The GTA Trilogy’s excellent SilentPatch just got a big update and went open-source
You may know Silent from patches like the one that restores product placement and makes analog controls work properly in Crazy Taxi, or the one that restores Deus Ex: Human Revolution’s piss filter. Perhaps even more essential is the SilentPatch for the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy, which just got a significant update and went open-source to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
The GTA SilentPatch fixes numerous issues in the PC ports of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas, many of which weren’t present in the console originals. It’s not a patch for the Definitive Edition rerelease, however, which is a whole different kettle of fish with its own well-documented problems.
Among the fixes the SilentPatch now adds for all three games are fix for the issue where cars could blow up twice if you bailed out during the explosion, a restoration of the PS2 version’s random chance that some drivers wouldn’t turn on their lights in the rain or fog, metallic vehicle extras now appearing properly shiny rather than weirdly matte, the credits scrolling at the correct speed (they used to go slower at high resolutions), and the mission completion text likewise leaving the screen at the correct speed (again, it was linked to resolution).
There are also a significant number of changes specific to individual games. For instance, the SilentPatch now gives GTA 3 proper boat-sitting and driving animations rather than having Claude simply sink through the seat, pedestrians dive away from your vehicle instead of toward it, and severed limbs use the proper model rather than being weirdly doubled up so you’d see two hands on each severed arm. Oh, and NPC drivers can turn right on one-way roads now, something they couldn’t do before.
Meanwhile, a lot of the Vice City changes have to do with broken backface culling. If you’re not familiar with it, culling is the way videogames save memory by not rendering things you can’t see—like the backs of objects. Vice City had all kinds of problems with its backface culling, resulting in car windows and parts of Tommy’s collar disappearing, among other things. That’s all been fixed, as has assault rifle muzzle flashes being aimed the wrong way, and a separate patch for pedestrians and Tommy not talking as much as they were supposed to on the street has been incorporated into the SilentPatch.
Finally, in sunny San Andreas, CJ’s clothes now move when he’s riding the quadbike just as they do on regular bikes, and you can hover with the jetpack even if you’re using keyboard controls (it defaults to Q+E, and makes the jetpack segments way less annoying). Those weird falling black dots have also been fixed—while conspiracy theorists have long theorized they were supposed to be flying saucers, Silent looked into the code and realized they were supposed to use the textures from clouds, but were taking the wrong part of it. They now look white as they were originally intended to and clearly appear as shooting stars. Mystery solved.
You can download separate versions of the SilentPatch for each of the three Grand Theft Auto games it supports, then follow the setup instructions. They’ll differ based on which storefront you bought the games through, or whether you have an old retail version on disc, so make sure to follow them closely.
