Sonic Adventure 2 – Troubleshooting Guide

I literally had every single problem you could encounter in this game (at least the major unplayable problems). After looking online for all of these problems and solving them one by one, I thought it would be more convenient to put all the solutions to the problems I’ve gone through for people who are having different issues.

How to Fix Various Issues with the Game (Game Wont Start, Crashes, Freezes, Black Screen, Game Is Too Fast)

Note: Credit goes to Hans

Unable to Get Past The Launcher Error

When the launcher pops up and you try to hit play but get an error, this is what you should do:

• 1: Go to steam, right click on SA 2, go to manage, click on browse local files.
• 2: Rename the “launcher.exe” to anything else (mine just says “nope.exe”.
• 3: Then rename the “sonic2app.exe” to “launcher.exe” which should launch the game instead of the launcher. If your game launches but you cant play, I gotchu. Do the next method below this one.

Black Screen

• 1: Go to steam, right click on SA 2, go to manage, click on browse local files.
• 2: Go to config and make a Keyboard.cgf and UserConfig.cgf file. To make the files, right click inside the empty folder, go to “new” and choose “text document”.
• 3: For Keyboard.cfg you will paste this.

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<Setup Layout="0" />
<Players>
<Player InputWay="1" Vibrate="0">
<key index="22" />
<key index="18" />
<key index="0" />
<key index="3" />
<key index="8" />
<key index="50" />
<key index="17" />
<key index="10" />
<key index="25" />
<key index="16" />
<key index="37" />
<key index="23" />
<key index="4" />
<key index="37" />
<key index="27" />
<key index="67" />
</Player>
<Player InputWay="0" Vibrate="0">
<key index="83" />
<key index="65" />
<key index="73" />
<key index="79" />
<key index="102" />
<key index="98" />
<key index="101" />
<key index="99" />
<key index="66" />
<key index="104" />
<key index="37" />
<key index="76" />
<key index="105" />
<key index="37" />
<key index="28" />
<key index="111" />
</Player>
</Players>

For UserConfig.cfg you will paste this:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<Configs FullScreen="0" Display="0" Res="18" Width="1920" Height="1080" RefreshRate="60" Language="0" Analytics="0" />

• 4: After making those files, convert the files from txt to cfg. To do that, on the file explorer, hit view at the top and check mark the “file name extensions”. Then you’ll be able to see the “.txt”, Erase that and make sure it only says “Keyboard.cfg” and “UserConfig.cfg”

This should solve most peoples issues, but if the screen keeps going black, use this in your UserConfig.cfg instead:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<Configs Windowed="1" Display="0" Res="22" Width="1920" Height="1080" RefreshRate="60" Language="0" Analytics="0" />

That should make your game windowed which is what solved my problem.

If it still persists, right click on launcher.exe (the one you renamed from sonic2app.exe), click properties, choose the compatibility tab and change the compatibility mode to Windows XP (Service Pack 3). Also check mark the box that says “Run this program as an administrator” while you’re there.

Frame Rate Problem (Game Is Too Fast)

I can only help people with Nvidia, but people with AMD may still get the general idea if they keep reading

• 1: Go to NVIDIA Control Panel, manage 3D settings, program settings and look for the launcher.exe or sonic2app.exe.
• 2: On “select the preffered graphics processor for this program” choose “High-performance NVIDIA processor”. Then scroll down till you find “Vertical Sync” and turn that on. If that doesnt work, on that same list look for “Max Frame Rate” and set it to 60 which will force the game to 60 fps.

Sometimes when you change the fps of the game, the screen will go black after the Sega logo, you’ll have to play the game windowed to avoid it.

Game Freezes/Crashes During Gameplay

• 1: Go to NVIDIA Control Panel, manage 3D settings, program setting and look for the launcher.exe or sonic2app.exe
• 2: On “select the preffered graphics processor for this program” choose “High-performance NVIDIA processor”. Then scroll down till you find “Power Management Mode” and set it to “Prefer maximum performance”