How to fix Red Faction : Guerilla sound issues, crashes and improve performance

The much awaited PC version of Red Faction : Guerilla has finally arrived. So far the game has received mainly positive reviews and it has managed to get an aggregate score of 82% on GameRankings which is a rarity these days. Anyways the purpose of this article is to provide troubleshooting information for the most common problems associated with the game. At a glance, there does not seem to be any showstopper bugs (thankfully) apart from several minor annoyances. Anyways note that this article is a work in progress – a very incomplete one at that. More issues/fixes will be added as they are discovered.

PhysX and performance

Like all modern games, Red Faction : Guerilla has plenty of physics effects. However, unlike most recent titles, it does not make use of a hardware based physics acceleration engine such as NVIDIA PhysX. Red Faction’s physics handling seems to be entirely done by the CPU, as opposed to the GPU like in Batman Arkham Asylum. While this will benefit players who own video cards without hardware physics acceleration, the CPU will be tasked with additional processing making the game highly processor intensive. This is probably why the game sometimes slows down when destructions, explosions and particle effects (smoke, dust) occur. All I can say in this case is that having a Quad core processor will really help. Some players have reported lags even with high end Core 2 Duo processors as well – over clocking does not seem help either. ( this is not always the case so it might work for you just fine even if you have a C2D).
EDIT: If you want some performance boost, try turning off ambient occlusion. This should remove some lag. You might also try disabling sun shafts.

Sound issues - cackling, stuttering, noise, etc

Another seemingly common issue but I haven’t found a clear solution for this as well. Some players have reported having stuttering, noisy and cackling issues with in game audio. If it helps, try dumbing it down it 2 speakers if you are using a surround setup (from in game menu and probably from your audio card’s control panels as well).

EDIT: Detailed steps for a possible fix:

1. Open Control Panel—> Sound
2. On the ‘Playback’ tab, select ‘Speakers’ and hit ‘Configure’ button below.
3. In the dialog box that pops up, choose ‘Stereo’. Hit next. Do not tick anything in the next step. Hit next again and hit finish.

Hopefully this will resolve the noisy or windy sound issue. You might want to restore the original speakers settings when playing other games though.

DirectX 9 vs. DirectX 10

According to the developers, this game supports both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10. If you are running Windows XP, the game will always start in DX9. However if you are running in Vista, theoretically it should be possible to switch between DX9 and DX10 (DX9 mode delivers superior performance over DX10 in most cases, with a slight loss in graphics quality). But the problem with this game is that you cannot seem switch between these modes in Vista. There are two command line parameters you can try. But neither of these worked for me.

1. -nod3d9 – Disable DirectX 9
   
2. -nod3d10 – Disable DirectX 10 (and force DX9? )

Speaking of DirectX, please download the latest DirectX monthly update from here to ensure optimal performance and avoid missing .dll file errors.

Saving problems

This is a question that has been asked (and answered) many times before. This game is based on GFWL (games for windows live) and if you do not have an internet connection save progress might not be recorded. In this case, create an offline account and you should be fine. (offline account creation menu can be accessed by pressing the ‘Home’ key while in game ).

The game runs too fast

Some people have noticed the game running too fast. That means, car handling becomes sh1t and enemies become super fast. this does not seem to be happening for all though. We haven’t found a direct solution for this and if we do find one, this space will be updated.

Game doesn't start

Sometimes, you may notice that executing either rfg_launcher.exe or rfg.exe will have no effect. The game will not launch (not even a black screen) but the processes will be visible in task manager. If you have any ZoneAlarm products running on background, try disabling them – this includes ZoneAlarm FireWall. In fact, you can try disabling any of the security products you are running before launching the game.

As mentioned at the start of this article, this is a work in progress. More fixes/solutions will be added as soon as they are confirmed.

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