Sonic Riders

Sonic Riders

Developers
	Now Production
	Sonic Team
Windows	Sega of China
Publishers
	Sega
Engines
	Sega NN Graphics Library
Release dates
Windows	November 16, 2006
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Racing
Vehicles	Hovercraft, Motorcycle
Art styles	Anime, Cartoon
Themes	Sci-fi
Series	Sonic Racing, Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic Racing
Subseries of Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic R	1998
Sonic R (2004)	2004
Sonic Riders	2006
Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing	2010
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed	2013
Team Sonic Racing	2019
Sonic Racing	2019
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds	2025

Warnings

SafeDisc DRM may not work on Windows Vista and later (see Availability for affected releases).

Sonic Riders is a singleplayer and multiplayer racing game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series co-developed by Now Production and Sonic Team and published by Sega.

After the game's original release on PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube in early 2006, a PC port of Sonic Riders by Sega of China was released in North America on November 16, 2006, followed by releases in Europe and Australasia on November 24, 2006 and February 8, 2007 respectively.

There is no in-game quit option; Alt+F4 must be used to quit.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SafeDisc 4.60 DRM. 3 CDs or 1 DVD.
Retail		Sonic PC Collection. 1 DVD.

SafeDisc DRM may not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected releases).

Demo

Available to download from PCGamingWiki Files.

Monetization

Type	Notes
One-time game purchase	The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

Essential improvements

Tweakbox for Sonic Riders

Work-in-progress, all-in-one mod that adds online multiplayer, widescreen support (without patching the game's executable file), controller support and more.

Only works on the DRM-free/Sonic PC Collection release.

Requires Reloaded II. Installation instructions are available on the mod's GitHub page, website and this YouTube video.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Save\Config.ini

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Save\Game Data*\save.dat

Video

External graphics and sound settings

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			Use Sonic Riders HD Resolution Patch or WSGF Widescreen Patch (has aspect ratio adjustments)
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen			Use Sonic Riders HD Resolution Patch or WSGF 21:9 Patch (has aspect ratio adjustments)
4K Ultra HD			Use Sonic Riders HD Resolution Patch or WSGF Widescreen Patch (has aspect ratio adjustments)
Field of view (FOV)		See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Toggleable on/off.
High-fidelity upscaling		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS		Optional 30, 15, and 10 FPS caps available.
120+ FPS		Capped at 60 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
Color blind mode		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Field of view (FOV)

Change FOV with Cheat Engine[citation needed]
Download and install Cheat Engine. Download the WSGF attachment. Use the included Cheat Table file to adjust the FOV values.

Change FOV with hex edit[citation needed]

Open d3dx9_25.dll with a hex editor such as HxD. Go to offset 0x3F9A9. Replace bytes 00 00 80 BF with bytes representing your float value multiplier at a negative value (default multiplier is -1.0). Remember to invert the byte order to Little Endian. Notes Use this online float to hex converter. If the code is replaced with the command to jump to allow the extending of vertical fov at 0x3F9A9, replace bytes 00 00 80 3F at 0x1F8F3A with bytes representing your float value multiplier in a positive value (default multiplier here is 1.0). FOV multiplier values lower than -0.75 or 0.75 will also cause blue clipping on geometry.

Input

External gamepad settings

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse acceleration
Mouse input in menus
Keyboard and mouse prompts		Other than a simple "Press Enter Key" on the title screen, there are no keyboard and mouse prompts in-game.
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support		Launcher only works with keyboard and mouse.
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger support

DirectInput-compatible controllers

PlayStation controllers		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Nintendo controllers

Other controller(s)

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Input prompt override
Haptic feedback		Despite a vibration option being available in the Options menu, it does not seem to work when enabled.
Digital movement support
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

• 

  External keyboard rebinding

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Sliders for BGM and SE/VOICE available in the external launcher.
Surround sound		Supports up to 7.0 during gameplay. The original PS2 and Xbox releases had support for Dolby Digital 5.1 in FMV cutscenes, but both FMV and in-game cutscenes are limited to stereo in the PC version.
Subtitles		Limited to cutscenes in Story Mode only; cannot be disabled. Voiced dialogue during races, such as pre and post-race lines and play-by-play commentary, are not subtitled.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

In-game text language settings

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French
German				Mix of Real Voice/Voice-to-Voice Fandub by "Maschinelle Klangkaskade"
Italian
Japanese
Russian				Fan text translation by "Falling Forward". Fan audio localization by "Best Blast Team".
Spanish				Castilian.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
Local play		2	Versus The PC version supports 4 player gameplay like the console versions without issues. However, the developers decided to disallow 4 players in the game's menu code and did not implement reading of inputs for players 3 and 4 (their input data is still stored). Through hacking, playing 4 players is possible.
LAN play
Online play
Asynchronous multiplayer

Issues fixed

Cannot install from the launcher

Run SonicRidersSetup.exe

Cannot locate CD-ROM

Install the game in the default folder (C:\Program Files (x86)\Sega\Sonic Riders)

Game Lags when Rendering Lots of Particles (e.g. End of Red Canyon)

Set CPU Affinity to single core
Open Task Manager. Go to the Details tab. Right Click SonicRiders.exe Press Set Affinity Check CPU 0, Uncheck all other boxes. Note: The real fix is to hijack the Direct3D device creation; disable the D3DCREATE_MULTITHREADED flag (unused) and enable the D3DCREATE_DISABLE_PSGP_THREADING flag.

Infinite Loading Screen When Loading Race

Use decompressed game files
Download Uncompressed Sonic Riders Assets. Extract to the Data directory of the game.

Flicker

Disable Gsync
Run the Nvidia Control Panel. Select Manage 3D Settings task and go to the Program Settings tab. Add and select the sonicriders.exe program. From Monitor Technology feature, select Fixed Refresh setting. Apply changes.

Multimedia controls don't work

Launch the game with Special K

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9.0c

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum		Recommended
Operating system (OS)	98 SE, 2000, ME, XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium III 1.0 GHz		Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz
System memory (RAM)	256 MB		512 MB
Storage drive (HDD/SSD)	3 GB
Video card (GPU)	64 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0c compatible
Sound (audio device)	DirectSound compatible
Other	12x CD-ROM drive

In-game movies require a CPU with SSE support.