Resident Evil 4 (PC Version) ~ Essential Enhancement Mods

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Mozgus
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Resident Evil 4 (PC Version) ~ Essential Enhancement Mods

Post by Mozgus »

I decided to revisit RE4 on PC and see how far the fan-base has been able to enhance the visuals. For those who don't know, the PC version was a port of the PS2 version, which was extremely flawed compared to the Gamecube version. Namely, polygon counts and textures were cut in half, and a lot of the environments were trimmed down in subtle ways, and various other effects were either removed or downgraded. Also, all the cutscenes were pre-rendered, instead of realtime like Gamecube offered, which meant they had compression artifacts and your unlocked costumes were never shown.

Well here are the essential mods I've found that improve the visuals without making drastic changes.

Resident Evil 4 Texture Patch v2.0, by Albert
http://z6.invisionfree.com/Resident_Evi ... topic=1631
This mod made massive progress so quickly, because of the simplicity behind it. Basically, Albert found out how to cut and paste the textures from the Gamecube version to the PC version with much ease. A job that Capcom should have been able to do originally. You'll notice just about every texture in the game looks twice as good, just like you remembered it on Gamecube. It's fantastic. Albert later went through and further improved some textures that still stood out. This is a very self-contained, and perfectly compatible mod, and should be the most important one to grab.

Enhanced Environment 2.0, RE4 texture improvement, by Cerberus
http://z6.invisionfree.com/Resident_Evi ... topic=2172
This is a much less vital texture mod. A lot of people swear by it, but when I installed it on it's own, I noticed that it didn't improve quite a few textures that Albert's does, despite being much larger in size and claiming to contain Albert's textures. It's recommended to install this on top of Albert's, as it does do a pretty good job on the environments, as was the initial goal. You can live without this one however, should you need the storage space.

Hi-res Eff/tpl Textures Replacement Pack 1.0, by Albert
http://z6.invisionfree.com/Resident_Evi ... topic=2743
The most important feature of this mod is that it re-skins the menus and fonts of the game, as well as adds custom button icons to match your controller. It does a flawless job of fixing up all the low-resolution console GUI objects. There's just one big catch to this mod. It requires that you run the game through a loader exe every single time, and it adds about a 15 second boot time. Kind of a pain in the ass, but if you tend to play games for long stretches of time, you won't mind. I don't though.

Re4 Ps 2.0 Bloom Mod, real bloom, by cdiddy7
http://z6.invisionfree.com/Resident_Evi ... topic=2236
This mod tries to enhance the lighting to resemble the lighting engine seen on Gamecube. The original UK and Asian releases of RE4PC actually had no lighting engine at all, but a later patch, and NA release, incorporated a simple lighting engine. This mod tries to take things a step further, but you may find that it goes a little too far on the bloom. Also, the menus will be affected by it and bloom as well, even the white font on black backgrounds. Basically, it makes the in-game graphics look better overall, but makes the rest of the game look a little out of place.

Improved Cut Scenes V2.0, by Sp00kyFox
http://z6.invisionfree.com/Resident_Evi ... topic=2563
On top of being stuck with pre-rendered cutscenes, Capcom did an absolutely terrible job of recording them. They all had awful compression artifacts because they were using low bitrate MPEG2. They also used a crap deinterlacer. Well, Sp00kyfox fed the clips through some AviSynth filters and did a great job of restoring them as best as anyone could, and then he encoded them through the best codec current available (arguably), x264. This requires FFDShow or else the clips won't play in game, but if you are of the many who just use K-Lite Mega Codec Pack, you're already good to go. The cutscenes will still look low resolution compared to your high resolution graphics, but until someone figures out how to mod in the realtime cutscenes from Gamecube (there was some progress on this a while back) this is your best bet.

Laser Tweaker, Change transparency and color, by St.Vampyre
http://z6.invisionfree.com/Resident_Evi ... wtopic=234
By default, the laser sight on your weapons is entirely too bright and thick. This little mod lets you turn down the opacity and shrink the laser dot. Simple, but important.

Oh and here are some pictures I took myself.
ImageImageImageImage

More mods here: http://z6.invisionfree.com/Resident_Evi ... wtopic=573
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GSZX1337
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Post by GSZX1337 »

I heard that the PC version of RE4 doesn't have mouse support. Is it true? If so, has that been fixed by a mod yet?
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Mozgus
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Post by Mozgus »

GSZX1337 wrote:I heard that the PC version of RE4 doesn't have mouse support. Is it true? If so, has that been fixed by a mod yet?

Well there is a mouse mod but it's terrible because all it does is emulate the analog aiming, which was terrible to begin with. I remember on Gamecube I just aimed with the d-pad because the analog was so unreliable. When you're using the mouse aim mod, and you move the mouse in a direction, the laser sight will only aim in that direction for as long as you're moving the mouse in that direction. When the mouse stops moving, the laser sight resets to center, because it thinks the analog stick reset to center. Basically it's worthless.
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Mozgus
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Post by Mozgus »

I guess I should just go back to bashing RE4, instead of posting neutrally about it. I seemed to get everyone's attention when I did that. :lol:
baphomet_irl
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Post by baphomet_irl »

I have all 3 console versions of RE4 and I love it :) - Wii is my favourite version with obviously PS2 least fave
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Doctor Fugue
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Post by Doctor Fugue »

Mozgus wrote:I guess I should just go back to bashing RE4, instead of posting neutrally about it. I seemed to get everyone's attention when I did that. :lol:


Yes please, that was fun especially since I did not like RE4 very much. Interesting stuff about the mods but I don't have a PC.
"Your vessel, your beginning. All that you knew...is gone." - The Guardian of Forever
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homsar
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Post by homsar »

Mozgus wrote:Well there is a mouse mod but it's terrible because all it does is emulate the analog aiming, which was terrible to begin with.


The aiming on the Cube was amazing, I don't know what your smoking. Ya it was a bit to get used to but it offered great accuracy (though the wii version obviously has the best accuracy).
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marurun
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Post by marurun »

Eh, I'm just one of the few people who doesn't get much out of any of the RE games. They're just not my thing. Pretty looking, but not my thing.

I also got tired really quickly of people bashing on the Saturn version of RE1. It looked fine to me.
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Re: Resident Evil 4 (PC Version) ~ Essential Enhancement Mods

Post by Lonedragon »

Help
I'm playing Ada Separate Ways!!
Right after killing Krauser, the game freezes after the cutscene..
Any solution to this?
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BigTinz
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Re: Resident Evil 4 (PC Version) ~ Essential Enhancement Mods

Post by BigTinz »

I think that after installing all of the graphical upgrades and placing in your own favorite weapons, the PC version definitely becomes the best looking/best playing version(if you've got a usb controller).
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