You’ve just booted up Konami’s latest nightmare, ready to lose yourself in the flower-infested dread of 1960s Japan, but something feels... off. The movement isn't fluid. The cinematic transitions feel like they’re chugging. If you’re feeling like Silent Hill f is stuck at 30 FPS, you aren't actually losing your mind.
It’s real.
Honestly, it's one of the most jarring things about an otherwise gorgeous game. You’ll be sprinting through a village at a silky smooth frame rate, and then—bam—a cutscene triggers and the game feels like it's running through molasses. This isn't just a "you" problem. It’s a technical choice by NeoBards Entertainment that has left a lot of the community scratching their heads, especially those of us on high-end PC rigs or PS5 Pro.
The 30 FPS Cap Reality Check
Let’s get the facts straight. In Silent Hill f, the gameplay itself is not technically hard-locked to 30 FPS on most platforms, but the cutscenes absolutely are. By default, every cinematic in the game is capped at 30 frames per second.
Why? Usually, developers do this to ensure "cinematic consistency" or because certain cloth physics and facial animations in Unreal Engine 5 can get wonky when you push them to 60 or 120. But for us players, jumping from 100+ FPS gameplay down to 30 FPS every time a character speaks is enough to cause actual eye strain.
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If your gameplay is also stuck at 30, check your settings immediately. On PC, the game often defaults to a "30 FPS" cap in the display menu upon first launch. On PS5, if you’ve selected Quality Mode, you’re locking yourself into that 30 FPS container to get the best Lumen lighting and resolution.
How to Fix Silent Hill f Stuck at 30 FPS on PC
If you're on PC, you have the most power to fix this, but it requires a little bit of legwork. You basically have two main paths: the "official" settings and the "modder" route.
1. The Settings Menu (The Basics)
First, dive into the Display settings. Look for the Frame Rate Limit option. A lot of players found that even on "No Limit," the game occasionally bugs out. Try setting it to 60 or 120 specifically rather than leaving it uncapped. Also, ensure your Vertical Sync (V-Sync) isn't forcing a half-refresh rate if you’re on a 60Hz monitor.
2. The "SHfFix" Mod
This is the gold standard right now. A modder named Lyall released a tool specifically called SHfFix. It’s a godsend.
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- It removes the 30 FPS cap from cutscenes.
- It fixes the "cropped" FOV on ultrawide monitors.
- It gets rid of those annoying pillarboxes (black bars) during cinematics.
You can usually find this on Codeberg or GitHub. It’s a simple DLL drop-in. Once it's in your game folder, those transitions between gameplay and story beats become seamless.
3. Special K Tool
If you’re a power user, the Special K tool (created by Kaldaien) also works. You can open the Special K control panel while the game is running and manually override the framerate limit. Just a heads up: some users reported that while this unblocks the FPS, the animations themselves don't always interpolate perfectly, so it might look a bit "jittery" even if the counter says 60.
What About PS5 and Xbox Series X?
Console players have it a bit tougher. There is no "magic mod" for the PS5 version.
If you feel like you're stuck at 30 FPS on console, you are likely in Quality Mode. This mode pushes the internal resolution higher and enables more complex Lumen (software ray tracing) features. To fix this, you need to switch to Performance Mode.
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Be warned, though: the trade-off is massive. On the base PS5, Performance Mode can sometimes tank the internal resolution as low as 360p to 720p before upscaling it back to your TV’s resolution. It’s a blurry mess, but it’ll give you that 60 FPS target. Even on the PS5 Pro, the "Performance" results have been a bit underwhelming, often hovering around 720p internally.
Why Does the Game Feel "Stuttery" Anyway?
Even if you hit 60 FPS, Silent Hill f suffers from what tech experts like Digital Foundry call traversal stutter.
Because it’s built on Unreal Engine 5, the game loads chunks of the map as you move. This causes tiny hitches. It’s not a frame rate cap; it’s an engine limitation. On PC, you can mitigate this by installing the game on the fastest NVMe SSD you have. If you’re still on a mechanical hard drive or a slow SATA SSD, the "30 FPS feel" is actually just your drive struggling to keep up with the asset streaming.
Actionable Steps to Smooth Out Your Experience
If you're tired of the chugging, do these three things right now:
- Toggle Motion Blur: Oddly enough, some players on Reddit found that turning Motion Blur ON actually masks the jitteriness of the 30 FPS cutscenes, making the transition feel less like a car crash.
- Use TSR instead of DLSS (PC only): While DLSS is usually king, there have been reports of major visual artifacts and crashes in Silent Hill f when using DLSS on certain cards (like the RTX 50 series). Switching to Unreal’s TSR (Temporal Super Resolution) has fixed "ghosting" issues that make the game feel slower than it actually is.
- Check Your Refresh Rate: Ensure your Windows Display settings match your monitor. If your desktop is set to 60Hz but the game is trying to push 144, you're going to get frame pacing issues that mimic a 30 FPS lock.
Basically, the game is a bit of a technical beast that hasn't been fully tamed yet. Stick to Performance Mode on consoles or grab the SHfFix mod on PC, and you'll finally be able to see those terrifying spider-lilies in the high-frame-rate glory they deserve.