Red Dead Redemption II PC performance thread

Isee · Nov 8, 2019

If you are experiencing random crashes and you're running a manual GPU oc check windows event manager and check the time stamps around the time your game crashed. If you find anything related to graphic drivers or Nvlddmdk chances are your overclock isn't stable in this game. It being stable everywhere else has no meaning then, you'll need to set it back a bit.

If not, it's obviously something else.

TheUnforgiven · Nov 8, 2019

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

That is clearly a bug, not an optimization problem, also probably not related to ur graphics card FYI.

vitormg · Nov 8, 2019

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

It could be a CPU issue, apparently older CPUs do not handle this game very well

rBose · Nov 8, 2019

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

Thats really odd.. as I can play this game with an almost steady 58-60fps which never stutters at all, with high and medium settings on my gtx 1060 and i5 8500

You got the latest nvidia driver ?
You running the game on vulkan ?
HDD or SSD ? is the hdd slow

SvennusDemonicus · Nov 8, 2019

I still can't get over how unoptimised it is. Do you think its the launcher causing the issues or with the base code. Its crazy considering the X1X version is native 4k-30

rBose · Nov 8, 2019

SvennusDemonicus said:
I still can't get over how unoptimised it is. Do you think its the launcher causing the issues or with the base code. Its crazy considering the X1X version is native 4k-30

Doubt its the launcher, they pulled another GTA4 on us

SvennusDemonicus · Nov 8, 2019

rBose said:
Doubt its the launcher, they pulled another GTA4 on us

I just don't get how they messed it up so bad, I mean the architecture of the consoles and PC´s is still fundamentally the same, its not like it was with the PS3.

Premium Ghoul · Nov 8, 2019

Isee said:
If you are experiencing random crashes and you're running a manual GPU oc check windows event manager and check the time stamps around the time your game crashed. If you find anything related to graphic drivers or Nvlddmdk chances are your overclock isn't stable in this game. It being stable everywhere else has no meaning then, you'll need to set it back a bit.

If not, it's obviously something else.

Just tried DX12 again and it crashed after a few minutes. Nothing GPU related in the event manager, so I'll be sticking with Vulkan for the time being.

Forceflow · Nov 8, 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

Thanks for using the parser there, now it makes sense that Mode4o5 means 80%. Will make that a bit more descriptive.

Hierophant · Nov 8, 2019

Okay was thinking it was a meme but some people might have the right idea that this isn't uhh super well optomised
Shame considering how good GTAV was on release
Though I should probably upgrade my 1060 soon anyway for Cyberpunk

Isee · Nov 8, 2019

SvennusDemonicus said:
Its crazy considering the X1X version is native 4k-30

4k/30 @ what settings?
We currently have no basis for any kind of statement about PC performance. All we know: Ultra Settings are demanding. Reducing Water Physics from 100% to 50% alone will give you up to 40% more performance in any scene with water for example. Leaving every Advanced Settings (like long shadows) on ON but reducing everything that can be Ultra to High (except AF=16, Textures=Ultra) will give you another ~30% on top of that. Going down to medium is ~50%-70% faster over "maxed out". 90-130% with water physics set to 50%.

previous post about this stuff, with examples

Let's wait for DF to finish their job what settings One X is running at, then test it on PC "equal" hardware (RX580/590, GTX 1060/1070). Then we can start making statements like: "One X can run this at 4k/30 on low-medmium settings, but RX 580 needs to adjust resolution scaling down to 0.800 at low-medium settings to achieve 30 at 2160p."

Crashes, Stuttering, People not being able to launch the game is a different thing. And obviously messed up.

Premium Ghoul said:
Just tried DX12 again and it crashed after a few minutes. Nothing GPU related in the event manager, so I'll be sticking with Vulkan for the time being.

That's good and bad new simultaneously.
;)

But in all seriousness. It's worth to take a look at event manager if a new game starts crashing.
Solved my "crashing" issues more than once.

Cripterion · Nov 8, 2019

Ogs said:

I guess they patched it or it was only doing that in Vulkan renderer cause I did a DX12 test now and he didn't do the skipitty-do on me.

rBose · Nov 8, 2019

SvennusDemonicus said:
I just don't get how they messed it up so bad, I mean the architecture of the consoles and PC´s is still fundamentally the same, its not like it was with the PS3.

Same reason why I took the bait and preordered, GTA5 was a gem during release, not a single issue, performance was flawless even on my old ass gtx 960, so I thought rdr2 would be the same ...

horkrux · Nov 8, 2019

Why did they include both Vulkan and DX12 btw, are they crazy?
And going forth they want to optimize them both?

Well... hf

Isee · Nov 8, 2019

I maybe found something:

There is a <asyncComputeEnabled value="false" /> line in the settings.xml
I've changed the false into true and the Vulkan stuttering is gone. GPU utilization is down by ~4-5%. Performance is pretty similar though...
No idea what this setting really does, I thought async compute was always "on" in this game.
Maybe the stuttering is gone because of the lower GPU utilization? I don't know.

I haven't tried this for long, but maybe give it a try yourself.

Anomander · Nov 8, 2019

Isee said:
I maybe found something:

There is a <asyncComputeEnabled value="false" /> line in the settings.xml
I've changed the false into true and the Vulkan stuttering is gone. GPU utilization is down by ~4-5%. Performance is pretty similar though...
No idea what this setting does. Maybe this is because of the lower GPU utilization? I don't know.

I haven't tried this for long, but maybe give it a try.

Good lord, that frametime graph.

Dan L · Nov 8, 2019

Forceflow said:
Thanks for using the parser there, now it makes sense that Mode4o5 means 80%. Will make that a bit more descriptive.

Yeah it's super handy tool, thanks!

The mode#o# is actual a fraction. 4/5. So you can just divide the two numbers and times 100 to get resolution percentage

Isee · Nov 8, 2019

Anomander said:
Good lord, that frametime graph.

I know and the game uses Vulkan as the default API. DX12 is 100% smooth but crashes for many people.

Linus815 · Nov 8, 2019

the vulkan frametime spikes are caused by using keyboard, no? At least thats what I read earlier in the thread. Its smooth if you use a gamepad apparently.

Isee · Nov 8, 2019

Linus815 said:
the vulkan frametime spikes are caused by using keyboard, no? At least thats what I read earlier in the thread. Its smooth if you use a gamepad apparently.

100% no, I'm playing this with my Xbox controller.
They are just not there in every single scene. They are even rather rare, but when they occur they hit hard.

Samaritan · Nov 8, 2019

Am I the only one getting significantly worse performance in Vulkan than in DX12?

Intel i7-7700K
2080Ti
Installed to an SSD

TUFCfan · Nov 8, 2019

I've managed to get to the point where the only frame rate dips I've noticed on mine so far are the camp fires in the first chapter (usually drops ~5fps if I go near them) and then:

The Meteor house. When I approached the crater to get the piece of meteor, the frame rate dipped ~10fps.

.
Would that be particle quality affecting that? Think I have it on high at the moment.

SleepSmasher · Nov 8, 2019

horkrux said:
Why did they include both Vulkan and DX12 btw, are they crazy?
And going forth they want to optimize them both?

Well... hf

Probably Stadia has something to do with Vulkan here. Expect more and more games supporting it since obviously Google's DCs are not running Windows.

Isee · Nov 8, 2019

I was actually wondering. Would it be possible to run RDR2 on Linux because of Vulkan?

Mr Swine · Nov 8, 2019

Isee said:
I was actually wondering. Would it be possible to run RDR2 on Linux because of Vulkan?

Isn't it through Valves Proton app that you can run games on Linux?

SleepSmasher · Nov 8, 2019

Isee said:
I was actually wondering. Would it be possible to run RDR2 on Linux because of Vulkan?

The API isn't the only part of the puzzle. The game has been compiled as a Win32 app so it wouldn't launch on Linux (natively), but I suppose a conversion wouldn't be far fetched to consider.
Not sure if Proton applies here given the stupid launcher.

Linus815 · Nov 8, 2019

Isee said:
I was actually wondering. Would it be possible to run RDR2 on Linux because of Vulkan?

the reason why vulkan is included is likely due to stadia, which uses linux & vulkan
but, the game isnt linux compatible currently

perhaps in the future

Isee · Nov 8, 2019

okay, I see. Thx for the replies.

Bedlam · Nov 8, 2019

So I'm just noticing that the detail mud textures in Valentine (with footsteps, cart tracks etc) only pop up about 3 meters in front of me. Which setting do I have to change here?

I have most settings on medium or high, textures on ultra.

Pazee · Nov 8, 2019

Bedlam said:
So I'm just noticing that the detail mud textures in Valentine (with footsteps, cart tracks etc) only pop up about 3 meters in front of me. Which setting do I have to change here?

I have most settings on medium or high, textures on ultra.

Maybe tessellation, parallax occlusion and anisotropic filtering.

eddy · Nov 8, 2019

Isee said:
I was actually wondering. Would it be possible to run RDR2 on Linux because of Vulkan?

At the very least it makes it way easier because you don't have to emulate the graphics API.

Serious Sam · Nov 8, 2019

Samaritan said:
Am I the only one getting significantly worse performance in Vulkan than in DX12?

Intel i7-7700K
2080Ti
Installed to an SSD

What I gathered from GameGPU benchmarks is that Turing GPUs run better in DX12 while Pascal ones better in Vulkan.

Nezacant · Nov 8, 2019

Serious Sam said:
What I gathered from GameGPU benchmarks is that Turing GPUs run better in DX12 while Pascal ones better in Vulkan.

2080Ti here and it runs better in Vulkan for me but not by much.

john2gr · Nov 8, 2019

Isee said:
I maybe found something:

There is a <asyncComputeEnabled value="false" /> line in the settings.xml
I've changed the false into true and the Vulkan stuttering is gone. GPU utilization is down by ~4-5%. Performance is pretty similar though...
No idea what this setting really does, I thought async compute was always "on" in this game.
Maybe the stuttering is gone because of the lower GPU utilization? I don't know.

I haven't tried this for long, but maybe give it a try yourself.

I also had major frame pacing issues with my i9 9900K. I've tried everything; from disabling G-Sync to re-installing driver. Nothing worked. Then I paid extra attention to the graphs and noticed what is also evident in your Vulkan screenshot. The CPU frequency. For some reason, in this particular game, the CPU was entering an idle state even when it was running the game, resulting in those frame pacing issues. I then disabled "CPU Enhanced Halt" in order to have i9900K's frequency locked at 4.7Ghz and boom. No more stuttering and no more frame pacing issues. So make sure to disable "CPU Enhanced Halt" from your BIOS.

Michael B · Nov 8, 2019

john2gr said:
I also had major frame pacing issues with my i9 9900K. I've tried everything; from disabling G-Sync to re-installing driver. Nothing worked. Then I paid extra attention to the graphs and noticed what is also evident in your Vulkan screenshot. The CPU frequency. For some reason, in this particular game, the CPU was entering an idle state even when it was running the game, resulting in those frame pacing issues. I then disabled "CPU Enhanced Halt" in order to have i9900K's frequency locked at 4.7Ghz and boom. No more stuttering and no more frame pacing issues. So make sure to disable "CPU Enhanced Halt" from your BIOS.

I think this is similar to why switching to the high performance power plan in Windows fixed stuttering for me as another poster suggested.

Letters · Nov 8, 2019

Small detail but it's always so satisfying having both ps4 and xb1 controllers connected to your PC and seeing a game recognize them both flawlessly without extra software. You can even play with all 3 control methods at the same time and the on-screen buttons change instantly in real time depending on what button or key you last pressed (that includes playstation buttons). PC gaming has come a long way.

KTroopA · Nov 8, 2019

Letters said:
Small detail but it's always so satisfying having both ps4 and xb1 controllers connected to your PC and seeing a game recognize them both flawlessly without extra software. You can even play with all 3 control methods at the same time and the on-screen buttons change instantly in real time depending on what button or key you last pressed (that includes playstation buttons). PC gaming has come a long way.

Excellent, I was planning to hook up a DS4 and play with that. Thanks for confirming it all works and displays correctly :)

disgraciau · Nov 8, 2019

PSA: don't enable MSAA for reflections, they break the mirrors:

b0uncyfr0 · Nov 8, 2019

Looking at Frametimes here :

Turning on AsynCompute is definitely smoothing things out in Vulkan (On AMD cards at least). Need's to be tested for sure.

J75 · Nov 8, 2019

Letters said:
Small detail but it's always so satisfying having both ps4 and xb1 controllers connected to your PC and seeing a game recognize them both flawlessly without extra software. You can even play with all 3 control methods at the same time and the on-screen buttons change instantly in real time depending on what button or key you last pressed (that includes playstation buttons). PC gaming has come a long way.

Ps4 button prompts? Hell yeah. Didn't know this.

Poison Jam · Nov 8, 2019

disgraciau said:
PSA: don't enable MSAA for reflections, they break the mirrors:

I was seeing blinking in the mirrors, with the reflection being just a black surface at times. Is that a known bug? No MSAA, and it happened at both ultra and high. Didn't try lowering it further.

Dan L · Nov 8, 2019

KTroopA said:
Excellent, I was planning to hook up a DS4 and play with that. Thanks for confirming it all works and displays correctly :)

One small thing if using native DS4 over bluetooth I don't get vibration in the game, I need to switch it to xbox output to get vibration on my DS4 and thus get the xbox buttons.
I wish all games let you set the button icon manually.

Pwnz · Nov 8, 2019

I haven't had a lot of crashes lately, but the worst thing about the crashes is that autosaves are so sparse. For a lot of missions it's before it started. Sometimes I'll get concerned with long missions and I'm locked out of save game so I'll check out load game and see autosave is from like 40 minutes. Wtf.

Jamrock User · Nov 8, 2019

Letters said:
Small detail but it's always so satisfying having both ps4 and xb1 controllers connected to your PC and seeing a game recognize them both flawlessly without extra software. You can even play with all 3 control methods at the same time and the on-screen buttons change instantly in real time depending on what button or key you last pressed (that includes playstation buttons). PC gaming has come a long way.

EA does this also

Waiting patiently for fixes. I'd rather my frame rate drop than my game just freeze. Dx12 doesn't boot among other issues.

WGMBY · Nov 8, 2019

Finally got a chance to play for an extended period of time last night, and the game looks pretty good on my GTX 970 with High textures and everything else set to Low. One weird thing I noticed is my GPU goes to 100% and stays there when I'm playing the story mode, regardless of the current scene. I haven't finished the first chapter yet so maybe the GPU load will reduce once I leave the mountains. Red Dead Online only used 50% of the GPUs resources though.

rBose · Nov 8, 2019

For people who can no longer play in VULKAN (after the last update game crashes during loading process), is there a fix available ? Or the best thing to do would be a classic reinstall ?

disgraciau · Nov 8, 2019

I think I managed to get some beautiful config at stable 30 FPS with my RTX 2070 slightly overclocked:

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070, DX12
1920 x 1080, 60000hz, Windowed: undefined, Vsync: undefined, Triple: On

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

Near Volumetrics Quality: High
Far Volumetric Quality: High
Volumetric Lighting Quality: High
Unlocked Volumetric Raymarch Resolution: On
Particle Lighting Quality: Medium
Soft Shadows: High
Grass Shadows: Low
Long Shadows: On
Full resolution SSAO: On
Water Refraction Quality: Medium
Water Reflection Quality: Medium
Water Physics Quality: 25%
Resolution scale: x1.750
TAA Sharpen Intensity: 100%
Motion Blur: On
Reflection MSAA: Off
Geometry Level of Detail: 100%
Grass Level of Detail: 100%
Tree Quality: Ultra
Parallax Occlusion Mapping Quality: Ultra
Decal Quality: Ultra
Fur Quality: High

If I raise resolution scale to x2.000 (4K), I get some dips to 25-28 FPS in the camp and some other areas, but usually also stays 30 FPS almost the whole time.

Isee · Nov 8, 2019

john2gr said:
I also had major frame pacing issues with my i9 9900K. I've tried everything; from disabling G-Sync to re-installing driver. Nothing worked. Then I paid extra attention to the graphs and noticed what is also evident in your Vulkan screenshot. The CPU frequency. For some reason, in this particular game, the CPU was entering an idle state even when it was running the game, resulting in those frame pacing issues. I then disabled "CPU Enhanced Halt" in order to have i9900K's frequency locked at 4.7Ghz and boom. No more stuttering and no more frame pacing issues. So make sure to disable "CPU Enhanced Halt" from your BIOS.

I've locked CPU Frequency to 4275MHz to try your suggestion out, and the stuttering still exists.

You are seeing 3700MHz in my screenshot because my polling rate is set to 4000ms in Afterburner. In truth Ryzen 3000 frequencies are changing every 2-5ms (or something crazy like that). Here is an example with a polling rate of 500ms (the minimum you can set in afterburner)
RDR2 offloads rather well across all my cores, it even favors my two fastest cores (core 6 and 4) and in general favors CCD0 over CCD1. But that's probably more because of the Interplay of the newest Windows Scheduler in 1909 and the AMD chipset driver.
In short: It is working as intended and Ryzen Frequencies are always jumping like crazy. Still, they are relatively low: Maybe because there isn't much to do per core? Idk. The 4300MHz in the other screenshot are there because I took several screenshots in succession, which introduced additional workload and the CPU cores speed up + the polling rate of 4000ms made it look like there were there for 4s, when in truth it was just a couple of ms. In general RDR2 doesn't tax the 3900x that much and it stays at around 3800-4100MHz.

But thx for the tip. It was worth a try.

Inb4: Yes, Intel also has variable Frequencies, but it's by far not as complicated as on modern AMD chips. Truth is Intel can reach higher frequencies with less trouble than Ryzen. But that is another conversation.

Cripterion · Nov 8, 2019

I personally had 0 crashes in RDR online after switching from Vulkan to DX12. Game runs better to with most basic settings set to ultra or high. (RTX 2080, i7 8700K, 16GB, SSD.
No matter the settings though there is a noticeable shadow pop up that's quite distracting.

Mr Swine · Nov 8, 2019

4 day and i'm still getting launcher exited unexpectedly. So I guess I'm out of luck gigabyte doesn't release a bios with Agesa 1.0.0.4 for my x370 mobo???

Red Dead Redemption II PC performance thread

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