Common issues¶

This page explains the most common problems players may experience with Rigs of Rods and provides instructions on how to fix them.

Failure writing settings file¶

When attempting to launch RoR or change game settings, you may receive one of these errors or a variation of them:

Causes¶

Unicode characters¶

The most common cause of these errors is having Unicode characters in the path to the Documents\My Games\Rigs of Rods folder, typically caused by the Windows (Name of the folder in C:\Users, NOT the display name!) username (e.g. André).

There are three workarounds to this problem. Fix #2 is recommended if you don't want to run RoR as administrator.

Fix #1¶

1. Inside the installation directory, where RoR.exe is (usually C:\Program Files\Rigs of Rods) create a folder named config
   
2. Right click RoR.exe and click Properties
   
3. Under the Compatibility tab, check the Run this program as administrator box, then click Apply and close the window.
   

Fix #2¶

1. Move any mods out of the Documents\My Games\Rigs of Rods\mods folder if you have any installed
   
2. Uninstall RoR from Windows settings, then remove the Documents\My Games\Rigs of Rods folder if required
   
3. Download the zipped release from Itch.io and extract rigs-of-rods-windows.zip into any directory that isn't in Program Files or the users folder (Documents, Downloads, etc).
   Example: C:\Games
   
4. Inside the extracted folder, create a folder named config
   
5. Launch the game by double clicking RoR.exe. You can optionally create a shortcut by right clicking.
   

Following either method will result in RoR now using the config folder instead of the default Documents\My Games\Rigs of Rods location to store user data.

If you installed the content packs, you will have to move the *.zip files from Documents\My Games\Rigs of Rods\mods to config\mods. New mods are also installed there.

Fix #3¶

The last solution is simply to create a new Windows user account without any special characters or wipe your drive and install a new copy of Windows.

Controlled folder access¶

Controlled folder access is a feature of Windows Security (Defender). When this feature is enabled, it blocks applications such as RoR from accessing your Documents folder.

Please see this page for instructions on how to disable it.

OneDrive¶

OneDrive is known to prevent RoR from accessing the Documents folder. The only solution is to uninstall OneDrive.

No render system plugin available¶

If you downloaded RoR using the zip file, you may receive these errors. This is caused by the DirectX 9 Runtime not being installed. Install it from Microsoft's website then restart your PC.

Visual C++ DLLs missing¶

When launching RoR, you may receive a MSVCP140.dll/MSVCP110.dll/MSVCP100.dll not found error.

This is caused by the required 64-bit Visual C++ Redistributable not being installed.

Install the correct version that matches the .dll name in the error then restart your PC.

Latest release:

• MSVCP140.dll (Select the x64 version)

Older versions:

• MSVCP110.dll

• MSVCP100.dll

Full screen crash (Cannot create device)¶

This error is usually caused by enabling full screen with the wrong resolution (video mode) set.

1. Browse to Documents\My Games\Rigs of Rods and delete the config folder inside.
2. Start RoR, the game will be in a small window. Click Settings -> Render system and change the Video Mode setting to your monitor's native resolution (e.g. 1920x1080). Enable full screen if you want.
3. Restart RoR.

If this doesn't fix your error, then your GPU is most likely too old to run RoR.

Null program bound¶

This error occurs with some Intel integrated graphics chips. Unfortunately there's currently no fix.

More info: GitHub issue

Glitchy vehicle shadows¶

With some GPUs (mostly integrated ones), shadows on vehicles may appear glitchy:

This is caused by your GPU not supporting self-shadowing (Shadows from other objects casting onto the vehicle). Please try one of the following workarounds:

Fix #1: Disable shadows¶

The simplest workaround is to just disable shadows. (Settings -> Graphics -> Set shadows to "None" -> Restart RoR).

Fix #2: Enable classic materials¶

In versions 2020.01 to 2022.04, an option to enable classic (0.38-era) material shaders is available. This can be found under Settings -> Graphics -> Classic material shaders.

Currently they do not support self-shadowing, so the glitch is not present using these.

Fix #3: Disable self-shadowing from default materials¶

If you prefer to use the default materials instead, do the following:

1. Browse to where RoR is installed. This is usually C:\Program Files\Rigs of Rods by default.

2. Open the resources folder, followed by the managed_materials folder.

3. Copy the managed_mats_vehicles.material file onto your Desktop.

4. Open the file with Notepad (Right click -> Open with -> Notepad)

5. Add // to the beginning of the first line: //import * from "shadows.material"

6. Save the file, then copy it back to resources\managed_materials, overwriting the original file. Allow administrator permission when prompted.

Airplane spawning crash¶

If the game crashes when spawning an aircraft, change the Lights setting (Graphics tab) to anything that isn't None (fastest):