Saints Row: The Third

Issues and Fixes

Bad Performance / Lag

These tweaks may alleviate performance issues:

• Play the game in DX9 Mode instead of DirectX 10 or 11
• Lower the game resolution
• Lower the graphics settings from high to low! Specifically, try turning down Post Processing and Ambient occlusion!
• Update your video card drivers! New graphic card drivers (such as Catalyst) provide for increased frame rates and bug fixes tailored to specific games and just general optimization.
• Turn off VSYNC and AntiAliasing (AA)!
• Sometimes if you’re using SLI or CrossFire, it’s worth trying to play the game with one card instead of two.

No Sound

Possible solutions:

• Turn off Hardware Sound Acceleration in DXDIAG (RUN > DXDIAG > SOUND > DirectX Features)
• Lower your Sample Rate Conversion Quality (or turn off Hardware Acceleration) through Sounds & Audio Devices in the Control Panel (Volume > Speaker Settings > Advanced > Performance)
• Anyone using a 7.1 or 5.1 speaker configuration should try setting it to 2.1 in the Windows audio options.

Game Controller Not Working

If you are using a game controller, such as a Xbox 360 Controller, then you may encounter a problem with it working. Be sure to plug in the game controller BEFORE you launch the If you have any other devices plugged into USB ports, then remove those too before playing.

Flickering Red Dots

This is an issue that may occur with nVidia graphics cards. To solve this:

• Open your nVidia control panel
• Navigate to Manage 3D settings
• Under the Program Settings tab, select Saints Row from the list of programs (You may need to add it, in which case select the Saintsrowthethird_dx11.exe)
• Change Anisotropic Filtering and Antialiasing to Application Controlled.
• You may also need to turn off Antialiasing Transparency, Gamma Correction, and Texture Filtering, as well.

For non-nVidia graphics cards, please refer to your equivalent 3D control panel

Fail to Launch / Hangs / Freezes After Intro or Advertisement

• Set the compatibility mode to the game to “Windows XP”
• Run the game directly instead of using the generated shortcut
• Check your game cache / revalidate it to ensure you have okay files
• Run the game in DirectX 9 mode
• If you use multiple monitors, then disable one of them
• Exit any program that could mess with the game
• Run the game in a different, more common resolution

Game Crashes on Loading Screen After Starting a New Game

• Start game in DirectX 9 mode and start a new game. After that you can play DirectX10/11 version.

Mods

Gentlemen of Steelport

This mod compilation by idolninja combines all the best mods from the Saints Row modding community. To download, go to idolninja's website.

Launched With Advanced Graphics Options

This launcher contains various graphics options you can modify from outside of the game such as Anti-Aliasing, Ambient Occlusion, Shadow Map Size, and more. The download for the advanced launcher can be found on this forum post at the Steam Users' Forums [1].

Saints Row Modding Forum

Many mods and tools can be found at the Saints Row Mods forum.