What's Changed
Lotsa stuff this update! We've got performance improvements, massive vanilla loading time reductions for MGS2, loose .MP3/.WAV/.OGG/FLAC soundtrack loading for MG1/MG2, WIP raw mouse input support, and TONS of restorations and bugfixes.
I'd love to start off by highlight our newest translation support updates first:
Translation modloading support has been added for all games.
We previously mentioned it in our 4.0.0 patch notes & it's finally done! Translation mods for all of the game's languages can be generated by our soon to be released MGSMC String Editor tool, allowing you to edit all of the game's text (cutscene captions, item/weapon descriptions, voicelines, codec conversation captions, everything .SDT & .GCX based) without having to modify or reupload any massive .SDT files.
The string editor generates a dif.json file (Example: here ), which contains the CRC32 of the game's original text, and the exact line what you want it to remap to.
This format allows you to translate an entire game's 60,000+ lines of text with a single 15 MB text file, as opposed to having to edit and upload 1.6 GB+ of .SDT & .GCX files.
These files simply get placed in a /translations subdirectory in the game folder (ie steamapps/common/MGS2/translations/your_translation.dif.json), and MGSHDFix will detect them up and load their translations into the game for you automatically.
We've also added a vector font rendering system for MG1 / MG2 which supports these translations (expanding it to MGS2 & MGS3 is pretty much finished as well, it just needs more testing & should be in MGSHDFix 5.1.0.) Our font system supports any standard .ttf font file as well - so we're able to add support for any language's glyphs if needed.
Translation mod makers: just send us an example of an unsupported block of text with fonts/characters you need the game to support, and we'll happily wire in any alphabets/custom glyphs needed to get your translations working properly through our systems. We want to enable the community to make more great mods as easily as possible.
We are also currently experimenting with adding support for loading standard .SRT subtitle files (placed directly alongside .SDT files with the same name) to allow for total control over adding, removing, and retiming captions in any codec/radio call, & cutscenes, without having to modify any .SDT files.
Plenty more on the way for 5.1.0 & beyond! ♥
New Restoration:
- As a reminder, all restorations can be disabled. If something is missing from the config tool that you'd like to have the ability to disable, please give us a poke and we'll make sure to add it!
[Brackets denote what version the bug was introduced, ie Sons of Liberty, Substance, HD Collection, Master Collection]
🎮 Metal Gear 1 Specific Restoration:
Restored Snake's mouth movements when making outbound transceiver calls.
Restored 3 missing animation sprites / palette quirks that were missing during the opening cutscene. (They're hard to notice unless you're going frame by frame.)
🎮 Metal Gear 2 Specific Restoration:
Added an option to restore the original MSX2 character sprites, complete with the original facial animations. (Yes, you can finally experience Mel Gibson fighting Sean Connery as Kojima intended.)
Restored the pre-radar explanation song for Campbell's first radio call at the very start of the game, which was using the later full variant of the song. (Requires MG1 - MG2 Restored Audio Mod)
Fixed the Evasion (Alert Level 2) music using the wrong song entirely. (Requires MG1 - MG2 Restored Audio Mod)
Restored elevator floor indicators in Zanzibar Building 1, and the basement of Marv's cell.
Restored original elevator idle behavior, where elevators would idly move up / down between floors until you press the call button.
- This behavior does impact speedruns - some elevator calls are half the time of MC's fixed 64 tick door timings, some are slower (it depends on what floor they're sitting on when you call.)
Restored the Infiltration Point -> Zanbibar Building 1 exterior area's brightness / sunrise phase palette swapping.
- Brightness levels as you progress through the level was correct, but they forgot to have the palette shift alongside it.
Restored a locked fence gate in the truckyard south of the Bridge of Sorrow.
- This gate opens after watching the Bridge of Sorrow cutscene.
Added an option to restore the original boss names (Black Ninja -> Black Color, Night Fright -> Night Sight, The Four Horsemen -> Ultrabox.)
- This includes the boss survival sprites in addition to all the radio messages, of course.
Restored the original cigarette idle animation timings (MC waited 3x longer than the MSX version for Snake to start smoking), cigarette smoke animations, and per-room cigarette wind behavior.
Added a new "Retranslated MSX Script" option, which restores multiple radio conversations that were mistranslated (ie Grey Fox calling himself your "Number One Fan" instead of "One of your fans"), as well as restoring several pop culture references that also got removed (ie Lone Ranger & Gundum references.)
The retranslation is not a dramatic change, but just tightens up some language to bring things closer to the original Japanese MSX2 script.
This feature also restores the original character names as well (Johan Jacobsen -> Yozev Norden, Gustava Heffner -> Nastacha Marcova)
Restoring the original item descriptions is still being worked on too (I have to figure out resizing text next, since there's a line-count difference that I've been wrestling with.)
Currently English only.
- We're looking for translators to help translate the game's other languages for integration directly into MGSHDFix! Contact us on Discord or Github if you're interested in helping out!
Restored a number of doors which were using the incorrect sprite. [2006 Subsistence]
Restored a number of outright missing doors. [2006 Subsistence]
Restored 2 missing pitfall traps. [2006 Subsistence]
Restored the censored Sauna guard. [2006 Subsistence]
Restored a red cross that was edited to green outside the Sauna room. [2023 MC]
Restored the Balmal cigarette package during the second intro cutscene. [2006 Subsistence]
Restored the lighter's missing flame sprite when attacking without the spraycan equipped. [2006 Subsistence]
The Bridge of Sorrow cutscene (Gustava & Marv on a bridge, trying to avoid massive spoilers in notes) has been reprogrammed completely to fix numerous timing & positioning issues, as well as missing sprites. [2006 Subsistence]
Gustava's eyes now open/close at the correct pacing (both with restored original portraits, and vanilla Master Collection portraits.)
Gustava now moves along the correct path when sent flying.
The chasm now lights up properly during the explosion. (This was likely reduced for photo-sensitivity reasons. The old behavior can be restored under graphics -> reduce photosensitive effects.)
Fixed Marv sometimes facing the wrong direction at the start of the cutscene.
🎮 MGS2 Specific Restoration:
Restored missing PS2 GS overbright inversion on Snake/Raiden's face when triggering the L1 flash effect on the main title screen. [2002 Xbox Substance] (Example)
Fixed incorrect texture UVs on the Tanker's opening credits breaking its fade effect. [2011 HDC]
- An upcoming fix for the incorrect sizing/placement of the Tanker's opening credits in Fullscreen compared to PS2/letterbox mode is in the works for 5.1.0. (This one requires a bit of texture work to go alongside the fix.)
Restored the missing clouds/haze behind the Manhattan skyline during the Tanker exterior cutscenes. [2002 Xbox Substance]
- This has been broken in all non-PS2 Sons of Liberty editions of the game. The model for the clouds/glow was supposed to be spawned with their scale set to 10,000, but Substance accidentally set it to 100,000.
New Features:
✨ Metal Gear 1 & Metal Gear 2 Shared Features:
Added an option to make doors automatically check your inventory for keycards (how MGS2 keycards work).
Added native vector font rendering! All of the game's low resolution glyph textures have been replaced with proper .ttf (font file) support.
This currently supports the game's built in glyphs.
Translation mod-makers: If you need us to add support for your language - send us some example text that doesn't show up properly in-game, and we'll work on adding full support to both the game's built in text rendering system & our own vector font system for you. ♥
Support is being expanded to MGS2 & MGS3 in an upcoming HDFix update.
Added support for loading loose .OGG, .MP3, .FLAC, and .WAV files that are placed beside .SDT audio containers.
MG1 - MG2 Restored Audio Mod has been released utilizing this feature to reimport all the original MSX2 music, fixing tons of volume issues, compression artifacting, incorrect and missing songs, and looping bugs in the game's vanilla audio.
A modmaker's guide can be found over here for how to set up audio with custom looping duration & volume corrections: Audio Replacements Guide
Loose audio loading will be expanded to MGS2 & MGS3 if there's demand for it - just give us a poke if you have a mod you're working on that could use that support and we'll set it up!
Added speedrunner overlay support. (Shows all ranking stats + IGT, same as MGS2 & MGS3's.)
Added an option to disable health loss when cigarettes are equipped. (This is on by default to match the original MSX2 behavior.)
Splashscreen logo skip has been added for MG1 / MG2.
Added support to swap confirm/cancel (X/O) buttons in menus.
Added a brand-new Developer menu, complete with stage select & item/weapon modification.
✨ Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3 Shared Features:
Raw mouse input has been added for both MGS2's Bluepoint third person camera (complete with mouse-wheel zoom in & out), and MGS3's third person camera.
- We're still working on proper raw mouse input for first person as well. Fingers crossed for 5.1.0! :3
✨ Metal Gear Solid 2 Specific Features:
Loading Time Reductions!
We've greatly sped up level loading by adding a new system that prefetches a list of all the assets for all the rooms that are directly connected to the current stage you're in.
On Linux/Steam Deck, this can reduce level transitions load times by 4~6 seconds for every room you go into.
Speedrunners have reported that this new prefetch system has shaved upwards to 5 minutes off of the elapsed realtime from their runs.
Loadtime reductions come in two flavors (Speedrunner tab -> Load Optimizations):
- "Preload Only" (On by default. We prefetch asset lists as mentioned above - doesn't affect IGT.)
- "Full" (OPT IN ONLY. This option further reduces level transition times by reducing the fade to black & music fade between levels, as well as skipping the first area namecard. This option DOES affect IGT, and is only for people who REALLY WANNA GO FAST at the cost of authentic experience.)
We've added options to make Olga's bossfight taunt, Stillman's coolant tutorial, Raiden's sword training, & the ending skippable (while keeping the correct adjusted IGT.)
New Bugfixes:
🐛 Shared Bugfixes:
Fixed text in the launchers getting blurry when full-screen. [2023 MC]
- The viewport is hardcoded to switch text rendering to 1920x1080 scaling when in full-screen, despite rendering at native resolution when windowed...
Fixed all games hanging/getting stuck in the background when closing/alt-f4'ing. Games now close cleanly. [2023 MC]
MG1 & MG2: Fixed incorrect vector line UI scaling in the save/load data menu. [2011 HDC]
MG1 & MG2: Fixed the in-game timer not pausing during the pause screen. [2006 Subsistence]
MG1 & MG2: Fixed the in-game timer not pausing while navigating the load/save data screen. [2006 Subsistence]
- (Yes, just sitting idle on the MGS3 save data menu screen was counting towards IGT...)
🐛 Metal Gear 1 Specific Bugfixes:
Fixed binoculars/TELESCOPE MODE not hiding the status HUD underneath it. [2006 Subsistence]
Fixed an off-by-one typo in scorpion path-finding which caused them to never move Northwest & always get stuck in the lower-right corner of the screen. [2006 Subsistence]
Fixed an off-by-one typo which caused guards to always skip one of their valid spawn points during alerts in every room. [2006 Subsistence]
🐛 Metal Gear 2 Specific Bugfixes:
Corrected over 180 typos across all of MG2's languages. [2006 Subsistence]
Fixed 21 doors which were incorrectly positioned (in most cases hovering slightly above all other sprites with a visible gap at the bottom...) [2006 Subsistence]
Fixed a number of pitfall traps which were using the incorrect sprites for their surrounding areas, and a few more that were mispositioned in general. [2006 Subsistence]
Fixed outgoing radio calls showing the recipient of the call (ie Campbell) before Snake finished sending his first message. [2006 Subsistence]
Fixed some swapped tiles (repeating ground sprites, wrong shadow textures used, ect) in Infiltration Point -> Zanzibar Building 1. [2006 Subsistence]
Fixed incorrect colors & flicker timings for the radio's scanline effect. [2006 Subsistence]
Fixed incorrect companion following distance / update frequency. [2006 Subsistence]
- This could be seen ingame as Gustava sitting in a puddle during the Marv escort cutscene.
🐛 MGS2 Specific Bugfixes:
Fixed sparks, Solidus's glowy-blue tentacle arm effects, & other temporary lighting systems leaving walls lit up after they ended. [2011 HDC]
Fixed a Marine during the Tanker overview cutscene (T02a1D) on the top level who would stop walking & just hover in place. [2001 PS2 SoL]
Fixed two Marines during Seizure of Metal Gear Ray (T12a1D) who were spawned in before they were supposed to be (& visibly a-posing to assert their dominance over Ocelot.) [2001 PS2 SoL]
Fixed Ocelot's opening "Show’s over! If you wish to live, I suggest you run now!" lines having incorrectly scaled lipsync animations. [2001 PS2 SoL]
Adjusted shading on the the Shell 1 - Shell 2 Connecting Bridge's pipe to make it more obvious where Solidus dented it. [2001 PS2 SoL]
- (The dent was there in the model but the flat orange color made it difficult to see in most camera angles.)
Fixed ALERT/EVASION indicator not showing up when the radar is turned off. [2023 MC]
Fixed Radar type not being saved properly. (This resulted in radar randomly resetting when loading saves, invalidating many Big Boss runs in the past.) [2023 MC]
Fixed a number of models having incorrect heat signatures when using the thermal goggles. [2011 HDC]
Fixed incorrect color palette when using the thermal goggles. [2011 HDC]
Fixed some double speed lights in the Tanker opening cutscenes. [2011 HDC]
Fixed the M9's hammer not being visible during cutscenes (it's always been hiding inside of Snake's hand.) [2001 PS2 SoL]
Fixed ~50 typos across all languages with how the "AV-8B Harrier II" was spelled. [2001 PS2 SoL]
MGSHDFix Improvements & Internal Bugfixes:
⚙️ Shared:
The High CPU Usage fix's waiting margin was tweaked slightly to further improve performance gain.
Added a new Performance VS Quality mode dropdown for MGS2 & MGS3's depth of field restoration.
This performance mode halves the resolution of blur effects - although it's blurry anyway so it's not super noticeable.
Performance mode is automatically enabled for users on minimum spec hardware (ie GPUs weaker than an Nvidia 1070, & Steam Deck users) so people who don't dig through the launcher have solid performance out of the box. ♥
Increased tooltip visibility time in the config tool.
The launchers no longer silently relaunch when closing the game with skip launcher enabled.
⚙️ Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3 Specific:
Fixed display cropping affecting the save/load data screen.
Boosted performance a hair when using color correction.
⚙️ MGS2 Specific:
Tweaked the blur radius of motion trails slightly to clean up some unintentional blurring on UI text (ie the Tanker intro's opening credits.)
Fixed a performance regression with AMD GPUs (& users using DXVK) on the main menu which was related to the scanline fix.
Naked Raiden can now run around with the HF Blade.
Naked Raiden will no longer get stuck when entering Arsenal Gear's Ascending Colon (W43A) when the HF Blade is equipped.
Corrected thermal goggle swap's Substance palette having an incorrect shade of dark blue.
Soft particles are now automatically disabled on minimum spec hardware for performance.
Fixed keep aiming forcing the player to go prone after firing while crouched.
⚙️ MGS3 Specific:
Grass distance override settings will automatically scale back in some grass heavy cutscenes (ie The Boss's flower arena) for users on minimum spec hardware (ie GPUs weaker than an Nvidia 1070, & Steam Deck users.)
Full Changelog: https://github.com/ShizCalev/MGSHDFix/compare/4.1.2...5.0.0
Installation / Update Instructions
If updating from a previous version:
Delete any old MGSHDFix Config Tool.exe and MGSHDFix.asi from your /plugins folder to avoid conflicts.
Ensure d3d11.dll is removed if upgrading from pre-2.5.0 versions.
Extract the new release into your game folder (MGS2 or MGS3 under steamapps/common).
Steam Deck / Linux:
Use this launch option:
WINEDLLOVERRIDES="wininet,winhttp=n,b" %command%
DualShock 2 / 3 Setup
https://github.com/ShizCalev/MGSHDFix#dualshock-2--3-setup
Download Links
Community Bug Tracker & Support
