My Setup for the Game

[Shock ZX]

I like to leave information on how I made games run on my PC when I review them, but Sonic Adventure 2 in particular is such a massive mess to get running well that there was no well I could condense everything into a few paragraphs. So, I've decided to just post my information here and link to it. (Hopefully it's not too old, I wrote all of this back towards the end of 2020, I'm just getting around to posting it now.)

Sonic Adventure 2

I spent half my afternoon struggling to get this game to work, and now I've chosen to spend the rest of my afternoon typing this up so other people won't have to go through this pain in the butt as well. First off, my PC specs:

Windows 10 64bit
Intel Core i9 10900K
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER
144hz 1440p LG 27GN850-B

- Install and start the game. By default, doing this within Steam starts the game's launcher.

- In the launcher under Settings, set your resolution and refresh rate to whatever you prefer, but do not check the Full Screen box as this will likely cause the game to crash after the Sonic Team logo is displayed.

- Under Player, change your controls from the keyboard to gamepad if you plan on using a controller.

- Press "Save settings and launch SONIC ADVENTURE 2". Closing the window without launching the game will erase the changes you've made.

The game should launch and run, but there will be two problems: 1. The game is running too fast (If you're using a monitor with a higher refresh rate than 60hz) and 2. The ugly window border sitting at the top of your screen.

First, we will fix the game's framerate.

- Go into your Nvidia Control Panel (Or whatever the AMD equivalent would be). Most will be able to do this by simply double clicking on the Nvidia Settings icon in the lower right-hand corner of their screen, under hidden icons. Once you're there, click on Manage 3D settings on the left side of the window, before clicking on the Program Settings tab on the right side. Click on the Add button and then locate Sonic Adventure 2 (sonic2app) on your PC. For most people, it will likely be:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sonic Adventure 2

- Once you've added the game, scroll down the list of settings until you find the Max Frame Rate setting. Click on the drop-down menu beside it, set it to On and set the frame rate to 60fps. The game's logic is apparently tied to the frame rate, and going beyond 60fps breaks the game.

- After that go to Power Management Mode and choose “Prefer maximum performance.” This should help if your game is suffering from occasional, short freezes.

- Those should be the only changes that you have to make here. Just to make sure, find the Vertical Sync setting and make absolutely sure that it is set to "Use the 3D application setting".

This is the main reason I'm typing all of this out, btw. PCGamingWiki ususally has all the right answers for these sort of things, but when I was configuring the game I followed their recommendation of "Set V-Sync to On and set Preferred refresh rate to Application-controlled, then click Apply" and it sent me into nearly 2 hours of internet searching and frustration until I finally figured out that it was the changed V-Sync setting that was causing the problem. YMMV, but in my case the only thing I had to do on the Control Panel was just limit the frame rate. Preferred Refresh Rate had no noticable effect, and changing the Vertical Sync will likely break the game.

- Hit the Apply button to save your changes.

Finally, we're going to fix the unsightly border at the top of the game's window.

Download the SA2 Mod Loader from here:
https://info.sonicretro.org/SA2%20Mod%20Loader
...And extract its contents into the Sonic Adventure 2 folder. This is the same folder you went to earlier to select sonic2app for the Nvidia control panel. If you're having trouble accessing the files, you may need to use a program like 7-Zip to extract them.
https://www.7-zip.org/

- Once you've placed the files into the Sonic Adventure 2 folder, click on the SA2ModManager.exe to run it. Click on the Options tab at the top, then check the Borderless Window option. Click on Save & Play, and then click on Yes when you're asked to install the Mod Loader.

If everything went correctly, you should now have Sonic Adventure 2 running in a fullscreen, borderless window running at the correct speed of 60hz at 60fps.
Also, now that you've installed the SA2 Mod Manager, you're free to start looking for mods and game enhancements for Sonic Adventure 2. You can start by checking out the bottom of this page:

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Sonic_Adventure_2
Hope this helps!

Other useful links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR_GmG0bcro
https://gamebanana.com/tuts/13152

Installed mods:
1. Fixed SFX Volume mod:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzR3KID2PD0
2. Cutscene Revamp:
https://gamebanana.com/gamefiles/9780
3. Subtitles Fix:
https://gamebanana.com/guis/35375
4. HD Gui: SA2 Edition:
https://gamebanana.com/guis/34355
5. No Model Tinting:
https://gamebanana.com/gamefiles/download/9820
6. Rendering Fixes:
https://gamebanana.com/gamefiles/7502
7. Bright(chao)fix:
https://github.com/Exant64/BrightFix/releases
8. Action Remap:
https://github.com/michael-fadely/sa2-action-remap/releases
9. Stache Fix:
https://gamebanana.com/skins/download/162810
10. Level Oddity Fix
(Extract to oddity_patch_aa3e1 first, then put that unzipped file in the mods folder):
https://gamebanana.com/gamefiles/11438
11. Black Market Sound Fix:
https://gamebanana.com/gamefiles/8486
12. Improved Waypoints (Chao Garden)
https://gamebanana.com/gamefiles/10725
13. Chao Island Extended:
https://chao-island.com/downloads/pc-downloads/chao-world-extended/features/main-package
14. Chao Lobby Fixes:
https://gamebanana.com/gamefiles/11156
15. Restored Gun Logos:
https://gamebanana.com/gamefiles/13162

Mod Manager Priority List Order.

Some mods want to be treated as higher priority than others, and this is the order I had mine in when I played the game on PC. It may not be perfect, but it’s an order that worked for me:

Chao World Extended
Cutscene Revamp (Configure > Enable DC Intro: False)
Fixed SFX Volume
HD GUI for SA2 (Configure > Button Prompt Style: Vanilla+Custom, Rumble Icon: Dreamcast, Memory Card Icon: Dreamcast)
No Model Tinting
Rendering Fixes
Subtitles Fixing
Action Remap
BrightFix
Stache Fix
Fixed Black Market Sound
Improved Waypoints
Oddity Patch
Chao Party Race Fair Patch
HD Chao Texture
HD Toy Texture
Chao Lobby Fixes
Restored Gun Logos

[Superachi]

I know this is exceptionally long after you posted this but you saved my life tysm

[Visigoth]

Another late post but I want you to know that you're an absolute G for this. I was having problems with Borderless causing some janky frame drops (Steam actually showed FPS was still 60, but there were clearly issues), but changing the Nvidia settings fixed it.

[goodgamer8256]

thank you

[stargirl]

ty 🩷

[Lycoris]

game still not want to start ...

[Lycoris]

Originally posted by YuuMissUrLife:

game still not want to start ...

I did all thing you say but i still can't do it that's annoying after click on saves and start, my game start but close instantly

[Katatafeesh]

thank you so much! I'd tried so many ways to get this to work and it finally does, gonna go raise some chao

[RPGorilla]

Thanks