[WIN/LINUX] English Patch with ThCRAP, Plus V-Sync Patch, All From Within Steam

Getting Steam to run Mountain of Faith from the ThCRAP launcher and pointing said launcher to the V-Sync patch isn't all that difficult, but I figured I'd make this guide to help make the process of playing Mountain of Faith in English with minimal input lag and a custom window size a more or less a straightforward, step-by-step process.

!!! Keep in mind, however, that getting the V-Sync patch to work correctly seems to require an original "th10.exe" from the CD version of Mountain of Faith. It won't work right with the .exe Steam gives you. You can still play the game in English without this, of course. This solution works for both Windows and GNU/Linux with Proton. That means you can play the Touhou games in English on the Steam Deck!
UPDATE: I've just made some .bdf diff patch files that can convert a Steam-provided .exe into a disc-provided one, through the use of bspatch. Check the guide for a link to them!

Step 1: Getting ThCRAP

What is That Hilariously-Named Program?

ThCRAP (Touhou Community Reliant Automatic Patcher) is a fantastic ongoing creation of hard work and genius that allows pretty much all the official Touhou games to be played in multiple different languages, including English. It can install other patches that aren't related to language, as well, such as retextures and the like. Its methods don't involve replacing any of the game's original files, either, which makes things much cleaner.

Why I'm Covering the Standalone Version of ThCRAP

It's recommended to get the regular version of ThCRAP, which you can use to launch every official Touhou game from, without needing to download the same patch for each game, but for the sake of portability and an easier time with the whole ThCRAP -> V-Sync Patch -> MoF chain, I'm going to mainly cover the standalone version of ThCRAP. With this solution, you won't even have to open the "scary" text-based gui for anything.

ThCRAP Standalone Download

You can get the standalone patch from ThCrap's standalone patch page[www.thpatch.net]. Once there, look for "Touhou 10 -Mountain of Faith-".

Step 2: Throwing all of Mountain of Faith Into a Subfolder, and Unzipping ThCrap

Put All of the Game's Files Into a Subfolder

After you downloaded the ThCRAP standalone zip, right-click Mountain of Faith in Steam and hit Properties -> Local Files -> Browse Local Files. Make a new folder in there, and name it whatever you want. I just called it "th10" again. Drag everything from the folder you're in into that new folder. This step has to be done because we can't have two files named "th10.exe" in the same folder, yet we will need two files to be named "th10.exe" for this whole thing to work.

Extracting ThCRAP

Open the .zip you got with 7Zip or whatever you use, and extract it all to the original game directory(...\SteamApps\Common\th10).

Step 3 (Optional): Getting the V-Sync Patch (Requires Original th10.exe From Disc Version)

What the V-Sync Patch Requires and What You'll Miss Out On If You Don't Have What it Needs

Unfortunately, getting the V-Sync patch to work requires the game executable from the regular disc version instead of the Steam version. I'm not sure why this is; it might be that there's some kind of DRM in the Steam version's exe preventing the patch from running, or the patch is expecting certain hex values in certain places in th10.exe and can't find them. Whatever the case, if you don't have that original .exe, you're gonna miss out on lag reduction and custom window sizing (the default size is really small, so you'll likely have to deal with low-res fullscreen).

I probably shouldn't hand the original .exe around, so you'll have to find that yourself, if you don't already have it. ... Is what I would have said if I didn't think of a way to give you it without giving you it! Check here[github.com] for how to convert your Steam th10.exe into a Disc th10.exe!

Once aquired, rename Steam's "th10.exe" in your subfolder to something like "th10_steam.exe" and just drag the original version's "th10.exe" into the subfolder from the disc or wherever you have it.

Downloading the V-Sync Patch

Download the V-Sync patch from Touhou Wiki's "Game Tools and Modifications[en.touhouwiki.net]". Go down the list until you find "Vsync Patches". Hit download under the section title, and extract the .zip to it's own folder somewhere. Then, go to its "vpatch_rev7" folder and move "vpatch.exe", "vpatch.ini" and "vpatch_th10.dll" to your subfolder you created in Mountain of Faith's install directory. You can delete the vpatch folder you downloaded if you don't plan on using this patch for any of the other games any time soon.

Making a Few Adjustments to the vpatch.ini

Open up "vpatch.ini", and consider making the following changes:

• Change "enabled" under [Window] to 1 instead of 0
  
• For 1080p screens, change width to 1280 and height to 960 to make the 4:3 window nice and big without having to deal with the problems fullscreen would introduce. For my 4k screen, I've found 2667 width and 2000 height make the window as big as possible without it getting covered by the taskbar.
  
• Change vsync to 1 instead of 0 (I actually realized setting this to 1 might defeat the whole purpose of vpatch. You should probably leave this off for the lowest latency.)

Step 4: Renaming ThCRAP So Steam Launches It, and Pointing ThCRAP to the Right .exe

Renaming the ThCRAP Launchers So Steam Launches Them Properly

Rename both "th10 (thpatch-en).exe" and "th10 custom (thpatch-en).exe" from your main folder, where Mountain of Faith used to be (...\SteamApps\Common\th10), to "th10.exe" and "custom.exe" respectively. Steam expects these .exe names.

Editing One Little Config File To Point ThCRAP To the Right .exe

Finally, go into the 'thcrap' folder, then edit "games.js". This is either going to be just inside the 'thcrap' folder, or in "thcrap\config\".

Change ""th10": "../th10.exe"," to point to the V-Sync patch. If you don't have the original CD .exe for the V-Sync patch to use, just make it point to the 'th10.exe' that steam gave you from the start. Both of these should be in the subfolder you made, which holds all of the original game files and the V-Sync patch files. When looking at the paths below, omit the first and last quotation marks, and replace [*YOUR SUBFOLDER*] with the subfolder you made's name.

• (POINT TO vpatch.exe): ""th10": "../[*YOUR SUBFOLDER*]/vpatch.exe","
  
• (POINT TO th10.exe (in case vpatch can't be used): ""th10": "../[*YOUR SUBFOLDER*]/th10.exe","
  
• Change the Custom path to ""th10": "../[*YOUR SUBFOLDER*]/custom.exe""

Roughly what the code would look like if you want to use the V-Sync patch:








Or without using vpatch:








If you do everything right, your main folder should look something like this:

This same general process should work with Subterranian Animism, Undefined Fantastic Object, Double Spoiler, Great Fairy Wars, Ten Desires and Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, though I haven't tested it with any of them yet. Though not on Steam, it should also work with Perfect Cherry Blossom, Imperishable Night, Phantasmagoria of Flower View and Shoot the Bullet. For Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, some extra steps involving Locale Emulator will need to take place for the game to run. Also, because the way the paths for this are set up, this will work fine with Wine for GNU/Linux and Proton. I've found that in my case, the game would only launch if I renamed thcrap_update.dll in the thcrap folder to something else, so thcrap doesn't check for updates. For some reason, that just wouldn't work right in Proton for me.

Enabling Steam Cloud

Steam Cloud looks for saves in the root th10 folder. Needless to say, it won't find them if you don't create symlinks to them where Steam expects to find them. How does one create a symlink, you may ask? This tool should do the job: https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html
After installing that and restarting explorer.exe, just select all the files Steam Cloud uses in th10\th10 (scoreth10.dat, steam_autocloud.vdf and the hint, replay and snapshot folders), right click -> 'pick link source', then go to the root th10 folder and right click -> Drop as -> Symbolic link.
You don't want your 1cc's to disappear when you move PC's, do you?

Other Possibly-Useful Things

A Few Tips

• If using a controller, consider mapping 'bomb' to a button you can always have your finger on (like RB/R1), so you can bomb with minimal delay if you're about to be hit.
  
• This probably goes without saying, but for a controller, use the d-pad and not the analog stick. If the game can't take certain inputs on your controller, try AntiMicro to map your buttons to keyboard keys. If your dpad is horrible (360 controller), consider just using the keyboard.
  
• When training for a no-continues run, it will save a lot of time to go through the game once with continues and then use the practice mode to get better at indivdual stages, versus constantly going through the first few stages just to have another shot at learning a part you're stuck on.
  
• Speaking of practice, check out thprac. It lets you practice any spell card in any game, plus stage segments!
  
• If you're using Linux (Wine on Mac might be able to do this too), set your launch options to
  

  WINE_FULLSCREEN_INTEGER_SCALING=1 %command%

  . This'll enable pixel-perfect scaling and make the game look even better, when in fullscreen.

[Tiamtum]

works on win11. thanks.

[AshleySlashley]

I'm for some reason getting an error that says "L'Could not open thcrap\thcrap_loader.exe

[Биba dzибун]

Borderlles Gaming has a new feature called "app container" so if anyone want to have semi-fullscreen expierence can use this. All you need is to change resolution to maximum aviable to your screen (1440x1080 for 1080), then lauch game through steam and add game to favorites, after this you can close the game AND thcrap patcher. In the Borderless Gaiming app right click on game in favorites and select this options -> "No size change", "Delay borderless window", "App container (you can chose collor, image. or gradient)". Then lauch game and see the result [imgur.com]! First time i have the issue after alt-tabbing from the game, keys were not working, but after close the game and thcrap patcher, and lauch everything again, game works smooth and alright. Hope this help someone!

[CuddlyZombie]

@Tuspuki Thank you so much! It took me a bit of further fiddling, but I got it working thanks to you! I really appreciate it.

[Tuspuki]

You're going to have to enable japanese locale and make the launch options for the game be
LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8 %command%
if you're running it through steam. This script [gist.github.com] should automatically enable japanese locale. You'll likely have to run it each time a steamOS update is applied.

[CuddlyZombie]

Has anyone managed to get EoSD patched in English on steam deck without getting the text cut off? What are the extra steps involving locale emulator mentioned in the guide? I realize this is a guide for MoF first and foremost, but I figured I'd ask since this is the best guide for getting English Touhou on steam deck.

[Magic]

IMPORTANT:

If you're copying the disc version of the game, some patched versions come with both 'th10.exe' and 'th10j.exe'

make sure you move and rename the 'th10j.exe' to the th10 sub folder and rename it 'th10' as this is the original disc version

[jhc24]

For step 4 I think it's easier to just change which executable steam chooses to run like the answers to this reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/jpgfzh/can_i_make_steam_open_a_different_exe_file/

[jhc24]

Unfortunately the site linked for bspatch is currently restricting downloads. Did find a possible alternative in a python module called bsdiff4 which should be similar so will try that one out

[Tuspuki]

@Chocoroom this should be as simple as launching thcrap_configure.exe in the thcrap folder and selecting 'alphes portraits' along with the english patch when you get to the patch selection screen. I'm not sure how we'd get an executable for this without using something like steamedit, but launching the shortcut that thcrap gives you will also launch the game on steam, so you'd have all of the steam functionality. I know in linux there's steamtinkerlaunch, which can also let you launch a custom shortcut/executable instead of the "th10.exe" that steam expects