Red Dead Redemption II PC performance thread

Dan L · Nov 7, 2019

So with the performance impact screenshots floating around and my own testing I have cranked up a bunch of my settings from high to ultra and have it running 4k60 (80% render) pretty much locked. even in St Denis with tons of fog et al. Looks way better than my previous settings.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, DX12
3840 x 2160, 60hz, Windowed: No, Vsync: Yes, Triple: On

Textures: Ultra
Anisotropic: 16x
Lighting: Ultra
Global Illumination: Ultra
Shadows: High
Far Shadows: Ultra
SSAO: High
Reflection: High
Mirror: Ultra
Water: Custom
Volumetrics: Custom
Particles: Ultra
Tessellation: Ultra
FXAA: Off, TAA: Medium, MSAA: 0

Near Volumetrics Quality: Ultra
Far Volumetric Quality: Ultra
Volumetric Lighting Quality: Ultra
Unlocked Volumetric Raymarch Resolution: Off
Particle Lighting Quality: High
Soft Shadows: High
Grass Shadows: Medium
Long Shadows: On
Full resolution SSAO: Off
Water Refraction Quality: Medium
Water Reflection Quality: Medium
Water Physics Quality: 50%
Resolution scale: Mode4o5
TAA Sharpen Intensity: 100%
Motion Blur: On
Reflection MSAA: Off
Geometry Level of Detail: 100%
Grass Level of Detail: 83%
Tree Quality: High
Parallax Occlusion Mapping Quality: High
Decal Quality: High
Fur Quality: High

Generated with Forceflow's RDR2 settings parser

2700x @ 4.2
2080ti on water @ 2100mhz
16GB 3200cl14

exodus · Nov 7, 2019

Dan Longman said:
So with the performance impact screenshots floating around and my own testing I have cranked up a bunch of my settings from high to ultra and have it running 4k60 (80% render) pretty much locked. even in St Denis with tons of fog et al. Looks way better than my previous settings.

2700x @ 4.2
2080ti on water @ 2100mhz
16GB 3200cl14

I recommend toning down some of the settings so you can bring shadows to Ultra. It offers a large visual improvement. Shadows in cutscenes will look a lot better, and I noticed that High misses a lot of indoor shadows. There's a lot more depth to indoor scenes on Ultra.

I ended up turning lighting to medium to make up for most of the performance impact. So far, I can't tell the difference between Medium and High lighting. Maybe a graphics analysis will change my mind but I can't see any difference in the screenshots I've taken.

If you're unsure compare some shots indoors with shallow wall objects (e.g wall trim, picture frames). You'll notice a lot more shadowing against the wall on Ultra. High seems to miss these shadows for some reason.

Badblood32 · Nov 7, 2019

I have an i7-5820k & 1080ti, would like to run it on my x34. What kind of performance might I be looking at?

exodus · Nov 7, 2019

Badblood32 said:
I have an i7-5820k & 1080ti, would like to run it on my x34. What kind of performance might I be looking at?

Probably in the 40-50 range mostly on High. Feels pretty good with GSync, at least. You might be able to get close to 60 with careful tweaking.

d00d3n · Nov 7, 2019

As a 2080 Ti owner (9900k CPU), I have mostly played the game with an xbox controller in 4k locked to 30 fps (vsync half refresh), no MSAA, no reflection MSAA, no FXAA, 50% water simulation, and every other setting maxed. I haven't reached the big city yet, but the performance seems solid so far. I have switched to lower resolution/settings locked to 60 fps to try mouse and keyboard gameplay several times, but that trade-off doesn't seem to be worth it imo. Mouse aiming doesn't add much to this game. The slow animations and physicality of movement counteract the free-aiming power fantasy in a big way.

Mecha Meister · Nov 7, 2019

Here's an earlier video of me running the game with the settings I have found.
I have since made some adjustment to improve the performance.

SirMossyBloke · Nov 7, 2019

leng jai said:
People claiming they're getting 60fps should clarify if they're still getting that much in towns like Valentine, Strawberry and Saint Denis.

Yes. Unwavering so far.

ss_lemonade · Nov 8, 2019

So I want to play using Vulkan (only because the benchmarks load so much more faster, so I'm hoping ingame loading is better too here), but I am unsure about one thing: ensuring that gsync works optimally. I've become so used to disabling vsync in game and using the nvidia control panel vsync option (because that is usually what's recommended) that I am unsure now if having vsync enabled in RDR 2 would have have a negative effect. Is it fine to leave it enabled here, and to play in borderless since the game keeps resetting to borderless anyway?

rBose · Nov 8, 2019

leng jai said:
Even in Valentine and Saint Denis?

50-58fps, what impresses me is that theres no hiccups, not a single frame drop

rBose · Nov 8, 2019

I can no longer play the game using VULKAN, anyone else with this issue ? It insta crashes during loading

WGMBY said:
Finally figured out wtf was happening on my system. Game won't run on DirectX 12 after the last patch for some reason, can't even get the benchmark to load. Swap to Vulkan and it starts up no problem.

I'm on a GTX 970, which is pretty damn old, so I was planning on using DX12 for this game. It seems crazy that's what the issue was.

My god... what the fk is going on.. same thing here just the opposite thing lol

Cross-Section · Nov 8, 2019

Annnnd crashed while walking around Valentine. Didn't lose much progress, but there goes my "Vulkan/ultrawide patch is causing it" theory.

One thing that has me wondering is how loud my PC fans get during gameplay. Probably going to run HWiNFO to monitor temps next time I play to see if it's throttling in a way that is somehow causing the crashes.

Boy · Nov 8, 2019

Anyone playing on 980ti? I'm curious to know how it runs.

Tovarisc · Nov 8, 2019

Cross-Section said:
Annnnd crashed while walking around Valentine. Didn't lose much progress, but there goes my "Vulkan/ultrawide patch is causing it" theory.

One thing that has me wondering is how loud my PC fans get during gameplay. Probably going to run HWiNFO to monitor temps next time I play to see if it's throttling in a way that is somehow causing the crashes.

Consider installing MSI Afterburner + RivaTuner StatisticServer. Then set up stuff like temps into overlay via said programs. This way you can have that info right in the game and in front of your eyes at all times.

Overlay can be toggled.

Cross-Section · Nov 8, 2019

Tovarisc said:
Consider installing MSI Afterburner + RivaTuner StatisticServer. Then set up stuff like temps into overlay via said programs. This way you can have that info right in the game and in front of your eyes at all times.

Overlay can be toggled.

Good to know; I think I already have both installed, too.

Atomic Playboy · Nov 8, 2019

I bumped Water Refraction and Water Reflection to high instead of medium, and put Water Physics at 50%. I definitely see some dips in heavily watered areas, but I do notice the difference in IQ, and "nice water meme" is basically me when it comes to graphics so I'll trade a little performance for really good looking water. Game is running great and I can't get over how nice it looks; like the PS4 PRO but crisper and with infinite draw distance. I was watching a lightning storm at night and saw lightning hit a tree in the plains near Blackwater while I was riding in the plains southeast of Valentine; it was awesome in the strictest sense of the word.

Tovarisc · Nov 8, 2019

Cross-Section said:
Good to know; I think I already have both installed, too.

Basics for setting up overlay: https://linustechtips.com/main/topi...msi-afterburner-on-screen-display-using-rtss/

Deleted member 34873 · Nov 8, 2019

rBose said:
I can no longer play the game using VULKAN, anyone else with this issue ? It insta crashes during loading

My god... what the fk is going on.. same thing here just the opposite thing lol

Me too, but on a 1070. And DX12 gives me the 5 second freezing issue (only in story mode... the benchmark runs without any hitches).

PHOENIXZERO · Nov 8, 2019

LMAO just ran the game for the first time since Wednesday's patch and decided to tweak my settings, switched back to Vulkan and capped the frame rate to 30 since that's probably going to be the best option for my ol'2500K at 4.5GHz and then just increase visual options from there, started the benchmark at it ran fine until the second to last one where it crashed as it was loading.

Edit: Well, finally started the story and yeah, game's pausing so I went and switched back to DX12 and restarted, went back to story and now it's stuck loading.🤦🏼‍♂️

ss_lemonade · Nov 8, 2019

How do I force change the game's aspect ratio? I have an ultrawide monitor and when I decide to use a lower, 16:9 resolution like 1080p, the aspect ratio gets all screwed up and seems to stay in 21:9 inside a 16:9 box.

Pazee · Nov 8, 2019

Accidentally posted in that debatish thread.

I finally got the game looking better than on the One X. You definitely need all the lighting and shadows, TAA, FXAA all turned up to get all the different systems to look natural imo. I also switched over to direct X 12 which may have helped(?). I put about 60+ hours on the One X on a 4K OLED and am about 5 hours in on PC walking around Saint Denis and am finally happy with how the game looks comparatively.

Keen for the digital foundry findings.

CreepingFear · Nov 8, 2019

Ogs said:

Bricktop · Nov 8, 2019

georaldc said:
How do I force change the game's aspect ratio? I have an ultrawide monitor and when I decide to use a lower, 16:9 resolution like 1080p, the aspect ratio gets all screwed up and seems to stay in 21:9 inside a 16:9 box.

Borderless windowed.

Pazee said:
Accidentally posted in that debatish thread.

I finally got the game looking better than on the One X. You definitely need all the lighting and shadows, TAA, FXAA all turned up to get all the different systems to look natural imo. I also switched over to direct X 12 which may have helped(?). I put about 60+ hours on the One X on a 4K OLED and am about 5 hours in on PC walking around Saint Denis and am finally happy with how the game looks comparatively.

Keen for the digital foundry findings.

The X holds up really, really, well. I'd wager most people are running the PC version at lower settings than what that version pushes.

Infinity Times Two · Nov 8, 2019

Somehow I feel complicit by being a double dipper. Maybe if more people hold out with their initial purchase, they'd spend more resources making sure the PC version works.

ss_lemonade · Nov 8, 2019

Bricktop said:
Borderless windowed.

When I selected borderless, my desktop becomes visible in the background, so it looks more like just windowed to me. Fullscreen shows the proper black bars but everything is stretched. This happens both in dx12 and vulkan (dx12 is a bit worse because the fullscreen option does not stick when restarting the game)

Bricktop · Nov 8, 2019

georaldc said:
When I selected borderless, my desktop becomes visible in the background, so it looks more like just windowed to me. Fullscreen shows the proper black bars but everything is stretched. This happens both in dx12 and vulkan (dx12 is a bit worse because the fullscreen option does not stick when restarting the game)

Yeah, windows borderless is the only way ti not get the squished aspect. I'm not at home so I can't remember, but have you tried alt-enter on the window?

Oddhouse · Nov 8, 2019

Anybody got a GTX 1080, 16gb Ram and i7 6600k or similar spec - whats the best settings that can be played on at 1080 resolution ?

Dictator · Nov 8, 2019

Ogs said:

I love this

Foxashel · Nov 8, 2019

Dear lord how did they test this port? Was it tested?

gabdeg · Nov 8, 2019

Best part about the PC version is Arthur's benchmark dance tbh.

Atomic Playboy · Nov 8, 2019

Did they release a performance patch update? Settings that were getting me 35 or so FPS in the benchmark before are now getting me 45ish. That's a pretty significant improvement and I changed nothing. I did also try DX12 but it runs and looks terrible for me.

dex3108 · Nov 8, 2019

Atomic Playboy said:
Did they release a performance patch update? Settings that were getting me 35 or so FPS in the benchmark before are now getting me 45ish. That's a pretty significant improvement and I changed nothing. I did also try DX12 but it runs and looks terrible for me.

As far as I know all updates so far were released to fix launcher issues and antivirus issues.

SurrenderDorothy · Nov 8, 2019

Atomic Playboy said:
Did they release a performance patch update? Settings that were getting me 35 or so FPS in the benchmark before are now getting me 45ish. That's a pretty significant improvement and I changed nothing. I did also try DX12 but it runs and looks terrible for me.

I hope they release one soon.

Isee · Nov 8, 2019

Ogs said:

lol, yeah

I did the benchmark countless times and can confirm: There is a slim chance for Arthur to not derp out here. Like 1 out of 10.

Isee · Nov 8, 2019

exodus said:
Anyone else seeing rectangular shadows on face closeups in cutscenes? It's really annoying. I have shadows on ultra. No idea what the cause is.

Not on faces, but sometimes on world objects. Especially on things close to the edge of my screen.

edit: Ah well, sorry for DP. I derped out.

Pargon · Nov 8, 2019

georaldc said:
How do I force change the game's aspect ratio? I have an ultrawide monitor and when I decide to use a lower, 16:9 resolution like 1080p, the aspect ratio gets all screwed up and seems to stay in 21:9 inside a 16:9 box.

Doesn't the game have resolution scaling options? You should use that instead of lowering the output resolution.

Mecha Meister · Nov 8, 2019

Ogs said:

lol I've had this happen a couple of times too.

Has anyone seen Arthur and the horse get run over yet? It happens at around 5:02 in one of my videos!

Linus815 · Nov 8, 2019

why is Arthur wearing different clothes in the benchmark? Some footage has him wearing a coat, while others dont lol

Pazee · Nov 8, 2019

Linus815 said:
why is Arthur wearing different clothes in the benchmark? Some footage has him wearing a coat, while others dont lol

It uses the outfit from the save game loaded. It is literally just a loosely scripted sequence where anything can go wrong.

Which when I think about it now if you were wearing a big fur coat with lots of physics happening it would probably affect your benchmark results.

TheAuldTriangle · Nov 8, 2019

Are consoles using Ultra setting for global illumination?

Because anything other than ultra and you dont get that glowy ears effect when sun is out.

SixelAlexiS · Nov 8, 2019

Bricktop said:
Not true. Shadows and LOD, for sure, are significantly better on the Pro and who knows what else. AO maybe? They're definitely not running the same settings.

This, on Pro you get even better details (and steady framerate) if played at 1080p like I did.

bobeth · Nov 8, 2019

TheAuldTriangle said:
Are consoles using Ultra setting for global illumination?

Because anything other than ultra and you dont get that glowy ears effect when sun is out.

I have it on high, and I see the sub surface scattering effects..

Deleted member 47700 · Nov 8, 2019

Ogs said:

Dictator · Nov 8, 2019

TheAuldTriangle said:
Are consoles using Ultra setting for global illumination?

Because anything other than ultra and you dont get that glowy ears effect when sun is out.

GI effects Global Illumination, bounce light from the moon or sun, not sub surface scattering (the ear effect). As far as I know, you cannot turn off subsurface scattering at all.

SleepSmasher · Nov 8, 2019

Well, I'm beginning to think that the crash issues have something to do with the Rockstar servers. Most of this morning I couldn't play for more than 30 minutes without a crash. Closed the game, didn't even turn my computer off. A few hours later, tried it again just to play for 3 hours or so without a single issue. Can anyone experiencing frequent crashes disable their internet connection and give it a try?

TheUnforgiven · Nov 8, 2019

hlhbk said:
You know its optimized how? Its amazing how people defend games that should be way more polished.

I know that preset names are meaningless and diminishing returns for cranking up settings does not mean poor optimization.

How do you know its not optimized?

TheAuldTriangle · Nov 8, 2019

Dictator said:
GI effects Global Illumination, bounce light from the moon or sun, not sub surface scattering (the ear effect). As far as I know, you cannot turn off subsurface scattering at all.

I see. Maybe a bug on my end. It seems playing around with settings whilst ingame can cause some issues.

bobeth said:
I have it on high, and I see the sub surface scattering effects..

Prob just a bug on my end. Cant believe I called sub surface scattering "glowy ears effect" im 31 ffs.

Dictator · Nov 8, 2019

TheAuldTriangle said:
I see. Maybe a bug on my end. It seems playing around with settings whilst ingame can cause some issues.

I actually did not notice that yet, but it would not surprise me at all. Call of Duty MW also copmoetely shit the bed in performance randomly at times when I was changing settings. But to be fair, I was changing settings so often that they probably never ever QA for such a thing.

Davilmar · Nov 8, 2019

When the game doesn't crash, I have been modifying settings for my regular 2080 to get the best performance. One of my friends has suggested flashing the BIOS, and I neither have the confidence to do so nor feel obligated to go to such lengths for a crappy port. I'm gonna skip the game until the issues get fixed, since R* seem to have no interest in answering my tickets. I'm only slapping my head for trusting them with my pre-order to begin with.

Premium Ghoul · Nov 8, 2019

I'm loving the game, but I'm annoyed at both DX12 and Vulkan. I need to choose between smooth frame times with random crashes (DX12), or random stuttering and no crashes (Vulkan). Naturally I've chosen the latter, but man is it annoying that neither option is satisfactory.

Deleted member 34873 · Nov 8, 2019

TheUnforgiven said:
I know that preset names are meaningless and diminishing returns for cranking up settings does not mean poor optimization.

How do you know its not optimized?

I get 4-5 second freezes trying to run this game at low settings on my 1070.

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