Hitman 2: Silent Assassin

Hitman 2: Silent Assassin

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How To Configure And Run The Game On Modern Systems: A Complete Guide
By mattiejas
This guide explains how to get Hitman 2: Silent Assassin to run properly on modern systems, fixing black screen issues, improving view distance, enabling widescreen resolutions, fixing the user interface on high DPI screens, fixing the frame rate to resolve game engine bugs, and enabling free camera movement.
   
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Configure Full Screen / Windowed Mode
First, you can switch between full screen and windowed mode using the configuration utility (it's not in the in-game menu). Run config.exe in the game's root folder, and select the appropriate option that works for you.

At this point, the resolution does not really matter, as we will fix this later.

It has been reported that the game runs much more smoothly in full screen mode on lower end hardware.
DxWrapper
When starting the game, you may have noticed a black screen during some cutscenes, and perhaps various other graphics glitches. One way to solve these problems is to install DxWrapper. Coincidentally, DxWrapper also comes with a built-in asi loader for loading scripts. We will use this later to install a widescreen resolution plugin. For now, download the latest version of DxWrapper from the official webpage:

https://github.com/elishacloud/dxwrapper/releases

From the zip file, you only need the following files:
  • dxwrapper.dll
  • dxwrapper.ini
  • d3d8.dll (found in the "Stub" folder)
Place all three files in the game folder (where hitman2.exe resides). Edit the following values in dxwrapper.ini (leaving everything else as it is):
LoadPlugins = 1 LoadFromScriptsOnly = 1 D3d8to9 = 1 AnisotropicFiltering = 1 AntiAliasing = 1 EnableVSync = 1
You should now be able to run the game without any graphics issues, with vsync, anti-aliasing, and anisotropic filtering.

Finally, we should ensure the game actually uses the Direct3D rendering engine, otherwise none of the above fixes will work. This is the default, but just in case, you can check it by verifying that you have the following line in your Hitman2.ini file:
DrawDll RenderD3D.dll
If instead you see RenderOpenGL.dll, change it back to RenderD3D.dll.
Widescreen Fix & Increased View Distance
Now, create a folder named scripts inside the main game folder. Download nemesis2000's widescreen fix from:

https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/2787-hitman-2-silent-assassin-widescreen-fix/

This zip file also includes an older version of DxWrapper, which we already downloaded and installed, so you should ignore those files from the zip file. We are only downloading this zip file for the widescreen plugin (and sadly, the original source is no longer available). These are the following two files, both residing in its scripts folder:
  • h2.ini
  • h2w.asi
Place both files in the scripts folder of your game. Only copy those two files, and do not copy anything else from this zip file.

You should now have the following layout in your game folder (along with any other game files):
... d3d8.dll dxwrapper.dll dxwrapper.ini ... hitman2.exe ... scripts\h2.ini scripts\h2w.asi
The default h2.ini will run the game at 1080p widescreen resolution. You can adjust this as you wish. However, the user interface does not scale along, making the user interface hard to read at high resolutions.

To ensure that the user interface is not too small, you may wish to run the game instead at 720p. To run the game at 720p, you can edit h2.ini to match the following values (leaving everything else as it is):
Width = 1280 Height = 720
This forces the game to run at 720p.

A useful tweak, especially if you run the game on lower end hardware, is change the value of LOD_Distance_Multiplier from 10.0 to 5.0 in h2.ini. This will reduce the level of detail on distant objects. You can also reduce Draw_Distance should that be needed.

At this point, I suggest starting the game again, and checking that the new resolution takes effect. If you run in windowed mode, the game window may appear in an inconvenient location on your screen and/or may be too small. We will fix this next.
Window Location & High DPI Fix
You can skip this section if you run the game in full screen mode.

If you run the game in windowed mode, the game window possibly looks far too small, and cannot be moved around. To fix this, this section has you covered.

First, to force the window to appear on the top left of your screen, start with making a backup of the hitman2.ini file in the root of the game folder, just in case something goes wrong. Then, add the following line to this file (do not make any other changes!):
StartUpperPos 0,0
The values 0,0 represent the x and y coordinates. You can modify them to reposition the window anywhere on your screen.

If you're using a high-resolution, high-DPI display, the game window may appear too small at 720p (or at whichever resolution you chose earlier). To address this, you may want to let Windows scale the game using its high-DPI compatibility settings—though this is typically handled automatically.

However, if for whatever reason Windows does not scale up the game window, you can force it as follows: right-click hitman2.exe and select Show more options -> Properties. Then, under Compatibility, select Change high DPI settings. Now enable Override high DPI scaling behaviour and select System (Enhanced) from the drop down menu. Then click Ok and Apply (especially don't forget this last step). With this high DPI compatibility setting, the game's user interface will be appropriately sized, at the expense of some pixelation.
Frame Rate Fix
The game engine will exhibit various bugs if the game is run at a high frame rate. Most of the game works fine at 60 frames per second. However, for the least amount of glitches and the most stable experience, 30 frames per second is recommended, as this fixes a few more glitches (for instance, the first guard in The Death of Hannelore may not start moving).

A first option is to use DxWrapper as it comes with a LimitPerFrameFps setting to limit the frame rate. However, this does not work consistently in my experience.

A second option, if you have an NVidia GPU, is to limit the frame rate using the NVidia Control Panel. This will permanently lock the game's frame rate. To verify that the fps limit is in effect, use steam's performance monitor, via Steam -> Settings -> In-Game -> Show performance monitor.

Finally, a third option is to use RTSS Rivatuner Statistics Server[www.guru3d.com] to limit the frame rate. This works with all GPUs. After installing and running the application, open the RivaTuner window from the system tray, select Add, select your hitman2.exe executable, and then set the Framerate limit to your desired value. The Rivatuner application must be running for the limit to work. To verify that the fps limiter works, enable Show own statistics in Rivatuner, which will display the fps in-game. Alternatively, use steam's performance monitor, via Steam -> Settings -> In-Game -> Show performance monitor.
Enabling Freecam
This section is entirely optional.

The in-game free camera mode can be a very helpful tool for screenshots, for developing strategies, and for fun. To enable freecam, add the following to your keyboard.cfg file.
<Mapping Action="ToggleFreeCam" Activation="None"> <Key SCode="K_K" Device="Keyboard"/> </Mapping>
Note that you cannot just put these lines anywhere! Put then along with the other Mapping entries, i.e. right before the Controls tag should be fine. The last few lines of the file should look like this:
... <Mapping Action="ToggleFreeCam" Activation="None"> <Key SCode="K_K" Device="Keyboard"/> </Mapping> </Controls> </Settings>
The keyboard.cfg file will get overwritten whenever you reconfigure the controls in-game, in which case you will need to redo this edit.

Press K to toggle freecam. Use the mouse to look around and the arrow keys to move forwards/backwards. Hold SHIFT for tilting, and hold CTRL for strafing.
Closing Thoughts
If you find anything unclear, or you believe that you've found an error, or you have a constructive suggestion, please do leave a comment below. It is my intention to keep this guide as up-to-date as possible, and I'll try to help to the best of my ability.

Additional resources:
6 Comments
mattiejas  [author] 10 Oct @ 7:55am 
Awesome, I'm so glad to hear that hernj15!
hernj15 10 Oct @ 7:22am 
Thank you! I almost gave up hope I was gonna be able to re-play one of my all time favorites. Works perfectly
mattiejas  [author] 19 Sep @ 2:40am 
Thanks so much for testing and getting back to me! I've added a section on how to switch between windowed & full screen modes (you can do this using the configuration utility), and added a tip about reducing LOD_Distance_Multiplier.
karciel 18 Sep @ 7:01pm 
Found the cause of the poor performance, brother!

Old configs in Hitman2.ini were persisting from a previous guide.
In my case, the problem was:

"Window 1"

It was conflicting with the tweaks.

Setting ForceExclusiveFullscreen = 1 in dxwrapper.ini overrides it, but simply removing the Window 1 line also fixes the issue. Just in case, I kept it there and forced fullscreen via the wrapper. Didn’t know this tool before - going to try it on some other games.

Thanks a lot! :steamthumbsup:
mattiejas  [author] 18 Sep @ 11:41am 
Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad to hear the guide helped! Makes sense reducing distance multiplier to help with performance. I'm not sure why ForceExclusiveFullscreen helps so much, but that's a neat trick. I'll do some testing here locally to see if I can reproduce the effect.
karciel 18 Sep @ 11:00am 
Thanks a lot, it worked beautifully.
:steamhappy:

I have two tips:

1. Inside the script, in the h2.ini file, I changed the value of LOD_Distance_Multiplier from 10.0 to 5.0 . That made my game run a little better, and I honestly didn’t notice much difference (old rig here).

2. [IMPORTANT] Inside the game’s folder, you’ll find the downloaded file dxwrapper.ini! . In this file, look for the section [d3d9] . I changed ForceExclusiveFullscreen from 0 to 1 . For some reason, the game runs way better this way — I was getting around 30–40 FPS from the very beginning, and now I’m locked at 60 FPS , with GPU usage dropping significantly.