Launch crash fix

[👁️‍🗨antiparti]

For those like me who struggles with "SHProto Win64 Shipping" UE crash at game's launch, here's the only solution that worked for me:

1. Locate the SHProto-Win64-Shipping.exe executable file at
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SILENT HILL 2\SHProto\Binaries\Win64

or at
\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\SILENT HILL 2\SHProto\Binaries\Win64
if you installed the game on a different drive.

2. Create a shortcut for it, then right-click the shortcut for options and at the end of the Target line add -dx11 argument so the Target looks like this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SILENT HILL 2\SHProto\Binaries\Win64\SHProto-Win64-Shipping.exe" -dx11

Save the shortcut and launch it, Steam will not register that the game is running.
[optional] Start new game and make a save, you won't see your previous saves here.
Exit, delete the shortcut or keep it, but you're not supposed to use it for playing the game, this shortcut is only used to solve the crashing problem.

3. Now launch the game from Steam normally, DON'T add -dx11 in Steam's game launch options. It should now start without a crash and it should start compiling shaders.

If it still won't start, DO add -dx11 in Steam's game launch options, and if the game runs, exit the game and Remove -dx11 argument. Launch again, the game should now start with dx12 as it was supposed to.

Later, in case you're updating your gpu drivers, you will have to use this workaround again, but otherwise the game shouldn't crash at launch anymore.

[LordoSwords95]

so i have to do unnecessary work to get the game to run awesome love PC ports sometimes

[wallbears]

Worked
Thanks

[Nurlan*****]

This method did not work for me.

[Jack O'Neill]

this works but only if i keep using the shortcut, if i launch from original shproto, it crashes again. can i just play the whole game with the -dx11 shortcut?

[wallbears]

I only used the shortcut once. Then I used the steam launcher after deleting the shortcut

[MapleOmega]

I wonder what happened. The game ran flawlessly prior to the update. Never crashed once for me at least.

[Chrizo]

just verify integrity got mines working

[Jack O'Neill]

i just bought it today and installed today, shortcut makes it work, but launch from steam crashes, i tried the other fix too of run as admin. still crashes.

can i play the whole game from the shortcut? anyone know? i dont really care about achievements.

[Superscooter]

I followed all the instructions, even saved while in dx11 mode, but it will still not launch normally because of C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\iigd_dch.inf_amd64_7e6488fd378ffede\igd12um64xel.dll

[Rod88]

This solved it for me. I got the game since the release and was playing it with no issues... either the game patch/update, the win11 update 24H2, or the AMD adrenaline drivers update was what made sh*t hit the fan... those are the only culprits I can think of

[Supreme Emperor Lord As Asriel]

Not needed

Put -dx11 in launch Options when you right click on the icon in your library and click on properties. No need to create shortcut.

[Supreme Emperor Lord As Asriel]

Screenshots don't work with shortcut

[👁️‍🗨antiparti]

These steps have to be repeated after each gpu driver update.
The culprit is the current game patch since various players with different hardware are having these crashing issues.

[👁️‍🗨antiparti]

Originally posted by Supreme Emperor Lord As Asriel:

Not needed

Put -dx11 in launch Options when you right click on the icon in your library and click on properties. No need to create shortcut.

Not everyone will want to play with dx11 since you won't get ray tracing or newer upscaler options such as fsr3.1
The point is to make it run with dx12.
You're not supposed to play the game through the aforementioned shortcut, it's only used to make the game launch through Steam correctly.

[👁️‍🗨antiparti]

Originally posted by 0btu5e:

You don't need to do this at all, you just download the latest D3D12.dll file and put it in \SILENT HILL 2\SHProto\Binaries\Win64\D3D12 and it then launches fine, at worst verify the files afterwards.

This also won't work for each and every player, some will need the workaround I posted.