Want to Test Your PC? Try Sonic Adventure RTX

I’ve never been a man who needs much of an excuse to replay Sonic Adventure, but here’s a good one anyway. The Dreamcast classic has RTX Remix support – and it’ll test your PC like a near 30-year-old game never should.

I’ve played around with it a little bit, and I’m impressed by what the pathtracing I’ve seen. This is an absolutely new way of seeing the game. Some parts work better than others. Mystic Ruins, for instance, is much-improved by the better lighting. At the very least, this is a different, but extremely playable version of the game.

I say extremely playable. That will largely depend on your rig. Like all RTX mods, you’ll either need something extremely beefy or make compromises to get the most out of it. Lower that resolution, and lower your expectations on framerate. At least it’s more stable than Indiana Jones.

Thankfully, it’s easier to install than it is to get it to play. That’s especially true if you’ve ever played with SA Mod Manager before. Even if you haven’t, it’s still only about five or ten minutes work and a couple of downloads. For the full instructions and the download files, visit here. You’ll need SA Mod Manager and the Dreamcast conversion, and I recommend downloading it first.

Once you’ve got it all set up, you can use the mod manager to jump into the game, or to load into specific levels and check out the changes. It’s hard to make a direct comparison, because you can’t use the Lantern mod that brings in the game’s original lighting system. But you can toggle the pathtracing on and off using alt+x and that will be enough to see the impact it’s having. On your visuals as much as your performance.

Thanks to the Fans – RTX Remix

It’s not an unusual thing for this site for me to cheer on the surprising projects fans often are able to release. The Retroachievements project is a particular favourite of mine.

But it’s not often that companies officially support these things, or enable them in anyway. Nvidia’s RTX Remix project is almost unique in that regard.  Fans have already been able to get the likes of Max Payne and Mafia working with the RTX files, and official releases include Portal and the upcoming Half Life 2 remaster. A Bioshock RTX Remix was leaked, but has never appeared and is reportedly cancelled. Major disappointment on that one.

Sonic Adventure is an unexpected but welcome addition to the scheme. It won’t be for everybody (and many simply won’t be able to run it). But as a test case, it’s been superb revisiting it for these brief tests. If nothing else, it has me imagining the potential of Shenmue. One of the most atmospheric games of the late 90s made more so by improved lighting. Unfortunately, I’m not sure it’ll be as suitable a technical candidate. But we absolutely live in hope.

While I’m waiting, I’ll be revisiting the whole of Sonic Adventure RTX.