# Silent Hill 4: The Room on Nintendo Switch

## Akash: 
I've been wanting to play sh4 again for a hot minute and my ps3 is loud and cumbersome so I wanted to put it on the switch.
Issue is ps2 emulation sucks on the switch and I wanted near native performance that I'd get on my actual ps2.
I've been seeing all these recomps and decomps and saw the sh3 and sh2 ports all using opus 5.5
So I started using Fable (goodbye weekly limits for this bs) and had to switch so things are a little funky
but on the whole it was basically a one prompt
kinda scary

![larptok](v24044gl0000db62apfog65tfjpoa2dg.MP4)

## AI Slop:
A native Nintendo Switch port of the PC version of **Silent Hill 4: The Room** (GOG build), made the same way as
[sh2-nx](https://github.com/cutarev/sh2-nx) and [sh3-nx](https://github.com/cutarev/sh3-nx) by cutarev, whose
runtime this port starts from.

It is not an emulator. `SILENT HILL 4.exe` is statically recompiled to C ahead of time (xboxrecomp, patched by
cutarev) and the C is compiled for the Switch's ARM64 CPU. The Windows layer the game expects (Direct3D 8,
DirectSound, DirectInput, kernel32...) is cutarev's reimplementation on SDL2 and OpenGL, adapted here for SH4.

**Status: runs on a Switch, in widescreen.** The Linux build is also tested, scripted from the title screen into
Room 302. The FMVs are skipped for now. If it crashes, `sh4-crash.log` and `sh4.log` (with `log=1`
in `sh4.ini`) next to the NRO say where.

You need your own copy of the game: the repository holds no game files, and the NRO in the releases runs only
with the GOG version's `SILENT HILL 4.exe` and data next to it.

## What changed from sh3-nx

- `tools/realign_pe.py`: the GOG exe is 0x200-aligned; the pipeline wants sections at file offset == RVA.
- `src/game/sh4.c`: the static CRT's two memcpy copies (0x57FE90, 0x576BC0) replaced by hand, as in sh3-nx.
- Widescreen, ported from ThirteenAG's [SilentHill4.WidescreenFix](https://github.com/ThirteenAG/WidescreenFixesPack):
  the game renders at the screen's resolution (`resolution=` in `sh4.ini`, 1280x720 by default) whatever its own
  Resolution option says; the camera widens (hor+); menus, text and the HUD keep a centered 4:3 area; full-screen
  fades and filters stretch across the screen; and the cutscene borders and a few screen-space effects drawn for
  4:3 are left out. Most of it is in `src/game/sh4.c`, chosen by each call's return address;
  `tools/patch_exe.py` patches the few constants inside functions before recompiling (the SD card keeps the
  original exe). At `resolution=640x480` or any other 4:3 mode everything is the game's own.
- Bridges SH4 imports that SH3 did not: `GetVersion`, `RtlUnwind`, `MsgWaitForMultipleObjects`,
  `GetQueueStatus`, `PostThreadMessageA`, `GetDesktopWindow`, `DestroyWindow`, `UnregisterClassA`,
  `GetWindowPlacement`, `GetClientRect`, `RegSetValueExA`, `RegDeleteValueA`, `ImmAssociateContextEx`.
- Registry key `SOFTWARE\Konami\SILENT HILL 4\1.00.000` opens but holds no values (the game uses its defaults).
- `CheckSpec.dll` and `drc.dll` are loaded through `LoadLibraryA` and their functions through
  `GetProcAddress`; both are left unbridged and the game skips them (it checks for NULL).
- `src/win32/dshow.c`: the FMVs (`movie/*.pac`, MPEG-1 through DirectShow) are skipped by a filter graph that
  plays nothing. SH4 never checks the HRESULTs of its graph setup, so the objects have to exist: this graph hands
  out the pins the game looks for, accepts every connection and reports EC_COMPLETE right after Run. Real
  playback would feed the game's own renderer filter from here.
- `tools/Dockerfile.linux`, `build-linux.sh`, `run-linux.sh`: a Linux build run headless in a container (Xvfb,
  Mesa llvmpipe), with scripted keys and frame dumps, for debugging without a Switch.
- The D3DX math inside the exe has 3DNow! and SSE2 paths the lifter leaves as TODO stubs; the runtime reports a
  CPU without them, so the plain x87 paths run.

## SD card layout

```text
/switch/sh4-nx/
  sh4-nx.nro
  sh4.exe          ("SILENT HILL 4.exe" from the GOG install, renamed)
  input.ini
  sh4_caps.dat
  data/            (1.2 GB)
  demo/            (1.7 GB)
  sound/           (35 MB)
  movie/           (optional, 620 MB: not played yet)
  save/            (empty folder)
  sh4.ini          (optional: resolution=WxH, cores=1, log=1, trace=1)
```

`tools/make_sd.py <sd root> --game "C:/GOG Games/Silent Hill 4"` lays this out. Launch from the homebrew menu
in title takeover mode (hold R while starting an installed game), not from the album.

### On the home screen

Make a forwarder with TooTallNate's [switch-nsp-forwarder](https://github.com/TooTallNate/switch-nsp-forwarder):
run it from the homebrew menu, pick `sh4-nx`, and install the NSP it writes with DBI or another installer (to
emuMMC, if you run CFW from emuMMC). The forwarder takes the NRO's icon when it's made, so make it again after
replacing the NRO with one that has a different icon.

## Building

```sh
python -m venv .venv && .venv/Scripts/pip install capstone     # Windows; .venv/bin on Linux
cp "/path/to/Silent Hill 4/SILENT HILL 4.exe" game/sh4.exe
ROOT=$PWD sh tools/regen.sh          # exe -> C (about 6 minutes)
ROOT=$PWD sh tools/build-switch.sh   # C -> build/switch/sh4-nx.nro, in devkitPro's container (docker or podman)
```

On Windows (Git Bash) use `ROOT=$(pwd -W)`: the tools run under Windows Python, which needs `C:/...` paths.
A 256x256 `icon.jpg` at the top of the repository becomes the NRO's icon (the release uses GOG's cover art);
without one the NRO has none.

## Credits

- **cutarev**: sh2-nx and sh3-nx, the runtime and tooling this port is built from, and the xboxrecomp patches.
- **sp00nznet**: xboxrecomp, the x86 to C lifter.
- **ThirteenAG**: SilentHill4.WidescreenFix, which the widescreen support is ported from.
- **devkitPro**, **switchbrew**, SDL2, Mesa.