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by AnonRunzes at 10:03 PM EDT on October 23, 2016
Thanks!
Getting Adx and Aix files by Stronglime at 10:49 AM EDT on April 11, 2017
Hi! I've been trying to understand how to extract the original ADX and AIX files from the game, since the extractor coded by Nisto gives .svag files as output. My intention is to replace the PC version Silent Hill 2 files with the PS2 ones, since they are of higher quality. (The PC version with mods nowdays is finally better than the PS2 version except, of course, the audio.)
I've seen Nisto figured out how to calculate the appropriate offset between the pc and ps2 versions, but I don't understand how to extract the files themselves. Anybody can help?

edited 10:49 AM EDT April 11, 2017
by Nisto at 4:06 PM EDT on April 11, 2017
There are no ADX or AIX files in the PS2 version. The .svag files are dialogue/cutscene tracks. The .HD/.BD/.TD files contain the music and the sound effects, which are mostly sequenced, and thus not playable directly in an audio player (you would have to convert the music from the PSF2 set or something). Lastly, the audio in the movies are .ss2 streams, which you can extract using e.g. VGMToolbox (Misc. Tools -> Stream Tools -> Video Demultiplexer).



Speaking of the PSF2 set. I already posted it in this thread, but for posterity's sake I'll post SH2 and SH3 here too:
Silent Hill 2 - Saigo no Uta (2002-07-04)(KCE Tokyo)(Konami).7z
Silent Hill 3 (2003-05-23)(KCE Tokyo)(Konami).7z
Success,but.. by Stronglime at 7:03 AM EDT on April 12, 2017
Partial success! Thanks for the reply, I've managed to convert the files from PSF2 to WAV by using foobar2000, then back to ADX using a PES File converter i've found on the net. Then I put them back into the game and the quality is indeed better, but I have two problems:

When Foobar reads PSF2 files it's awfully quiet, is it because of the original files or the converter? If so, do you know a better PSF2->WAV(Or anything) converter?

I cannot find the dialogue files in the zip you posted, are they included? I've found a way to replace them with ADX files on the PC version too.

EDIT:
Managed to extract the dialogue files myself. Now looking into creating the PSF2 files to see if there's any difference in volume by playing with settings..

EDIT 2:
Found out that dialog files are not 1:1 with the PC version like with BGM files. The number of tracks inside voices on the PC version are 159, more than the streams obtained by extracting the european version of the game (122) even combining the PSF2 files labelled MISC and CORE (30). I suppose some of them are either empty, unused, or movie sound files? Strange, since the sound of movies in the PC version is inside the bik files themselves. I've tried to get at least the background music from the european version to test if i could rip it louder, but apparently I can't understand how to use mkpsf2 in VGM toolbox, I suppose i need some extra "IRX" files. I've found SD_CD.IRX and SD_HD.IRX and SDSTR.IRX in the european directors cut version disc, but I don't know which to use. The 7z file you provided me mentions a "sh2.irx" but it is nowhere to be found.
At this point, I don't know what to do. If you could provide me with a direct contact (Skype? IRC?) to help me out I'd be grateful.

edited 10:14 AM EDT April 12, 2017

edited 10:17 AM EDT April 12, 2017
by Nisto at 2:53 PM EDT on April 12, 2017
Yeah, I'm aware the set is kind of quiet. The internal volume can be changed, but to be honest I'm not sure what the best solution is. Even though the game does adjust the volume upon boot, I decided I didn't want people complaining if it didn't turn out to be a good global volume, because some tracks are really loud. Also, the volume is barely any louder despite that initial adjustment. So I don't know if maybe it's manually adjusted for each track, but from the top of my head, the driver controls at least 4 different volumes: the user-configurable BGM and sound effect volumes, a master volume, and another one which I'm not perfectly sure about to be honest.

If I remember correctly, one of the trial versions had more dialogue tracks than both of the final releases. I may be wrong, but yeah, it could be that the PC version actually draws from one of them. (EDIT: Indeed, the E3 2001 trial release (SLPM-12345) also has 159 dialogue tracks.)

The sh2.irx file is a custom module I wrote to interact with the sound driver, so you won't find it on any disc. You can get the file out by using PSF2 Unpacker (also present in VGMToolbox). But you're not gonna be able to do much with those files unless you know some assembly language (MIPS R3000 to be exact), sorry to say. Also, you shouldn't try to replace the modules as they will likely not be compatible. I have patched some of the original modules specifically to be compatible with the PSF2 specs and my own module. Besides, all the sound modules are 100% identical between most of the releases, so the settings won't really be any different.

I'm usually on #vgmdb at irc.psigenix.net.

edited 4:58 PM EDT April 12, 2017
by Ratio at 7:49 PM EDT on August 17, 2017
Hi guys,
Have any breakthroughs been made in converting/using the PS2's sound files for the PC version?

edited 7:52 PM EDT August 17, 2017
SFX by Ratio at 12:11 PM EDT on August 29, 2017
Hi Nisto,

Would you have the means of extracting all the bits of audio from the game? Including the music, sound effects, and voice/dialog while retaining their original sample rates and stereo output?

There are a group of other talented programmers/modders out there who are improving the PC version of Silent Hill 2 making it match or better than the PS2 version in numerous ways. You can see a video of some of the fixes here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=878F2cbLAXo

(An improved noise grain filter is also currently being developed and is nearing completion.)

The two major fixes left is porting the PS2's sounds to the PC version and creating soft shadows for the PC build.

For the audio: All versions of SH2 except for the PS2 version have compressed the audio files into a lossy, noise-induced format. This is further explained here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nna2yt1c9gI&t=403

And while this situation is less than ideal the *tone and pitches* for the audio files in the PC build have also changed during the conversion. You can hear this in action here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E5Nt8ahZRk

Without putting you on the spot your research into the sounds of SH2 PS2 are vital into cracking open this egg and getting all music, sounds, effects, and dialog accounted for to transpose to the PC build. Any further help would be greatly, hugely, immensely appreciated by the entire Silent Hill community. (Konami has neglected this series/us fans so it's become down to us to fix what Konami has wronged at this point.)

And, for the soft shadows: Soft shadows will probably be one of the last fixes due to the complex nature of writing new shaders and injecting/overwriting the old ones in the game but we're in the very, very, very early stages of looking in to this:

https://github.com/elishacloud/dxwrapper/issues/6

So we're hoping that with "enhanced audio" and soft shadows for the PC build we can have a true, no-kidding, definitive HD platform for this beloved, neglected classic.

Thank you for all the work and research you've done so far and thank you for any future help and guidance you can lend!
John

edited 12:12 PM EDT August 29, 2017

edited 12:26 PM EDT August 29, 2017
by Ratio at 12:29 AM EDT on September 3, 2017
Hi Nisto,

Have you considered Google Drive to upload your files? So long as you have a Google account (through Gmail or otherwise) your files won't disappear unless you delete them. I believe Drive gives you 15GB for free.

But thank you for the advice and tips on your GitHub page.

When you ripped the sounds (SFX) do you recall if they retained their correct sample rates and channels for you? We've ripped the PS2 game (Saigo no Uta) for its SFX and received nearly 2,000 files (with many of them being duplicates though) but we've noticed there are discrepancies with some of the audio files.

I mean no disrespect when I ask this but would you consider re-uploading the files you've already ripped; music (including the three tracks you didn't include due to them having dialog within them) and SFX/dialog (if you have any)?

While we would be willing to learn the in's and out's of all these pieces of software this is a one-off project we're doing solely for the purposes of Silent Hill 2 and no other game. (Because, as previously linked to you, SH2 suffered severe audio degradation on all versions outside of the PS2 ones.)

The process of mapping the PS2 audio files back to the PC ones has proven quite time consuming. Then we will need to edit them to the same length/approximate size as the PC's versions (as the size/length information is hard coded into the game and the audio won't play back otherwise). And naturally we'll need to do extensive play testing once we get to a good spot and iron out the inevitable bugs/errors we come (hear) along the way.

All this to say that if you have many or all of the sound files already converted it would be a tremendous help for us in time alone.

Thank you though once more for your hard work and due diligence for Silent Hill 2 and game audio elsewhere.

edited 12:30 AM EDT September 3, 2017
by Nisto at 2:25 AM EDT on September 3, 2017
My issue isn't so much with finding a good and reliable file host in this case. It's more that it's a waste of time and space, really.. Decoding stuff to WAV really beefs up the size, too, and I'm not on a very fast connection here..

The game uses standard PS2 sound banks, which does retain the original sample rates. But beware that many sound effects in this game are sequenced, which of course means that the final rate (i.e. what you ultimately hear in-game) may be different for some sound effects, depending on the configuration of the assigned instruments and which keys are actually played. As for the channels; every single sample in the PS2 version are monaural - it's a hardware limitation. They may have used multiple samples (one for left, one for right) to "simulate" stereo though, but I don't recall any occurrences of that.

I'm sorry, but aside from that SFX (read: sample) pack I uploaded, there really isn't any difference between what I've previously posted here and what sh2ex gives you. Just use the tools I referenced in the GitHub Issue to rip the dialogues and movie tracks yourself. The tool is there to be used - otherwise I wouldn't be sharing it with the world! I don't mean to sound harsh, but again, this is not difficult; you really don't need to know the "ins and outs" of Silent Hill 2 or the PS2 to do any of these conversions.

Since I did do a lot of organizing and additional extracting for the BGM/SFX samples, I guess I can upload that again at least. It may be a couple of days before I get to it though; I have a lot on my todo list lately, and I'm just getting to bed.
by Ratio at 1:14 PM EDT on September 3, 2017
>>>>>>
every single sample in the PS2 version are monaural - it's a hardware limitation. They may have used multiple samples (one for left, one for right) to "simulate" stereo though, but I don't recall any occurrences of that.
>>>>>>

This explains a lot to me, thank you. I'm happy to know we're on the right track then with the SFX we ripped already.

>>>>>>
The tool is there to be used - otherwise I wouldn't be sharing it with the world! I don't mean to sound harsh
>>>>>>

You do not sound harsh at all. I understand where you're coming from. I also didn't realize you're internet speeds weren't the best so I understand better why you wouldn't want to be bothered re-uploading what you've already ripped.

>>>>>>
Since I did do a lot of organizing and additional extracting for the BGM/SFX samples, I guess I can upload that again at least.
>>>>>>

So on that note, I understand if you'd rather not.

Nonetheless thank you continually for the software and programs you have created to get us where we're at now! It's a slow process but we are getting there piece-by-piece!

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