SASRT PC known issues, bugs & potential fixes!

[IceBlade]

I would highly recommend first reading the stickied topic on this forum by S0L if you are having problems here.

Since new issues are popping up all over the place, I guess it would be a good idea to collaborate them all into one place. Feel free to add to this thread for anything you believe might be an issue affecting more than just one or two people.

Crashes/errors

Black screen on game start/crashing to desktop on game start
Make sure you meet the minimum requirements for this game! They are:

OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8
Processor: 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or equivalent
Memory: 1GB Ram (Windows XP), 2GB Ram (Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8)
Graphics: 256MB with Shader Model 3.0 support
DirectX®: 9.0c
Hard Drive: 6.7GB free hard drive space
Sound: DirectX 9 Compatible

If you meet these requirements and are crashing:
-Try verifying your game content files through Steam by right clicking on Transformed, clicking Properties, click on the Local Files tab and then click on the Verify button.

-Check that you have the latest video drivers and update your DirectX by running the DirectX Runtime Installer (http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=35)


-If you are using a TV to play, be sure that the game's resolution matches the supported resolution of your TV. If that still doesn't work, you may need to toggle 'GPU Scaling', a feature that both NVidia cards and AMD cards have:

NVidia:
-Right click anywhere on your Desktop, and then click 'NVIDIA Control Panel'
-On the left, expand Display and click 'Adjust desktop size and position'
-Change the scaling mode to Aspect Ratio, and change "Perform scaling on:" to GPU.
-Hit Apply, and you should be good to go!

AMD:
-In AMD Catalyst Control Center click on the My Digital Flat Panels menu and select Properties (digital flat panel)
-For Windows XP users, expand Digital Panel Properties and highlight the Attributes tab
-Check the Enable GPU Scaling box
-Click Apply

Crashing on game start with missing MSVCP*.dll file (or similar)
You will need to download the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables and install them. If you are using a 32 bit operating system, only download the 32 bit. If you are using a 64 bit, then you will need to download both.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8328 (32 bit)

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=14632 (64 bit)


Controller isn't supported/doesn't work properly ingame!
Chances are that you are using a controller which uses a special type of input called DirectInput. You will run into problems with a fair few games out there, so the easiest fix is to download something that changes your controller into the much better XInput.

You can find a program called x360ce which does exactly that here[code.google.com].
To use this program, here's a guide: http://www.ngemu.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2109500

If you run into issues with x360ce, try out this from coolboy:

Originally posted by coolboy:

I fixed this by using x360ce. Make sure you remove the controllers in the config tool first to make sure nothing funky is going on.

download this: https://code.google.com/p/x360ce/downloads/detail?name=x360ce_lib32_r766.zip

unzip it in Steam\steamapps\common\Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

then download this: https://code.google.com/p/x360ce/downloads/detail?name=x360ce.App-2.1.2.191.zip&can=2&q=

unzip it in Steam\steamapps\common\Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

Open x360ce.exe and configure your controller, make sure to press save afterwards.

Don't worry if you got an error message considering the configuration, don't worry if it the program crashes when you close it.

Open x360ce.ini and add "Version=1" under [Options] (this removes the error message)

Then insert the following under [InputHook]

HookMode=1
HookLL=0
HookCOM=1
HookSA=0
HookWT=0
HookDI=0
HookPIDVID=0
HookName=0

Save the ini file and everything should work.

If you use the Playstation 3 controller, then I highly suggest following this: http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-XInput-Wrapper-for-DS3-and-Play-com-USB-Dual-DS2-Controller


AMD Cards: Missing geometry, crazy flashing-stepping artifacts, Black screen with sound & voice in background
You need to disable Anti-Aliasing for this game, as the driver won't do it for you due to lack of profile for this game (and others) forcing the driver to disable it.
To do this:
Open your ATI Catalyst Control Center by right clicking your desktop background or double clicking the icon in the system tray.
You must be in advanced mode to access anti-aliasing settings. If the control center opens in basic mode, you can click the "Advanced..." button on the bottom to change modes.
Once in advanced mode, find and expand 3D options under the Graphics Settings tab on the left side of the control panel.
Select Anti-Aliasing to view the current settings.
The right side of the control panel should display the current anti-aliasing settings. Activate "Use Application Settings" by clicking the appropriate box to add a check mark.


Configuration tool crashing
On some setups the config tool will crash either when saving a config, or when it is loaded up. There are a lot of reasons and fixes for this - here are the most common things to try:

-Try disconnecting your controller, and navigating to your Documents\SART folder, and delete 'controllers.xml' there. Then launch the config tool - if it works, save and exit. Then try plugging in your controller!

-You may have skipped the install of the .NET Framework 4, which is required to run the tool. Try installing it again via download from Microsoft's website: http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=17851

-Also try and run launcher.exe as an Administrator.

Crashing during race/lobby/load screen
There are a lot of potential problems which could exacerbate this, but some among us (myself included) run with very few, if any crashes in extended game sessions, so configuration must play a part in it.
As above, ensure you have the latest drivers for your system. You can also try running the game with elevated privileges, along with Windows XP compatibility mode.
To do this...
-Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the SASRT installation directory - the default is C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed
-Right click on ASN_App_PcDx9_Final.exe and click Properties
-Click on the Compatibility tab
-Tick the box next to 'Run this program in compatibility mode for:' and make sure Windows XP (Service Pack 3) is selected
-Tick the box next to 'Run this program as an administrator'

If crashing persists and you're running the game in Windowed or Windowed Fullscreen mode, try running the game in Fullscreen mode.

If the crashing still occurs, ensure that any anti virus, firewall program etc. that is running has a specific exception for SASRT - to do this, refer to the program's documentation.
Also make sure that any programs that interface with SASRT in any way - this includes DLL hooks such as any screen capture utility (Fraps, Bandicam, DXTory) - are disabled for purposes of finding out what's causing the crash.
If you still experience crashing in this regard, post here with your specs, maybe there's a common link we can all find out together to fix this!


Network error during matchmaking
There are actually a lot of reasons for this occurring, but the two most common reasons from what I've seen are excessive packet loss, and blocked ports. This goes for both ends of the connection: You and everyone else that you're connected to.
Ensure that you have set firewall exceptions for SASRT to allow outgoing and incoming connections via UDP and TCP. You should not need to worry about port forwarding as this game attempts to dynamically allocate ports between clients, but a hardware or software firewall can easily interpret this as suspicious activity and block this attempt.
Also make sure you are not running any Peer to Peer sharing service like torrents in the background. These will cause most routers to choke on the excessive amount of connect requests and will show packet loss.
These steps wont eliminate the network errors unfortunately but should reduce the frequency. After all, both sides of the connection need to do these steps for it to have any real effect.

Gameplay

Stutter despite high (>60) fps
This is due to the renderer only serving frames at a capped rate of 60 frames per second. Any framerate above this will exhibit noticeable stuttering. The workaround for this is to either enable VSync (if you are running at 60 hz) or use a frame rate limiter to limit the game to 60 frames per second. Or you can think of more creative ways[members.iinet.net.au] to utilise that beast GPU of yours.


Bouncy/crazy collisions during online play
Unfortunately this is a side effect of how collisions are resolved when significant lag is put into play. The small player base of this game means that people will be playing with you from all parts of the world and as such there is an unavoidable amount of lag which will always be present. It's frustrating but just accept it as part of the game at times.
That said, if you see a lot of people who are excessively bouncing around everywhere, try the steps from Network error during matchmaking, above. Ensure that your internet connection is as lag free as possible by eliminating background downloads, updates etc. PLEASE don't torrent while playing this game as it will kill your connection and enjoyment.


Unable to join game off friends list in Steam
This is due to a bug which was introduced in a Steam update. A workaround is to join your friend off the Steam profile page.


Getting stuck as a boat/plane/car in the wrong section of a track
Although mostly fixed from the console versions, there are still a few areas that it is possible to get stuck as the wrong vehicle type in the wrong place. This is caused by you being able to move significantly past a transformation ring while missing it. This is most noticeable online as the respawn and reset are a little delayed, and the game will think you are properly on track and dump you there as the wrong vehicle type. If you get stuck, try your hardest to turn around and fly towards the circle that you missed. You will eventually respawn behind it correctly.
Easy way to avoid this is to make sure you go through those transformation rings! Pay special attention to the Graffiti City Lap 3 air>ground transform, Race of Ages air > ground and Samba Studios ground > water (both ones).

Originally posted by <eVa>Zork Nemesis:

I'd like to make an addenum to this one. There are cases where by using the All-Star powerup at just the right moment as you hit a transform ring, the game won't properly register a transform. I had this happen to me once, ended up driving a car through Race of Ages' water section as a result. I have a video of said result, but since fraps wasn't running at the moment I did it, I don't have the cause on film.

Marked as DNF in an online race despite completing it
This is due to a laggy connection and packet loss. Ensure your connection is as stable as possible when playing this game by following the steps above regarding to network errors.


Tricks randomly failing
This is caused by performing tricks too fast in air and is intended. When performing them too fast, your character will say something as if you got hit or ran into a wall, and you will see a puff of smoke come out of the boost ports. Try to time your tricks a little bit tighter and allow a longer period between each one.


Cheaters
There are a few known cheaters present ruining online. Thankfully they are few and far between. We also have VAC support which detects & bans the only known cheats and trainers for this game.If you have seen any blatantly obvious cheaters throwing 100s of drones or boosting at the speed of light, try and capture some footage to send to the devs to help them with patching up these exploits.


Sound volume high at title screen
This occurs because the game has not loaded your profile data, which contains your preferences including volume settings. If you have Windows Vista, 7 or 8, you can use the Windows Mixer to change the volume of SASRT individually. To do this, click on the speaker icon in the notification area on the right side of your task bar, then click Mixer.

Bugs

Unable to access Lobby Options in a Custom Match whilst using a keyboard
The bind \ for Options is bugged if you are using a keyboard. You can access this with keyboard/mouse by clicking on the 's' in 'Options' up the top right.

Leaderboards for Time Attack displaying the wrong times for a track
This occurs when a leaderboard for a track is still being downloaded and you switch the selection to another track. The track selection that you moved to will display the times for the track you were previously on when it's done updating. eg. I select Dragon Cup, first selection is on Ocean View. While leaderboard is blank, I move down to Carrier Zone. When leaderboard is done updating, Carrier Zone has Ocean View's times as well as Ocean View having its own times. This will also cause the Ocean View ghost to display on Carrier Zone, making for a funny car driving through the air.


Tricks randomly delayed or performing ghost tricks from previous inputs (Trick Buffering)
New to the PC version of the game, this is an issue that is beginning to plague many people. We know that it is related to a trick input that was performed very slightly before entering the air, and that it seems to occur more commonly in water sections. I'm looking into this more by comparing inputs to frames, but if anyone else has some extended information about this, let me know!


Character stats not reflecting standard stats
Character stats shown in the character select screen will reflect the mod for your currently selected character even if you haven't unlocked it for them, rather than the standard stats. eg. I have Tails Console but haven't unlocked Console for AGES. If I choose Tails Console, then go back, I will see Console mod stats for every character, including AGES.


All-Star style drifting permanently while in flight
Video courtesy of Neeku
Video courtesy of Neeku
You keep All-Star style drifting permanently after using it in air, allowing you to drift in perfectly straight lines. This persists until you transform.

Sometimes when a player joins a lobby for a game in progress, some muted players will become unmuted while in game.


(Unconfirmed) Hot Rod will very rarely fail within a second of using the item.
It is as if you got hit. This was most prevalent in the Wii U version, but I have seen this happen to me twice so far in the PC version. When it occurs, all Hot Rods will fail until you restart the client.

[GreenSwede]

(Unconfirmed) Sometimes when a player joins a lobby for a game in progress, some muted players will become unmuted while in game.

I can confirm this. I remember when I tried to mute all of the players in the lobby, but I kept hearing people talk in the microphone when the race started.

[kingddd]

I still get the blackscreen when an online match is about to start bug. The music still plays, the mics are still working etc. This usually occurs before the slot machine or after the slot machine sequence. Very random occurrence that happens once in a while. The only fix is alt+f4 because the user is stuck in an infinite loop loading while in the blackscreen.

[Djawed]

The hiccups still happen and can ruin an online game when racing an oppenent thats on the same league as mine.

[IceBlade]

Originally posted by Brigadier Betty |LAB|:

I still get the blackscreen when an online match is about to start bug. The music still plays, the mics are still working etc. This usually occurs before the slot machine or after the slot machine sequence. Very random occurrence that happens once in a while. The only fix is alt+f4 because the user is stuck in an infinite loop loading while in the blackscreen.

Yeah, I still have no idea what causes this to happen - I've tried simulating dropped packets at a rate of up to 80% during the load screen and didn't even get this! It's a pretty debilitating problem though as it will stuff up the lobby for all players.

Originally posted by Djawed:

The hiccups still happen and can ruin an online game when racing an oppenent thats on the same league as mine.

These hiccups are a result of your game state desynchronising too much with the host's game state I believe. This indicates some connection problem between you and the host of the game, which, to the best of my knowledge, is always the person listed at the top of the lobby.
This game requires some pretty serious upload bandwidth (somewhere within the realm of 50-70 KB/s) as the host in a full house, so perhaps those with more limited connections find it difficult to keep up.

[be]

Marked as DNF in an online race despite completing it
This is due to a laggy connection and packet loss. Ensure your connection is as stable as possible when playing this game by following the steps above regarding to network errors.

This needs to be fixed ASAP. It's already happened to me well over five times when everybody's connection was fine.

[Zork Nemesis]

Getting stuck as a boat/plane/car in the wrong section of a track
I'd like to make an addenum to this one. There are cases where by using the All-Star powerup at just the right moment as you hit a transform ring, the game won't properly register a transform. I had this happen to me once, ended up driving a car through Race of Ages' water section as a result. I have a video of said result, but since fraps wasn't running at the moment I did it, I don't have the cause on film.

[Gya100fam]

Analog stick deadzone close to zero for non-360 controllers

I'm not sure how it works for people who own 360 controllers but the lack of deadzone for my PS3 controller+Motioninjoy Drivers causes random direction changes while drifting, the slightest push of the analog stick in the opposite direction causes the change, which pretty much forces me to use d-pad.

it's manageable in car/boat but in plane it can be a pain.

Another friend that uses a PS3 controller has the same problem.

[IceBlade]

Originally posted by xXEpona420MLGXx:

Analog stick deadzone close to zero for non-360 controllers

I'm not sure how it works for people who own 360 controllers but the lack of deadzone for my PS3 controller+Motioninjoy Drivers causes random direction changes while drifting, the slightest push of the analog stick in the opposite direction causes the change, which pretty much forces me to use d-pad.

it's manageable in car/boat but in plane it can be a pain.

Another friend that uses a PS3 controller has the same problem.

Odd.. I use a PS3 controller + motioninjoy and I can't say I experience this problem. You can adjust the dead zone yourself for the various axes through the DS3 Tool under Options.
I also use the XInput emulation mode.

[Gya100fam]

Originally posted by IceBlade:

Originally posted by xXEpona420MLGXx:

Analog stick deadzone close to zero for non-360 controllers

I'm not sure how it works for people who own 360 controllers but the lack of deadzone for my PS3 controller+Motioninjoy Drivers causes random direction changes while drifting, the slightest push of the analog stick in the opposite direction causes the change, which pretty much forces me to use d-pad.

it's manageable in car/boat but in plane it can be a pain.

Another friend that uses a PS3 controller has the same problem.

Odd.. I use a PS3 controller + motioninjoy and I can't say I experience this problem. You can adjust the dead zone yourself for the various axes through the DS3 Tool under Options.
I also use the XInput emulation mode.

I used to used XInput but that's where I had the problem so I've been playing with Custom all this time mapping PS3 buttons to keyboard keys, I'll try to tweak with the deadzone then report back in

[Djawed]

Originally posted by Djawed:

The hiccups still happen and can ruin an online game when racing an oppenent thats on the same league as mine.

These hiccups are a result of your game state desynchronising too much with the host's game state I believe. This indicates some connection problem between you and the host of the game, which, to the best of my knowledge, is always the person listed at the top of the lobby.
This game requires some pretty serious upload bandwidth (somewhere within the realm of 50-70 KB/s) as the host in a full house, so perhaps those with more limited connections find it difficult to keep up. [/quote]
Thanks a lot

[Gya100fam]

I've got no luck with XInput emulation mode with Motioninjoy, I messed around with the deadzone of all the buttons but nothing, it's like L1/L2 react to the slightest release.

the problem never occurs when I use keyboard emulation, with the exact same controller.

[Neek]

Originally posted by xXEpona420MLGXx:

I've got no luck with XInput emulation mode with Motioninjoy, I messed around with the deadzone of all the buttons but nothing, it's like L1/L2 react to the slightest release.

the problem never occurs when I use keyboard emulation, with the exact same controller.

Did you do the steps listed on here?:
http://www.motioninjoy.com/blog/motioninjoy-simulate-xbox-360-controller-virtual-xinput-device

The Game Controller Panel and Properties should look like this:
http://i.imgur.com/gxG9xCE.png

[Gya100fam]

I followed the guide, messed around with the deadzones again and the problem still occurs, and I'm still impressed the problem doesn't occur in keyboard emulation mode. controls are flawless when I switch to that, which makes me wish keyboard had an option for analog input because it's the only thing that would make me switch to XInput

[UOII]

ah thats how

[S0larZer0]

Still get a black screen on game start. And yes my drivers are up to date. Profile lists 0.9 Hrs played and I haven't even seen the SEGA logo... Kinda sad, I bought the Sonic Bundle for this!
EDIT: System specs:

• ASUS P8 Z77-V LX
  
• Intel i5-2500K stock
  
• 8 GB (2x 4) Corsair XMS DDR3/1333
  
• EVGA nVidia GTX 260 896 GDDR3 VRAM
  
• 1TB 7200 RPM HDD

And I have read that the black screen may be caused by having the game on an external drive but I haven't moved my games yet. xD It's on my intenal system drive. Really stumped here!