Risen 2 Tweaks, Errors and Fixes Guide

This guide contains all the graphical tweaks, errors and their fixes to help you have a better experience in Risen 2 and enjoy being a pirate


Risen 2 launched today with a fair bit of criticism and a lot of technical issues that may render fans unable to play the game as it was meant to be. For such Risen 2 Errors and Fixes, read on below.

If you are one of those unlucky fans who are going through the frustration of getting the game started or run it smoothly on your machine, follow the workarounds listed in our troubleshooting FAQ; you will be enjoying the smooth performance and reasonable graphics in no time.

Risen 2 Errors and Fixes

1# Risen 2 Doesn’t Start
Clicking ‘Play’ button doesn’t launch the game. Pop-up window appears showing ‘Preparing to launch Risen 2’ and then disappears.

How To Fix:

  • Check that your drivers are up to date
  • Disable all background programs (e.g. virus checker)
  • Set your sound card to 6 channels instead of 8
  • Right click on the game in the Steam interface > properties > Local files > verify integrity of game cache.
  • Suppress .blob
  • Run DirectX, PhysX and VCRedist from Risen 2 redist folder and restart.

2# Doesn’t Start – ‘Frequency out of range’ Error Message
The game doesn’t start. Screen remains black except showing ‘Frequency Out of Range’ error message. This error usually occurs when you are trying to run the game in resolution that isn’t supported by your monitor.

Fox fix this, you will have to change few parameters in ConfigUser.xml file. In Window section of the config file, you should lower these values:

  • AdapterNumber=”0″
  • Top=”0″
  • Bottom=”768″
  • Left=”0″
  • Right=”1024″
  • RefreshRate=”85″

Alternatively, rename the config file and restart the game. Risen 2 will create a fresh config with default values, which should help you get started with the game.

3# Bad Textures, Object Clipping, Black Lines, Flickering Trees
You may experience bad textures on distant objects in Risen 2 depending on the type of rig you are using to run the game. A lot of Nvidia users have reported the issue, so I am guessing it may have something to do with the drivers.

If updating drivers doesn’t help, you may want to play with the config file to tweak the game. You can’t find it in this folder – %AppData%\Local\Risen2\Config\ConfigUser.xml

There isn’t much to play with by default. On tweak you can try to reduce pop-ins and bad textures as you approach the terrain is to increase the LOD setting values in the config file.

Considering that the game is not much of graphics juggernaut, and you are playing at high settings, you will see something like this in your config file:

<High
				Item_Small="2000.0"
				Item_Medium="4000.0"
				Item_Large="6000.0"
				NPC_Small="2000.0"
				NPC_Medium="4000.0"
				NPC_Large="6000.0"
				Level_Small="7000.0"
				Level_Medium="12500.0"
				Level_Large="18000.0"
				Object_Small="1500.0"
				Object_Medium="4500.0"
				Object_Large="7000.0"
				SpeedTree_Small="3000.0"
				SpeedTree_Medium="7000.0"
				SpeedTree_Large="12500.0"
				Events_Small="3000.0"
				Events_Medium="5000.0"
				Events_Large="7500.0"
				Effects_Small="3500.0"
				Effects_Medium="7500.0"
				Effects_Large="12500.0"
				Lights="7000.0"
				Terrain="100000.0"				
			>
			</High>

Consider increasing all values by 500 except light, terrain, and effects. You should see a considering decrease in pop-ins but this comes at a notice-able performance loss.

Try it with incremental changes of 350, 250, 125 and see where you have smooth gameplay experience and better graphics. Testing would help you find the sweet spot.

4# Auto and Quick Save Don’t Over-Write – How To Delete/Clean Save Files
Unfortunately, Risen 2′ Auto and Quick save don’t over-write each other and each save is like 6MB, so you may end up with an overwhelming number of save files considering this is an RPG.

To clean it, you will have to delete the previous save files right from the save files folder, which can be found here – \users\[username]\Saved Games\Risen2.

Make sure you don’t delete the saves you want to keep.

5# Risen 2 Black Screen – InGame All Black
When you start the game you only see a black screen with sound played on the background. Most of the ATI users have reported this issue, and it has something to do with ATI Catalyst Control Panel settings.

To fix this, change “Texture Filtering Quality” to High Quality in Catalyst Control Panel. (This may resolve the black screen but may not resolve other graphics issues; for that refer to the next step)

If it doesn’t fix your issue, set AA in Catalyst Control Panel to use Application Settings, and turn on Vsync. After that, turn off AA in-game while keeping Vsync. It should solve this issue.

6# 3D Vision and Other Graphics Issues
It seems 3D vision doesn’t work properly in Risen 2. To make it work, you have to disable the shadows and disabling shadows breaks the immersion.

Right now, there is no fix for issues related to the 3D mode of the game, but hopefully, they will be fixed in the upcoming patches.

7# EyeFinity and Surround Support
Unfortunately, Risen 2 doesn’t support Eyefinity or Surround. You can read this thread for more insight.

8# Performance FPS Fix
Not sure about ATI but latest Nvidia drivers add support for Risen 2. If you are experiencing graphics and performance issues, you should download the latest beta drivers by Nvidia from here. If you have Nvidia 3D drivers installed and can live without 3D, uninstalling these drivers may fix your FPS/Performance issues.

9# Nvidia SLI Fix
Download the latest beta drivers to fix the issue.

10# (AMD) Low FPS with Crossfire Enabled
Disable the Crossfire to fix the issue.

11# Logitech G35 headphone Fix
When you start the game with Logitech G35 as default sound device, game blinks and goes back to desktop. To fix this issue, either start the game with Speakers or go to the device manager, under sound cards, right click on logitech G35, uninstall, tick the box in the window that pops up, click ok, restart.

Windows will recognize your headset after the re-start while it will trick the game into believing G35 has been uninstalled, and it will result in sound coming through your headphones.

12# How To Change Mouse Sensitivity
To change the mouse sensitivity, edit “SensitivityX” and “SensitivityY” (e.g. 5.0f instead of the default 1.0f) in the file %AppData%\Local\Risen2\Config\ConfigUser.xml.

13# How To Run Risen 2 in Nvidia 3D Vision
3D vision is supported but you need to disable the shadows, reset the light sources when entering and exiting new areas, and you may have to change the settings for cut-scenes.

14# Nvidia FPS Fix – How To Uninstall 3D Vision
Uninstall your current drivers and download the latest beta. While installing the new drivers, choose custom installation and opt not to install Nvidia 3D Vision.

15# FPS Drops Whenever Water is Near
Deactivate the water reflection.

16# Game starts utilizing wrong monitor
If you’re using a multi-monitor setup, the game may pick the wrong monitor up.

To fix this, you will need to set the monitor to ConfigUser.xml.

  • In order to do this, go to C:\Users\(Username)\AppData\Local\Risen2\Config\.
  • Edit xml by changing the AdapterNumber line to AdapterNumber=”0”.
  • Save your changes and run the game.

17# Greyed-Out Sound Speaker Option
Head to the windows sound settings and check whether the settings are configured correctly for 5.1/7.1.

If you come across any other issue, let us know and we will try to help you out.

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Zawad Iftikhar is the founder of SegmentNext.com, an FPS enthusiast and a Call of Duty veteran, having participated multiple eSports competition.