cropped).

Now this is what I don't understand, how come it's such an issue to display a NTSC picture on a PAL display ? The NTSC picture should be smaller than the PAL counterpart and therefore fit inside perfectly (and even cause black bars somewhere correct?). This is very frustrating.

If anyone here can help me out with that, I'd be forever thankful, as I'm lost here and tried everything I can think about.

Thank you all!

Kindest regards,
iCEQB

[iCEQB]

Nobody?

[brill]

If I understand correctly, you need a negative Y-Fix
try

Code: Select all

Y-Fix    80018F00 fffc (fff8)

[iCEQB]

Thank you for the reply !

Unfortunately it does the same thing - no changes to the image with these codes :/

Regards,
iCEQB

[brill]

Thank you for the reply !

Unfortunately it does the same thing - no changes to the image with these codes :/

Regards,
iCEQB

try this->
D0018F00-0010
80018F00-FFF8
D0023114-0001
80023114-0000
D00190CC-0010
800190CC-0008

[brill]

(patch updated 01.07.21)
NTSC patch

- Forced NTSC mode
- The screen can be centered (via Options menu)
- The text, from the bottom of the screen, has been moved slightly higher

[FatherlyNick]

Thank you for the reply !

Unfortunately it does the same thing - no changes to the image with these codes :/

Regards,
iCEQB

try this->
D0018F00-0010
80018F00-FFF8
D0023114-0001
80023114-0000
D00190CC-0010
800190CC-0008

Somewhat offtopic from this thread, but could you explain how you got these values? I know there are offsets on the left and values on the right but how do you know that let's say 0010 should go on offset D0018F00? Maybe you can point me to a book or some other resource that explains this? I'm very curious about this stuff.

[brill]

Offtopics indeed. And I don't want to deviate from the topic here. Create a new topic, in the appropriate section, and ask your question there. It's also worth referring to specialized resources (like gamehacking forum), maybe they already have answers to your questions.

[yaarthe7]

I am looking at copies to replace my old PS2 version and found these two versions. The PAL version seems to be a later printing compared to the NTSC version. Anyone know of any differences? Is one preferable? I have both versions of Silent Hill 3 and I prefer the PAL copy because it is a single disk install.