PC Version FAQ

This article is a stub. You can help Journey Wiki by expanding it.

This article is about mostly Steam. For important and specific information about the Epic Games version see here. For general FAQ about the game, see Frequently Asked Questions.

Information about

• General hints for PC players
• Technical stuff: Link to unofficial patch notes and "tech-support"
• Graphic settings, comparisons between different settings hints for other settings that are not in the game menu.

Intro

The Wiki is not supposed to give "tech support", but we will share information about known bugs too.

If there are any differences for a certain platform, it will be mentioned on the according article ("PC only" etc.).

Basic recommendations

• Start the game via the launcher to make sure online play is enabled, use a LAN cable to have a stable connection
  • VPN: its recommended to turn it off to play Journey with all its features
• Play Journey on a big screen (you can connect your PC to the TV via HDMI)

• A controller was the original way to play Journey. Use shoulder buttons for flying preferably, see controls explained in detail (note using RT/R2 button makes the game crash). Info for remapping buttons further than the game settings allow: -- > Hints for the regularly traveling Wayfarer.

• Adjust graphic settings not only in-game but on your screen (presets on TV/monitor or the extra program for your graphic card)
• Try to play with a headset at least once
• General FAQ will be answered in the First Journey-Guide and the follow up guides, as well as the Basics Guides.
• There are many community terms used to describe things in Journey. Use this list to find out what they mean.
  

Keyboard FAQs:

• What are basic keyboard controls? See this guide
• How do I sit/meditate using keyboard? Press Enter key
• How do I pause the game / invoke screensaver? Press P key.

Graphic settings guide

Open the menu with "escape" or "start" button on a controller, then go in "options", "graphics".

Vertical sync on or off ?

What is v-sync ?

V-Sync or Vertical Synchronization is a feature that caps the framerate (= Frame Per Second) of your game so it doesn't exceed the refresh rate of your screen in Hertz. Most PC screens being 60 Hz, it would ensure the game doesn't run at more than 60 FPS (or 120 FPS for a 120 Hz monitor, and so on...).

• Having V-sync enabled is useful in case your computer almost continuously renders more frames than the corresponding refresh rate of your screen (e.g. you get more than 60 FPS on a 60 Hz monitor): in this situation it will prevent screen tearing issues.
• However if your computer already struggles to keep up, it's better to leave it disabled anyway or it can reduce your framerate even more.

Having V-sync enabled can add latency to your inputs, which is why it's not a perfect solution and some players prefer to keep having screen tearing problems instead, with v-sync disabled.

Note if you have a monitor that supports G-sync (for Nvidia GPU) or Freesync technology (for AMD GPU), you can enable it in your graphic card's dedicated driver software and disable v-sync in-game: it will get rid of tearing problems and won't cause unwanted input latency or FPS drops when getting fewer FPS than the refresh rate of your screen.

And for Journey ?

Journey got first released on PS3 with 30 FPS only. It then got ported on PS4 at 60 FPS and the game was still behaving well. However on PC it has been observed getting more than 60 FPS can cause visual problems regarding cloak animation, carpets or flyers behavior, and even crashes over 120 FPS !

Because of it, if you monitor has a refresh rate over 60 Hz, we heavily recommend you cap the maximum framerate of the game directly in your graphic's card driver software ("NVidia Control Pannel" for example with an NVidia Graphic card, accessible by right clicking on the desktop), or with an external software such as RTSS. You can then set a maximum value between 60 images per second and a little more, depending on when it starts to bother you seeing the cloak animation from the wayfarer going too fast. A higher framerate makes the game look more smooth and more responsive to your inputs, so it's not all bad either.

Capping the max framerate will probably induce some input lag just like when enabling v-sync, and it's unclear whether it replaces it or not when it comes to the screen tearing problem. If you still notice some you probably better enable it in-game on top of limiting the framerate.

“ I see streams, where people have the quickly moving robe and it doesn't look right. :( „ — Ravingmadness

Screen resolution

It is recommended to play the game in fullscreen mode and at the resolution of your screen in pixels.

If you experience low framerate even after lowering the various settings from the option menu, you can lower the resolution too while trying to keep the aspect ratio of your screen (most often 16x9). You could also attempt to play in windowed mode when lowering the resolution and see how it affects performance

FXAA and MSAA

The edges/lines look fine at MSAA 2. But MSAA 8 seems to create an ugly outline !

FXAA and MSAA are Anti-Aliasing methods that reduce the staircase effect commonly observed on the outlines of objects in video games.

• Having FXAA enabled is recommended since it does a pretty good job for Journey, and it shouldn't use much PC power.
• MSAA is a more advanced Anti-Aliasing technology that should use more computer resources, yet the results aren't all great for Journey. Two side effects have been observed when pushing this value up: It can create undesired shiny outlines surrounding object edges, and it tends to create more sparkles the higher this value is (the big and very shiny kind of sparkles, mostly visible in Sunken City level, and especially present in Out of Bounds areas of this level on PS3 originally).

Because of the outline problem, keeping MSAA to a value of 2 or 4 seems like a wiser choice (the edge quality is improved well between MSAA of 2 versus 1)

Highest graphic settings not always the best ?

You can compare with how the game looks for other players on different platforms: Streamers list.

click to expand for details

Different sparkle settings (note: the "velvet" value needs to be changed in journey.cfg file directly as detailed here).

Sand Detail Level

• As you can see here, "sand detail" gives bigger sand particles with brighter sparkles on low setting. It makes the sand look more grainy, but up-close you can clearly notice it's low resolution and it tends to look very rough.
• On "ultra" the sparkle's brightness is heavily reduced due to the small size of sand particles, making the sand look very thin (much thinner than on the original PS3 or PS4 versions).

We recommend setting "sand detail" to medium or high as a good compromise if you can. Choose whatever resolution suits you best, also depending on how "good" your computer is.

Dune Detail Level

Dune Detail will affect how many ripples are visible on the sand, and again, "ultra" may display too many ripples depending on your taste (there is a big difference between "high" and "ultra" for this setting). On "low" the dunes will look more flat, which is fine if that's what you like.

Going for medium or high may be a good idea again, also depending on how "good" your computer is.

Note some Glitches look or behave differently, depending on the dune detail you set ! See Dune settings and PC glitches.

Fluid Detail Level

This value seems to affect how sand particles move with the wind, or when the character does a chirp bubble on the sand for example.

When set to low, sand movements will be detailed close to the camera only, yet they will still happen on the entire screen (try a big chirp and notice how only half the sand wave is visible around the wayfarer, on the camera side).

Using at least medium is recommended if your computer can handle it, to keep a bit of sand movement details at mid-range too. It's not easy to notice a significant difference between medium high and ultra, so select what looks best to you in-game: chirp a few times with different fluid detail values and observe the sand movement afterward !

Cloth Interpolation

Cloth interpolation probably has to do with smoothing cloth movements of creatures such as carpets. It would be best to have it on.

Anisotropy

Anisotropic Filtering is a method of enhancing the image quality of textures when seen from an angle, and how well they render at a distance. Leave it at 16 if you can, it shouldn't be the most performance heavy parameter.

Lowering it to 8 shouldn't remove much of the image quality either, so you can try it out and see if you gain a few FPS by doing so.

Modify your screen settings

Editing graphics via the TV/monitor directly or the graphic card program can change the look of the game by a lot. Gamma, contrast, brightness and other color settings for example, on top of in-game settings detailed above. It might take several playthroughs and time spent adjusting to find the perfect settings for your PC and monitor.

Technical Stuff

Patch notes

see Patch Notes

In July 2020 a patch for Steam, Epic and iOS version was released and may have fixed some of the issues that are mentioned here.

Known issues and solutions (Epic and Steam)

Players have reported the game being more likely to crash/freeze than on PlayStation, though details may vary by rig (a PlayStation is always rather the same build, thus less errors might appear).

General hints for common problems:

• Steam Technical Support Forum - link

• some people reported that things like plugging in the other monitor / the headset, activating the laptop screen, while playing on the TV etc... helped. This might be due to PC settings, like allowing the Journey app to use the main monitor or the sound on that device...
• do not run Journey at the edge of your PCs performance. It seems that sometimes high settings/low performance has an effect on achievements or even crashes ("FPS")
• via Steam "local files": find the Journey.exe, set it to run with admin rights
• set Steam to start with admin rights
• try to enable or disable the steam cloud. Warning: this might mess with your game progress, achievements will not be deleted
• Run the game, open Task Manager, right click Journey.exe, navigate in the drop-down menu to "set priority". This is a try-and-error: choose lower priority and see if it helps; or higher...
• Make sure your firewall and anti-virus software allow Steam and Journey.exe
• Uninstall Journey, restart the PC and reinstall with admin rights.

Journey does not start

See hints above.

• One solution is starting the Journey.exe directly with admin rights.

Right click in Steam library on Journey, properties, navigate to local files to find the Journey.exe.

• If a "missing .dll error appears", try this YouTube video:

How To Fix Steam Games Not Launching (Error: Missing msvcr110.dll OR msvcp110.dll)

Bad performance / CPU overload

1. Switch preferred graphics processor (GPU): Sometimes Windows10 switches an app/program to use CPU instead of your graphics card (GPU), this leads to bad performance. Here is a link on how to change your preferred graphics processor in win10: https://pureinfotech.com/set-gpu-app-windows-10/
2. Besides lowering graphic settings ("ultra" isn't always best anyway), you can try the following: Run the game, open Task Manager, right click Journey.exe, navigate in the drop-down menu to "set priority". This is a try-and-error: choose lower priority and see if it helps; or higher...

Crashes after editing the graphics options

Solution:

• Change the settings to your liking, then restart the game.
• Deleting Journey.cfg will also reset the settings. The file will be re-created, upon starting the game. It is located at \User\AppData\Local\Annapurna Interactive\Journey\Steam
• Crashes might also happen due to a certain PC setup.
• Windowed mode and window size, at least, appear to be safe to edit, as are the sparkle settings in the Journey.cfg file directly.

Crashing at first symbol in first level / RT button bug

Also crashing when touching cloth or chirping at some murals. The option to use the shoulder buttons wasn’t added until v1.47, since the patch it seems to make the game crash at certain places, when assigning the RT-button setting in the in-game options.

Possible Solution:

"If you are using trigger LT or RT in settings for fly and chirp that spot crash for me as well, so to bypass it change to something else and change back once passed it."

Don't set the RT button in-game options, rather use an external program, to change the button.

High FPS bug - game crashes - robe moving quickly and more

The PC version has a high FPS bug which can cause several things (details below). It most likely roots in the fact that PlayStation versions had fixed FPS, PS3 at 30 and PS4 at 60. While for PC system it can vary from lower than 30 and up to 250 and more.

Possible Solution:
• Enable Vsync. Vsync decreases the frame rate depending on your monitor's refresh rate in Hertz, and it can help avoiding the crash (More about V-sync here)
• Some people reported that they additionally put their settings on Ultra, to reduce FPS further (Ultra settings is not recommended for visuals, if you like to have it look like the original).
• It is recommended to have 60 fps because the game is stable at that point, anything higher can cause issues. Read about V-sync with the link just above to cap your max framerate.

Game crashes

Game crashing at the Underground level and at the Summit, if the frame rate is too high (more than 120 fps).

Steam Forum: Sea Monster crash discussion.

Robe getting wild and moving too quickly

If you did not play Journey before, you might not recognize that something is off. You can compare, by watching videos and streams from console players.

Wild movements of the robe are also caused by high FPS, which is why 60 fps works for the best. Read how to lower your framerate here.

Banners might move quickly too. Sometimes cloth creatures tangle up or move slowly for some seconds and then quickly, this is probably rather a network problem, either Companion or yours.

Flyers migrating to other places

Video from bee3s, flyers in Broken Bridge flying between places, where they normally do not fly. If this is also due to high fps is unknown, but most likely.

Video from unpari in Pink Desert, where Flyers flew to OOB. Video also features the robe moving stiff/quickly.

Game crashes at credits

This means, the player can not get certain achievements and is not able to see the Companions Met Along the Way list.

2020-11: Steam discussion about a possible solution. Worked for at least two people:

Solution: Run the game, open Task Manager, right click Journey.exe, navigate in the drop-down menu to "set priority". Choose a higher priority.

To test if it works, use the Snow level building in Chapter Select (CS) and just do the last two levels.

Name list problems / Companions Met Along the Way

Main articles: Guide: PC version - Companions Met Along the Way Problems, Companions Met Along the Way (CMATW)

• Name is only numbers
• Crash before the list appears
• The name is blank and only the companion's symbol is visible
• Too many results after searching for the name on Steam
• names missing in the list

Beware, using the Chapter Select option will reset the list of Companions you met along the way if you then choose to continue your Journey from the main menu. Do not go to CS if you want to know the names of the Companions you met at the end of your current Journey !

Black sky, fog in tower wrong / MSAA bug

How the MSAA bug looks in Tower.

This has been fixed by the "sound-patch" from 2020-07-15.

The bug appears when changing the MSAA in the options menu. The major problem with this bug is that it changes the Goo in the Tower level. See image to the left, the Tower itself will look like its made of Goo and where it should be there is only black. This makes it hard to find things in the Tower. Looking from above into the Goo looks normal.

The MSAA bug causes differences in Broken Bridge and Paradise too. Sometimes black "formations" can show up in the screensaver animation.

Solution: If you changed graphic settings (msaa), restart the game or the bug will most likely appear later in game.

Adventure Achievement not working?

Some Steam players reported, that they tried several times and were not able to achieve it. Sometimes it might be, that also bigger gates were used (those do not count into the Achievement, only those shown in the Achievement-picture do). See Trophies, Adventure.

Some players reported that lowering the graphic settings, made them finally able to get the Achievement:

• put the game all in low
• lower the resolution
• play in windowed mode, 4:3

List of related Steam-threads: Adventure achievement not working?
• How to make sure to get the "Adventure" achievement

Game Doesn't Save Progress?

PC related bugs are hard to track down and could also have different triggers. This section is only a collection of experiences reported by people.

Checking if its a bug:

• After finishing a Journey, you start your next one again with no scarf and normally with a red robe. That's not an error.
• Assuming you were on your first Journey: If "nothing" is saved, then you still have only one yellow line at the bottom of your robe, meaning you are on your first Journey. You can also check at the Wardrobe, if the symbols you collected are shining. If nothing is shining and you picked up symbols, then the game didn't save the progress.
• Journey should update the save file every time you enter the next level. If you quit the game in Broken Bridge, it should ask you for "continue" or "new Journey" at the next start. Continue should bring you then to the BB level again.

Possible solutions:

• Within the credits and after them, the game will save certain information. The game counts a Journey as finished, when the line "new Journey" appears.
• The game doesn't always save if you select "Quit to Desktop" or close the game directly (via "Alt + F4" or other methods). A workaround for this is to select Quit to Title from the pause menu before you close the game.
• Checking if the save file is updated after going into the next level (timestamp).
• See Known issues and solutions above.

Playing offline, PC versions

Main article: Hints for the regularly travelling Wayfarer#Travelling offline .2F playing offline

Note: means not being able to play with a Companion. It can be used to have an undisturbed, not guided first Journey or when you want to explore or train things alone.

Epic Games specifics

Since a patch in April 2020, playing offline seems a bit complicated. With Epic Games version 1.59 the saving system for Journey has changed, same version as steam was introduced too.

• Old and new save files do not work anymore. (they're now on steam location and must be ran from launcher)
• Players tried to delete their progress; for example starting the Journey.exe directly from the game folder (works). (saves are not loaded)
• It was found out that cutting the internet connection makes the game crash if you go to another level. However you can still cut the internet after starting the game and go online after watching the vision at the statue, to avoid meeting people. Then go to the next level and cut internet again. You could also teleport from Chapter Select to any level by entering the corresponding circles of lights (thus playing offline).
• You cannot go from Chapter Select to Broken Bridge without internet but you can cut internet just after entering Broken Bridge if you wish to practice on this level. You cannot connect to a companion until you walk past the first 2 pillars of the bridge anyway (just do not jump down after entering the level).

Starting the game via Journey.exe / not using the Epic Games Launcher

This way you will start as a first run again. If you start the game normally via the launcher and connected to the internet, you get your progress back.

In the past the "start game via the .exe file" made you play offline, while keeping your progress. (this is still possible but complicated)

Steam specifics

there are two ways to play offline.

1. Through steam settings / Offline on Steam:
   • Go to Steam > Go offline...
   • Agree to restart in offline mode
   • Start the game.
   • To go online you will need to go to Steam > Go online..., which will ask you to restart steam again, hence the game will be closed.
   • It's impossible to switch between online and offline playing this way without quitting the game!
2. Through turning your internet connection off. You can do that at any moment during playing your game or before starting it. Try not to do it, if you already have a Companion around: you will get disconnected. To go online just turn your internet on again.
   • If you have cloudsave enabled, trying to start the game offline this way will take some time: steam will try to connect to the cloud first, fail to do that and tell you about it, offering you to choose whether to play the game anyway or cancel it. You need to press 'play game' here to continue.
   • Be careful, this method can lead to some glitches you will not encounter otherwise.

Unlike the Epic Games version, both of these methods will keep your saves while you're playing offline and when you go online afterwards.

Block the network traffic for Journey at your firewall

Not tested with version Epic Games version 1.59, but should bring you also back to a first run.

• How To Block a Program with Windows Firewall (Windows 10)
• Microsoft Help Page

External homepage, PCgamingwiki

This homepage also provides some technical info about Journey, PC version.

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Journey