Silent Engine

Silent Engine is an in-progress cross-platform engine port designed to run the original Silent Hill on modern systems. It aims to be a monolithic, flexible, and future-proof foundation with modern standards that will enable long-term goals such as translation support and modding. Written from the ground-up with a high-quality, no-compromise codebase.

Q: CAN I PLAY THIS? Not yet! While some core logic has been migrated from our decompilation repository, the priority is building a stable engine foundation before integrating gameplay and graphics. I prioritize maintainability over quick, observable progress I can show off; simply getting the game to "work" is secondary to avoiding long-term technical debt. Additionally, much of the decompiled source still requires documentation and deobfuscation. Despite what completion metrics might suggest, the decompiled game code is hardly in a usable state, and rushing the port while the base source is being refined would be a mistake. However, the boot process, FMV playback, and main menus are already functional, with the rest steadily underway.

Decompilation progress can be tracked here: https://github.com/Vatuu/silent-hill-decomp

Contributing

Too early for this, but feel free to take a look around in the meantime! Active discussion and updates can be found on the PS1/PS2 Decompilation Discord server (look for the #Multi-Platform Port (Silent Engine) thread under the #silent-hill channel).

Prospects

• Easy to use.
• Windows/macOS/Linux support out of the box, with the potential for other platforms later.
• Modern renderer supporting Vulkan, DX12, and Metal, with the potential for other backends in the future.
• Keyboard/mouse and gamepad support.
• Widescreen and CRT filter support,
• Retro and HD font options (.TTF fonts matching the originals have been found or meticulously recreated, allowing for modern font rendering to take place without relying on the original sprites).
• Various graphics toggles for a retro or modern look.
• Clean, well-documented codebase.
• Lua scripting.
• Translation support.
• Modding support.
• Custom levels (ambition for the far future).

Current foundations

• Simple launcher with automated asset extraction from a user-provided compatible ROM
• User config options handling
• User savegame handling
• Input handling
• Math wrappers and functions (similar to DXTK but with some usability improvements)
• Window handling
• Asset streaming
• Timestep handling
• Parallel task handling
• Filesystem handling
• Extensive warning and error logging
• Renderer with swappable backends
• Translator for internationalized scripts
• Font manager FMV video player
• Debug menu
• Various utilities pulled from other projects

TODOs

• Stability.
• Switch to GCC as the compiler on Windows with MinGW.
• Forward renderer.
• Sound system. Need to write a KDC+VAB -> XM converter?
• Parsers for all proprietary game file types.
• Lua scripting.
• Decompiled code migration.

Building (Windows/macOS/Linux)

NOTE: Project setup is yet to be streamlined and this section is incomplete. Ideally, the project will be able to cross-compile between all main development platforms.

Prerequisites

Install the required system tools.

Windows

winget install Kitware.CMake Git.Git Ninja-build.Ninja Python.Python.3

macOS

brew install cmake git ninja ffmpeg python

Linux

sudo apt install build-essential cmake ffmpeg git ninja-build python3 python3-pip python3-tk

Clone the repository

Initialize Git LFS to ensure assets are pulled correctly.

git lfs install

Clone https://github.com/Sezzary/SilentEngine to your desired directory. Cloning recursively will include submodules in the process:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/Sezzary/SilentEngine
git submodule update --init --recursive

Build the LuaJIT dependency locally.

cd Libraries/LuaJIT && make && cd ../..

Set up a Python virtual environment. Make sure to activate it whenever working with any of the scripts found in Tools.

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

Install required Python packages.

pip install -r Requirements.txt

Generate the launcher. This small GUI utility automates asset extraction from a compatible user-provided ROM.

python3 Tools/GenerateLauncher.py

Windows

TODO: Steps incomplete.

Build shaders.

python Tools/GenerateShaders.py Windows

macOS

TODO: Steps incomplete.

Build shaders.

python Tools/GenerateShaders.py macOS

Linux

Install SDL dependencies.

sudo apt-get install build-essential git make \
pkg-config cmake ninja-build gnome-desktop-testing libasound2-dev libpulse-dev \
libaudio-dev libfribidi-dev libjack-dev libsndio-dev libx11-dev libxext-dev \
libxrandr-dev libxcursor-dev libxfixes-dev libxi-dev libxss-dev libxtst-dev \
libxkbcommon-dev libdrm-dev libgbm-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev \
libegl1-mesa-dev libdbus-1-dev libibus-1.0-dev libudev-dev libthai-dev

Build shaders.

python Tools/GenerateShaders.py Linux

Transfer assets

Copy the Assets folder from the root of the repository to the Build folder. Then, run the Launcher utility to extract all required assets from a 1.1 US release of the game. Original game assets are not provided. Your own ROM must be sourced.

Build the code (Debug/Release)

Available commands:

• Configure Debug:cmake -S . -B Build/Debug -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug

• Build Debug: cmake --build Build/Debug

• Configure Release:cmake -S . -B Build/Release -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

• Build Release: cmake --build Build/Release

• Activate Python virtual environment: source .venv/bin/activate