Development material research

[IWILLCRAFT-M0d]

In this issue, games that are or might be related to Silent Hill 1 and counts with development material that could help the decompilation or debug material are investigated.
The original investigation started by @emoose on his old repository and later he gave us an updated version of it

Contemporary Games

Konami games from the same timeframe may share code or symbols with SH, could be worth digging through prototypes/alternate releases:

• International Track & Field / Hyper Olympic in Atlanta / ITF2000: SH1 contains unused graphics from it & seems to share very similar overlay/data handling code, very likely that SH was built off of this - the undumped 40% prototype could be interesting if it ever shows up.
• Nagano Winter Olympics '98 / Hyper Olympic in Nagano: likely built on the International Track & Field engine as it seem to share a similar CD filesystem queue code. One prototype is available, however it doesn't contain anything useful. The dummy file only contains what a commonly shared dummy file among some PSX Konami games which seems to be some sort of video or audio.
• Tokimeki Memorial ~forever with you~: has partial debug symbols which unfortunately don't match its executable, making any comparisons a bit harder.
• beatmania APPEND 5thMIX: partial source available, uses similar movie player code but doesn't appear to share much else, contains a Konami SD sound library that's completely different to the one used in SH.
• Pachinko Dream: source code available, can be found inside a dummy file which is actually a TAR archive. Contains another SD sound library, which could be a very early version of one used in SH, but nothing else seems shared, however it may give hints toward Konami's code style.
• Kinniku Banzuke Vol. 1 / Vol. 2: contains fragments of uncompiled code & SYM files (which can be parsed by hacking Psy-Q dumpsym src), might be developed by same team as Pachinko Dream - unlike that game this does use real 3D models, but it's unclear if any 3D code might be shared, the math defines & partial movie player code may be of interest at least.
• Konami International Rally Racing: unreleased game with one prototype available which contains MAP/SYM symbols, includes code/symbols for SD sound library which is a very close match to code inside SH, besides some small changes, also contains MemCard* functions which are similar to card funcs in SH1, possibly an earlier version of them.
• ESPN International Track & Field (PS2): sequel of ITF2000 with debug symbols available, seems to mostly be a C++ codebase, maybe a rewrite, or more likely a completely different engine.
• Silent Hill 2 (PS2): the sequel, three prototypes are available with debug symbols, doesn't appear to share that much in common with SH1, especially the two latest builds, other than some camera-related code (but hasn't been extensively checked), though shared dev team members would likely mean similar code conventions.
• • Raw dump of SH2 shows that it includes a XYZediter.exe file not listed in the filesystem, appears to be for editing VC camera data, it's built for working with SH2 .cam/.dmm files but has some code for editing PS1 data, so may have been used for SH1 originally - might give some ideas how a VC data editor would work.
• SOUNDCD.IRX / SOUNDHD.IRX / AUDIO.IRX / AUDIO_F.IRX / AUDIO_W.IRX / LIBSMF2.IRX: Konami audio driver used in many PS2 releases, supporting the custom KDT1 midi format, based on the same libsd driver used in SH - closest versions to SH have a kcet sd drv string, later versions have konamityo sd drv, and libsmf2 has By KONAMI TYO R&D K.Yamane - Winning Eleven series includes IRX files with .mdebug & DWARF symbols inside, which helps name a lot of libsd struct fields.

This list isn't exhaustive, and new prototypes could appear at any time - there's likely many other Konami games that could share code with SH too, they released a lot during PSX/PS2 era.

[emoose]

Nagano Winter Olympics '98 (US) / Hyper Olympic in Nagano (JP), and Hyper Olympic in Atlanta (JP), both seem to share similar CD filesystem queue code, maybe are also based on ITF.

There's 1 proto for Nagano but sadly didn't find anything useful inside.

[IWILLCRAFT-M0d]

Nagano Winter Olympics '98 (US) / Hyper Olympic in Nagano (JP), and Hyper Olympic in Atlanta (JP), both seem to share similar CD filesystem queue code, maybe are also based on ITF.

There's 1 proto for Nagano but sadly didn't find anything useful inside.

Hyper Olympic in Atlanta is the original japanese release of International Track & Field, and Nagato games has to be based upon the same engine and if I'm not wrong the dummy file inside Nagato games is a common dummy file shared among other Konami games that maybe is a video or audio file (the same file can be found in Azure Dream another Konami game), but in some particular format that I wasn't able to figure out, in any case nothing useful unless some prototype of any of the game you mention pop-up some day

[emoose]

SOUNDCD.IRX / SOUNDHD.IRX in SH2 seems very similar to our libsd code, eg. code that checks for MThd string is nearly 1:1 besides some additions, caller of that func is also pretty much 1:1 (worth pointing out, the PS2 IOP which runs IRX modules is pretty much the same as PS1 CPU, even gets used for PS1 back-compat)

Sadly doesn't seem that it has any symbols in the 0.10/E3 protos, but maybe this sound driver was shared with other games that might have included them, if any of them have struct defs that would help fill a lot of libsd unknowns.

Those IRX files contain kcet sd drv string inside them, if anyone has a collection of PS2 games it might be worth trying file search for that.

E: AUDIO_W.IRX from PES1 also uses same MThd reading code (with kcet sd drv ID), and also libsmf2.irx from SH4 (1.12 03/11/25 By KONAMI TYO R&D K.Yamane) has very similar code, sadly neither had symbols in releases I checked.

Did notice PES3 AUDIO.IRX includes symbols, but that doesn't seem to include the MThd code (might just be a SCE lib?), but only func symbols included, wonder if any IRX ever contained structs inside too?

E2: turns out a lot of Konami PS2 releases included these IRXs, libsmf2.irx gets used in Castlevania Lament of Innocence, Contra Shattered Soldier, and Neo Contra, probably a bunch more too - so far no symbols though.

TODO: check International Superstar Soccer and World Soccer Winning Eleven 6, both have symbols on dg but IRX weren't included.

[emoose]

Sheddy had found a win32 app accidentally included in some SH2 releases for editing VC camera data:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YowZGrGDydI
(afaik it's included in the ISO but not actually part of the filesystem)

App was built in 2001 and probably only meant for SH2, but it does seem to have code for accessing PsyQ PLY files, some mentions of the @PLY940102 @PLY970401 headers inside it which are also mentioned in filefrmt.pdf: https://psx.arthus.net/sdk/Psy-Q/DOCS/Devrefs/Filefrmt.pdf

The link they post is for the JP language version but seems they made a translation mod too, haven't found that posted though.

We already have most of the VC structs/funcs figured out thanks to SH2 symbols, but wonder if this might come in useful for editing SH1 at some point (or at least gives idea of what an editor could look like)

Not sure what data this tool is actually editing though, looks like it opens up SH2 .cam and .dmm files, guess in SH1 those might be part of the map overlays instead.

[emoose]

Aha, Winning Eleven 5 (JP) contains SOUNDCD.IRX with symbols included:

We already have these func names from konami rally though, but looks like we also have structs here too !!

Not sure which format these are yet, but a very good find for libsd enjoyers
(E: oh it's .mdebug, sweet)

[IWILLCRAFT-M0d]

A member from another Konami decomp pointed this on Discord something quite interesting. They mentioned that 4 of the main Konami division had their own variation/derivation of the sound library, those division were:

KCET - Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo

KCEJ East - Konami Computer Entertainment Japan East

KCEJ West - Konami Computer Entertainment Japan West

KCES - Konami Computer Entertainment Studios

Also mentioned that Japan East and Japan West used code interchangeably sometimes.

This could also explain why some of the previously recognized instances of code goes from have barely any similarities to be almost identical.

From the previously mentioned games in this issue which has been recognized to have some sort of debugging material (as for Dec 13, 2025) here I list them with the correspondent division which develop them:

• Konami Computer Entertainment Sapporo
  Kinniku Banzuke Vol. 1 / Vol. 2:

• Konami Computer Entertainment Tokio
  Tokimeki Memorial ~forever with you~
  Pachinko Dream
  Konami International Rally Racing
  World Soccer Winning Eleven 5
  World Soccer Winning Eleven 6

• Konami Computer Entertainment Japan
  beatmania APPEND 5thMIX

• Konami Computer Entertainment Osaka
  ESPN International Track & Field (PS2)
  International Superstar Soccer (Franchise)

Worth mentioning that Pachinko Dreams and Tokimeki Memorial were launched at the beginning of the PS1 life cycle so that could explain any big differences, also Tokimeki Memorial is a port/remaster of a TurboGraph game if that matters.

[IWILLCRAFT-M0d]

Wanted to say too that at this point Emoose research about the LIBSD system have pretty much covered everything that seems to be the library itself.

The unrecognized code related to audio system it is very likely game specific code because of some instances of special code for the game in this functions, this code handles the overall streaming of VAB and KDT data and this code is located in middle of the general engine code while the LIBSD code is around the segment that contains all external libraries.

So rather than focusing on the LIBSD it should be more in the way the game handles audio files.

[emoose]

Turns out Hyper Olympic/Winter Olympic had ports to Konami GV arcade (PSX based): https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/d653d3cee1505a302df881f02adc5227a87ed46b/src/mame/konami/konamigv.cpp#L15

Tried looking through some of the games mentioned there but didn't find much too useful, one of the hyper olympics did include .CPE files, but no .SYM for them (if only PsyQ devs merged CPE+SYM, so close to greatness...)

There was also Konami System 573 that was based on PSX, looks like it had a bunch of bemani/ddr games ported, but also some sports games like bass fishing: https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/32c05f4eb6e3c86d65e9b4e6ed2ed73973194ddf/src/mame/konami/ksys573.cpp#L29

Wonder if any of that might have been based on ITF/HO at all, I think 573 might have used some crypto stuff for protection though so might be hard to dig into.

(also tried a bin search for some of the lib_unk code against redump, only SH and SH demos matched :/)

[IWILLCRAFT-M0d]

The GV arcade looks really interesting stuff, specially because most if not all of the games listed there were develop by the Tokyo division. I would discard the System 573 because most if not all games listed were developed by other teams, apart of the obvious beatmania and DDR games develop by the Japan division the other fishing games were developed either by Saporo or another division named "Nagoya"

[IWILLCRAFT-M0d]

I mentioned this on the Discord server, but to not make it lost in between all messages I will repost it here

Someone mentioned at TCRF discord that some Konami games had a derivative of LZSS compression and after I asked for more they shared me this

https://github.com/lab313ru/lzkn/tree/master

It seems like SH1 could actually be using the third version if you considering this check:
https://github.com/lab313ru/lzkn/blob/master/lzkn3/main.c?h=1#L157