How to unlock Resident Evil 3’s zombie animation framerates – No more 30FPS zombies
How to unlock Resident Evil 3’s zombie animation framerates – No more 30FPS zombies
Capcom failed to patch this issue out of Resident Evil 2’s PC version, which means that this issue is unlikely to be addressed within Resident Evil 3, even though today’s PC hardware is more than capable of handling high animation rates for distant zombies.Â
Isn’t there a mod for this?Â
Over the past few days, articles about an “FPS Zombies” mod for Resident Evil 3 has been circulating, but this mod has two significant downsides. For starters, the mod can cause players interactions to break within Resident Evil 3, making the game unplayable, and second, the mod can be detected as a virus on Windows-powered PCs.Â
We looking into this mod, Windows immediately flagged the mod as a Trojan horse, deleting the mod on the spot. Given the state of this mod, we cannot recommend it to our readers, as it isn’t guaranteed to work without downsides and can cause a lot of stress and anxiety, given how it interacts with antivirus software. In our eyes, it’s evident that those who have written about this mod haven’t tested it themselves…Â
Don’t worry; our search to fix this issue didn’t end there. We have found another way to bring full framerate zombie animations into Resident Evil 3.Â
Step 1: RE2-Mod-Framework
For starters, anyone who plans to mod Resident Evil 2 or 3 should know about the RE2 Mod Framework, a tool which allows PC gamers to mod their copies of Resident Evil 2/3 without causing interaction issues within the game.Â
This mod is a must if you want 60 FPS zombie animations tweaks to work within Resident Evil 3, but thankfully the modding process is simple and the tool has no performance impact. Simply download the tool from Github, extract the contents of RE3.zip and then add the framework’s “dinput8.dll” file to your RE3 game directory.Â
Note that this tool only works with Resident Evil 3’s DirectX 11 code path. Do not use this tool with DirectX 12. That said, our testing shows that Resident Evil 3 will run better under DirectX 11 under most circumstances. Â
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Step 2: Editing RE3.exe
Using a hex editor like HxD, PC users can edit Resident Evil 3’s .exe file. If you mess up this step, you can tell Steam to “verify integrity of games files” within Steam. This will allow you to redownload an unmodified .exe file for Resident Evil 3.Â
Within HxD, select “Search” and then “Go to” and the following window will open. Search for “ECFC28” and make sure “hex” and “Offset relative to begin” are selected. Â
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Doing this will bring you to the following line of your RE3.exe file’s code. Search for the code “44 8B C5”, which is what we have highlighted in the image below.Â
After finding this code, replace “44 8B C5” with “45 31 C0” (as shown below) and save the changes to your .exe file. This edit will allow Resident Evil 3 to run full framerate zombie animations.Â
This alteration will allow Resident Evil 3 to run with faster zombie animations and no issues. Play tested this method ourselves, and it works.Â
Special thanks to cymatix on the Resident Evil Modding Forums for discovering the RE3.exe edits that we used to enable full framerate zombie animations within Resident Evil 3.Â
Conclusion
When testing Resident Evil 3 with higher framerate zombie animations, we found that the change resulted in no noticeable performance drops. If anything, the game appeared to run smoother, as distant zombies were no longer running at a slower 30 FPS framerate.Â
This modification has a huge impact across Resident Evil 3, especially within the game’s larger city landscapes. This is especially true for PC gamers who are running the game with an unlocked framerate, as doing this makes Resident Evil 3’s 30 FPS zombie animations appear a lot jerkier than when running the game at a locked 60 FPS.Â
Those who want to optimise the PC performance of their copy of Resident Evil 3 should have a look at our performance optimisation guide for the title, which details some key settings which can be used to generate higher framerates at a minimal cost to the game’s graphical fidelity.Â
You can join the discussion on unlocking Resident Evil 3’s zombie animation framerates on the OC3D Forums.Â