SilentPatch, the excellent GTA Trilogy patch, has just received a major update and is now open-source.

Silent is known for patches such as the one which restores product placement in Crazy Taxi and fixes analog controls, or the one which restores the piss filter in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. SilentPatch is a must-have for Grand Theft Auto Trilogy. It was updated and made open-source in celebration of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' 20th anniversary.

The GTA SilentPatch fixes a number of issues in the PC versions of GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas. Many of these issues were not present in the console versions. The patch is not for the Definitive edition rerelease. That's a different animal with its own documented problems.

The SilentPatch fixes a number of issues in all three games, including the possibility that cars could explode twice if you bail out during an explosion, a fix for the PS2 version’s random chance for some drivers to not turn on their lights when it rained or fogged over, metallic vehicle extras looking shiny instead of weirdly matted, and the credits scrolling correctly (they used to be slower at high resolutions).

There are also many changes that are specific to each game. The SilentPatch, for example, now gives GTA3 proper boat-sitting animations and driving instead of having Claude just sink through the seat. Pedestrians will also dive away from the vehicle rather than toward it. And severed limbs are now properly modeled rather than being doubled up, so that you would see two hands on every severed arm. Oh, and NPCs can now turn right on one way roads, something they could not do before.

While Vice City is still being developed, many of the changes are due to broken backface culling. If you aren't familiar with culling, it's a way for videogames to save memory by rendering objects you can't see. Vice City's backface culling caused a variety of problems, including the disappearance of car windows and Tommy's collar. This has all been fixed. Assault rifle muzzle flashes pointing the wrong direction have also been corrected. A separate patch has been added to SilentPatch for pedestrians not talking as much on the street as they should.

In sunny San Andreas, CJ’s clothes now move as they do when he’s riding a quadbike, and you can hover using the jetpack if you’re using keyboard controls. (It defaults to Q+E and makes the Jetpack segments much less annoying.) Silent has also fixed those strange falling black dots. While conspiracy theorists had long thought they were flying saucers. Silent looked at the code and realized that they were using the textures from clouds but were taking the incorrect part. The dots now appear white, as they were intended to be. They also clearly appear as shooting star. Mystery solved.

Download the SilentPatch separately for each of the Grand Theft Auto titles it supports and then follow the instructions to install. You'll need to follow the instructions carefully, as they will differ depending on where you purchased the games or if you have a retail version on a disc.