Sonic Adventure 2

Sonic Adventure 2

Developers
	Sonic Team
Windows	Sega of China
Publishers
	Sega
Release dates
Windows	November 9, 2012
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase, DLC
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, Adventure, Platform
Vehicles	Automobile, Track racing
Art styles	Cartoon
Themes	Contemporary
Series	Sonic Adventure

Sonic Adventure
Subseries of Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic Adventure DX	2003
Sonic Adventure DX (2011)	2011
Sonic Adventure 2	2012
Sonic Adventure DX (Steam)	2014

Sonic Adventure 2 is a cartoon third-person platform game developed by Sonic Team, published by Sega, and released for PC on November 9, 2012. It is a part of the Sonic the Hedgehog series and the sequel to Sonic Adventure.

The original game was first released for the Dreamcast in North America on June 18, 2001, and the rest of the world on June 23. The game was later ported to the GameCube in 2002 as Sonic Adventure 2: Battle as an updated version of the game, featuring an expanded multiplayer mode and readjusted gameplay elements. This PC port is based off the GameCube version, with the expanded multiplayer and Chao Karate content being locked behind a separate DLC purchase.

Initially, it wasn't made available in Japan, but Sega later announced that the game will be available in Japan on January 23, 2024 alongside Sonic Adventure DX, marking the debut the PC version of Sonic Adventure 2 in Japan.

The game's physics and speed are tied around 60 FPS, meaning slowdowns on lower end machines and speedups with high refresh-rate displays. Various mods are available to restore original features from the Dreamcast version and address issues with the PC version; see Modifications for recommendations and how to setup X-Hax's SA Mod Manager to ease the installation of mods.

General information

Sonic Retro - A huge fan site for everything Sonic the Hedgehog. Mods for all the games can be found here

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Humble Store
Steam
GamersGate (unavailable)
Green Man Gaming (unavailable)
Publisher website (unavailable)

All versions require Steam DRM.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
SONIC ADVENTURE 2: BATTLE	Unlocks the Battle Mode, extra versus characters and maps, and Chao Karate.

Essential improvements

Bypass launcher

Use the -q command line argument
If configuration files are missing, it will load the launcher regardless of the command line argument.

Skip company logos and intro cutscene

Enable Skip Intro in SA Mod Manager
See instructions for installing SA Mod Manager here. Go to the Game Config → Options tab, and check Skip Intro from the Misc. section. Click the Save button to apply the changes. The game should now boot directly into the title screen upon launch.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Config\Keyboard.cfg <path-to-game>\Config\UserConfig.cfg
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/213610/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\resource\gd_PC\SAVEDATA\
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/213610/pfx/

Chao Garden is saved to the file SONIC2B__ALF.

Game progression is saved to numbered SONIC2B__S## files; one file per slot.

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Steam Cloud

Video

In game general settings. Options clockwise starting from the bottom: Vibration, Save/Load, Erase save, main menu theme, speech language and Stereo/Mono.

Launcher general settings.

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			A few cutscenes are pillarboxed to 4:3; use the Cutscene revamp mod to remove the black bars.
Multi-monitor			Use Flawless Widescreen to fix spanned HUD.
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		Use SA Mod Manager.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Force in GPU control panel. Nvidia users can force SGSSAA in Nvidia Profile Inspector without any compatibility bits. Do not force FXAA, see the talk page.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Always enabled. Every loading screen needs to run at monitor's refresh rate or else it will crash.
60 FPS		The game must run at 60 FPS as game speed is tied to frame rate.
120+ FPS		Fullscreen Mode is capped 60 Hz. See Run the game at screen refresh rate. If the display runs higher than 60 Hz in Windowed mode, use SA Mod Manager and enable Lock framerate under its Graphics settings.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

Launcher control settings.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		Mouse not used at all.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support		XInput only. Controller must be selected from configuration launcher.
Full controller support
Controller remapping		Controller buttons cannot be remapped, however a mod exists to change the placement of context-sensitive actions.
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts		Xbox 360 variant. See Better Buttons for an alternative or Xbox One Buttons for Xbox One prompts (if using HD GUI: SA2, set Button Prompts Style to Vanilla+Custom within SA Mod Manager).
Impulse Trigger vibration

PlayStation controllers		Not supported natively. Use Steam Input as a workaround.
PlayStation button prompts		See the DualShock 3 variant of Better Buttons for DualShock prompts (if using HD GUI: SA2, set Button Prompts Style to Vanilla+Custom and Compatibility Mode to True within SA Mod Manager). for DualSense Button use this DualSense Button Mod
Light bar support
Adaptive trigger support
DualSense haptic feedback support
Connection modes	Wired, Wireless (Bluetooth) V2 controller tested.

Generic/other controllers		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Additional information
Controller hotplugging		Only for the selected input input device from the configuration launcher can be hotplugged, otherwise the game will prompt a "Reboot Now/Later" to change devices. If the controller was not plugged in from the initial launch of the game, it will switch to keyboard instead and request a reboot of the game.
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M		Only for the selected input input device from the configuration launcher is usable when launching the game.

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound		Based on system configuration; otherwise not configurable. Tested with 7.1 surround sound. No centre and LFE channels, just a 4.0 quadraphonic mix.[citation needed]
Subtitles		On by default. Subtitles during pre-rendered cutscenes are not available.
Closed captions		Idle Chatter mod is not captioned, however, Retranslated Story Complete features captions for idle chatter.
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Text language is selected from launcher, dialogue language is selected from in game settings.

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English				Dubtitles only. Use Retranslated Story Complete if playing with Japanese audio and English subtitles.
French				Dubtitles only. Use French Retranslation if playing with Japanese audio and French subtitles.
German
Italian
Japanese
Brazilian Portuguese				Fan translation of the "Sonic Adventure 2 Retranslated" mod. Mod created by «Luks_18»
Russian				Fan localization by «Sonic and all Characters/Joker Studio».
Spanish				Castilian.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
Local play		2	Versus Other player can use keyboard or controller if enabled in the config file. "Battle" DLC adds 21 battle maps to multiplayer. Co-op story mode can be played with modifications, see Co-op Story Mode.
LAN play
Online play		2	Use Sonic Adventure 2: Battle Network.

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
Nvidia 3D Vision

Issues unresolved

Menus don't render

On AMD cards, menus won't render if the resolution exceeds 4579 x 3965, on either axis.^{[citation needed]}

FXAA breaks the game

Forcing FXAA through the graphics card control panel will cause the game to stop responding.^{[citation needed]}

Game freezes and hardlocks when trying to load a stage

This issues is related to the older SA2 Mod Loader; use SA Mod Manager instead. Rebooting the computer with the mod loader uninstalled seems to help temporarily. An issue ticket can be found on the Mod Loader's GitHub repo. Another potential solution is to to launch SA2 Mod Loader, click "Uninstall loader" to disable the mod loader, launching the game normally via Launcher.exe and exiting the game, and then re-launching the Mod Loader and clicking "Install Loader" to re-enable it.

Issues fixed

Game crashes after the Sonic Team logo

Use DXVK[citation needed]
Go to DXVK's project page. Download the latest release. Open it using a ZIP program, and go to the X32 folder. Copy d3d9.dll and paste it into <path-to-game>

Use ForceD3D9On12[citation needed]
Download the latest release Open it using a ZIP program, and go to the x86 folder. Copy d3d9.dll and paste it into <path-to-game>

Fixing crashes[citation needed]

If the game is crashing only in fullscreen mode, an easy workaround is to use a borderless fullscreen tool to make windowed mode fill the entire screen. The SA Mod Manager offers an option to do that. If the game is crashing in both fullscreen and windowed mode: Disable any framerate limiters; Sonic Adventure 2's loading screens rely on uncapped FPS in order to load properly.[citation needed] Disable any overlays (e.g. Steam Overlay, GeForce Experience). For Nvidia cards, open Nvidia Control Panel, click Manage 3D Settings, Program Settings, and add sonic2app.exe. Set V-Sync to On and set Preferred refresh rate to Application-controlled, then click Apply.

Game freezing for few seconds randomly

Fixing crashes[citation needed]
For Nvidia cards, open Nvidia Control Panel, click Manage 3D Settings, Program Settings, and add sonic2app.exe. Set Power management mode to Prefer maximum performance, click Apply.

Missing or broken graphical effects

Some effects such as rain, fire, smoke, footprints, and dirt from digging as Knuckles or Rouge are missing on integrated graphics with application optimization mode enabled.

Disable Application Optimal Mode from the integrated GPU control panel

Run the game at screen refresh rate

Fullscreen mode is limited to 60 Hz, even if the screen refresh rate is set higher than that.

Set screen refresh rate and 60 FPS cap[citation needed]
Download Special K. Copy SpecialK32.dll to the installation folder. Rename SpecialK32.dll to d3d9.dll. Start the game and then exit. Open d3d9.ini in the installation folder. Change TargetFPS to 60.0. Change RefreshRate to 0.

Launcher crashes when trying to start the game, No resolution options available

Manually create config files

Go to the configuration file(s) location. If no files are present, create files named Keyboard.cfg and UserConfig.cfg. Copy and paste following to files. Keyboard.cfg: <?xml version="1.0" ?> <Setup Layout="0" /> <Players> <Player InputWay="1" Vibrate="0"> <key index="83" /> <key index="65" /> <key index="73" /> <key index="79" /> <key index="5" /> <key index="52" /> <key index="56" /> <key index="54" /> <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="22" /> <key index="18" /> <key index="0" /> <key index="3" /> <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> UserConfig.cfg: <?xml version="1.0" ?> <Configs FullScreen="1" Display="0" Res="22" Width="640" Height="480" RefreshRate="60" Language="0" Analytics="0" /> Start the game from <path-to-game>\sonic2app.exe. If everything works, then change the values in UserConfig.cfg to desired ones. Bypassing the launcher is also recommended afterwards.

Planted Trees in the Chao Garden appear as saplings despite being fully grown

This fix requires SA Mod Manager.

Instructions
Download and install SA Mod Manager. Download the Enhanced Chao World mod. In the mod manager, tick and enable the mod, then click Configure and toggle any preferred features of the mod. The tree scaling fix is not listed as it is a part of the mod.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9.0c
Shader Model support	3.0

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Modifications

This section may require cleanup to meet basic quality standards. The specific problem is: Needs a serious trim. You can help by modifying the article. The discussion page may contain useful suggestions.

Modding essentials

SA Mod Manager
Download the latest version of SA Mod Manager. Extract the contents of release_x86.zip (32-bit) or release_x64.zip (64-bit) to <path-to-game>. Run SAModManager.exe.

Featured websites

• MainMemory's mods - Features a number of useful mods, including models converted from the Dreamcast version.
• GameBanana - Hosts a large number of user-created mods for Sonic Adventure 2.
• SF94's Sandwich - Features a small number of mods such Sonic Adventure 2: Battle Network.
• Sonic Community Hacking Guide on Sonic Retro.

Featured mods

Bugfixes/improvements

• SA2 Render Fix - A collection of fixes for addressing rendering errors, also includes options to enhance the game.
• SA2 Input Controls - Massively improves analog sensitivity issues.
• SA2 Volume Controls - Fixes volume issues, as well as allowing for custom volume values
• Cutscene Revamp - Fixes Issues present for cutscenes, introduced after the DC version.
• Action Remap - Remaps the "Light Speed Dash" to the Y button.
• Better Radar - All emeralds are track-able, optional positional tracker beeps.
• Level Oddity Patch - Fixes misplaced level objects, making "Perfect" ring collection possible.
• Level Oddity Patch 2: Electric Boogaloo - Continuation of the first Level Oddity Patch, provides even more fixes of the same nature.
• Retranslated Story Complete - Changes the in game subtitles to accurately translate the Japanese dialogue.
• Retranslated Hints - Retranslation of the game's hint system to be more accurate to the Japanese script.
• Improved Waypoints (Chao Gardens) - Permits chao to wander around more of the Hero and Dark gardens.
• Rouge's Eye Animation Fix Fixes textures for when Rouge is climbing along walls sideways.
• e0211 Fix In 16:9 Sonic's hand is visible in a cutscene when it's not supposed to be.
• Event Timescale Fix Fixes timing errors in two cutscenes in SA2 Battle.

Enhancements

• CD Quality Music - Replaces the audio files in-game with higher quality versions.
• No LoD Models - Disables the Level of Detail models for Sonic and Shadow.
• HD GUI: SA2 - Updates many GUI and HUD elements with higher resolution ones, along with optional tweaks.
• Dreamcast Mech Jump Grunts - Gives Eggman and Tails alternating voice lines for jumping, like on Dreamcast.
• Discord Rich Presence - Adds Discord's Rich Presence features into Sonic Adventure 2 when playing the game.
• High Quality Space (4K) - Replaces highly compressed version of Earth and space textures with higher quality replacements.
• Reworked Afterimages - Reworks the afterimage effects used by the speed and hunting-type characters to fit with the models more.
• Partial DC Fog Restoration - Ports some fog effects from the Dreamcast version.
• Prison Lane Smooth DC Fog Restoration Restores the pulsating red fog effect to Prison Lane.
• White Jungle Fog Fix - Restores the fog effect in White Jungle.

Miscellaneous

• Chao World Extended - Adds new contents to the Chao Garden.
• Tails Cyclone Fix Changes the Tails Cyclone model that appears in Route 280 to be closer to his in-game one.
• Tikal Stance Fix Fixes an issue with SA2 Battle's Tikal model, not needed if using Dreamcast Characters.
• Disable Upgrade Models - Mod that allows for customizing what upgrades the character wears.
• IMPRESSive - Replaces the Comic Sans font in the game with the Impress font.
• President Scene in Dark Story - Adds a cutscene from the Hero Story into the Dark Story.
• E0022 After Knuckles VS. Rouge - Rearranges the cutscene involving Sonic in the Ark's control room for better continuity.
• Dreamcast Rank Requirements - Restores the point values from the Dreamcast version for rankings at the end of levels.
• Amy: Eyeliner Fix - Fixes an eyeliner texture in a gameplay model to be black, like originally intended, instead of pink.
• HQ Chao Sounds - Higher quality Chao sound effects take from Team Sonic Racing.

Co-op Story Mode

Instructions can be found here

Editing save files

Use SA2SaveUtility

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	XP	Vista, 7
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz AMD Athlon 64 3000+	Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
System memory (RAM)	1 GB	2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	3 GB	6 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 8600 ATI Radeon HD 3650 256 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0c compatible Shader model 3.0 support	Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB of VRAM DirectX 11 compatible
Sound (audio device)	DirectX compatible