Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC: Howdy buck do you get a solid 60FPS in Rockstar's masterpiece?

Greetings, traveller, and welcome back to The Register Plays Games, our monthly gaming column. We're living the dream now because Rockstar clearly doesn't give a toss about previous coverage and gave us one of the most anticipated PC titles of the year. Cheers! Many a 14-year-old is intimately familiar with the thrill of …

[iron]

> In a month... it has crashed once and bugged out on launch twice – which for PC land isn't awful.

If a launcher crashed that many times in a month I'd be firing off annoyed bug reports. In the six months I've been playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey neither the game nor the Ubisoft launcher have crashed once. And, in the two weeks I've been playing Jedi Fallen Order it hasn't crashed either and I can even run it on Ultra settings without any issues. In fact I don't think I've ever seen the Steam, Origin or Ubisoft launchers crash so there's really no excuse for Rockstar.

[Excellentsword]

No, the game itself crashed once. And twice textures weren't being full rendered and Arthur wasn't animated in the saddle.

[Tom 38]

Arthur wasn't animated in the saddle

A common complaint amongst the ladies.

[LeahroyNake]

Oh so there are ladies of the night then?

To be honest I prefer beating a hoard of undead with a 4ft purple dildo in Saints Row to an awesome soundtrack. I also like being 'the nice one' in Fallout and other proper RPG's... Each to their own lol.

[J. Cook]

Saint's row is a hilarious GTA clone; IMHO the third iteration is the best iteration.

[Excellentsword]

There's bath houses but it doesn't get much saucier than a brush of the thigh, try as I might.

[NoneSuch]

Ummm...

"Because one does not simply whack everything up to "ultra" – even with high-end GPUs – and expect the thing to run flawlessly."

This one does exactly that. I invested a lot of money into a top end water cooled system, so it had better run butter smooth on ultra settings. If it doesn't you can rest assured it isn't because of a hardware issue dagnabbit.

[Excellentsword]

Re: Ummm...

Like I said, it's exactly what I did, but also as I explained, Rockstar PC ports tend not to behave! I'm water-cooled etc too, mobo and CPU could do with an update soonish, though. But also it's completely possible for the game to run wonderfully. It's rather that there are settings here that probably aren't necessary, and it's surprising how much of a hit performance can take. Let us know how you get on.

[Shady]

Re: easy pickings

> In a month... it has crashed once and bugged out on launch twice – which for PC land isn't awful.

I've got an XBone - and that thing crashes more often than my PC does. Often, infuriatingly, when just watching Amazon Video or Netflix through it.

[MrMerrymaker]

60FPS here.. albeit not always and not in St Denis

The trick is to use DirectX and not their rotten Vulkan API. Also be careful with what anti-aliasing options you choose... everything else is on high or ultra

Also there's a bug with, specifically, Nvidia graphics cards causing pauses. Yikes.

I've got a brand new Ryzen CPU and AMD graphics card to match, so suspect that's why I'm getting smooth-as-butter performance.

Even started to mod it - put in a basic trainer, and spawned a load of dogs in the camp. I went to bed - woke up - and the dogs were still roaming the camp! Now that's GOTY material.

[Excellentsword]

Re: 60FPS here.. albeit not always and not in St Denis

I'll have to try DirectX, see if there's much difference.

[MrMerrymaker]

Re: 60FPS here.. albeit not always and not in St Denis

Please do! It made all the difference for me.

Annoyingly, every time the game updates (so far for me, anyway) it resets it back to Vulkan, which in turn resets your graphics options. Sigh...

[Excellentsword]

Re: Re: 60FPS here.. albeit not always and not in St Denis

Well, I tried it but the trees started twitching... so changed it back. Didn't see any perceivable gains.

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

And this, dear friends...

And this is why I have a PS4. As I "game" for relaxation and entertainment, I just can't see the point of spending time having to coax minuscule graphical and performance changes out of software and hardware that most often times won't run properly anyway due to driver or API issues, or ends up having no actual or visible material impact on the experience - other than reducing it overall, or giving crap humble bragging rights as to who can claim to see the most pixels.

I quite like just flopping on the couch, pushing square, and get off and running with only the game play itself to concern myself with.

[chuckufarley]

Re: And this, dear friends...

...is why freedom has price.

I won't judge your gilded cage if you don't judge my freedom.

[anonanonanon]

Re: And this, dear friends...

Yes, fraction of the price of a gaming PC. And didn't all the PC guys through a hissy fit because alternatives to steam started appearing and they didn't like exclusives outside of their own little gilded gaming cage.

[chuckufarley]

Re: And this, dear friends...

Yes, I just down voted. I don't do it often and I regret that it had to be your post. Soz, Mate.

Let me be clear: I do not like Steam. I have never liked it. I have hated it. I don't hate it now.

Steam is kinda like Democracy: It is the worst form of content delivery and yet is better than all of the others tried before it. What we gamers want is some Utopia of content delivery that makes everyone happy and no one sad. Instead we have a Distopia that works good enough for most. Kinda like Windows. (amirite or amirite?) Every CD platform has it's fatal flaws and those CD platforms that have been killed off by Steam had flaws that killed them sooner rather than later.

Blaming the demise of these platforms on the users of Steam is like accusing one ethnic group of collectively vying for world domination. It's just not well thought out. Too many people hate their own family members for it to work, ever.

I do not think that Steam will remain dominate in the CD market for too much longer.* Once Valve Software starts trying to fuse Iron they will soon after ex/implode and give the world all the building blocks it needs to make a better platform.

*In human terms: 2035-2045 and based solely on market momentum and my own inability to see my biases. However I am only one date point at that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And this, dear friends...

Some PS4 games now need updates due to bugs. You don't have "graphics options" (actually some do now) in a PS4 game, so obviously you cannot have a too low/high setting, also known as "defaults" in most PC games. In fact, I don't think I've ever played a PC game that does not default to a playable game, as long as I don't buy a game beyond my PC...

[fattybacon]

Re: And this, dear friends...

And this is why I have a Stadia... the patching is done and I can play on any device I own (TV, Chromebook, laptop, pixel phones)...

Everytime I turn my PS4Pro on there is some 40Gb patch for something waiting to happen. I know you can have the updates on PS4 to be done in standby but when I was gifted RDR2 by a friend, the patching process robbed me of my precious intended gaming session.

[noboard]

Re: And this, dear friends...

You obviously missed the articles about the Stadia game that needed patching before people could play it. I think they're going to make people wait at static screens while the game updates in the background. It's a bit like their claims of 4k, up-scaling a 1080p picture isn't real 4k and simply not showing the "Updating game" message, doesn't mean you don't have to wait for games to update.

[Trixr]

Re: And this, dear friends...

Eh, I haven't played a game in the last decade on PC that wasn't perfectly playable out of the box in decent quality. What I generally *prefer* to do is tweak the settings up from their defaults. Such as, for some reason, FarCry 5 starting up in 1600×900 and everything on "medium"

[Callum Winton]

Bang for the buck

Surely FPS is the bang rather than the buck?

I've seen a couple decent YT videos on how to get a steady 60+ FPS with explanations on what each setting are.

Handy for the first time setup with the in-game benchmarking tool before we lose ourselves into the game for a few weeks.

Someone commented on NVidia issues with stammering.

It's not a new RTX issue (1080Ti here) and it was an issue caused by new drivers (v440+) which incorporated low-latency, but by forcing the card to use a fixed resolution in the NVidia settings, the stammering stopped.

[Excellentsword]

Re: Bang for the buck

Nah, I mean you're giving up frames for a graphical setting that doesn't seem to make much difference.

[Anonymous Coward]

Great game, pity about the hardware requirements

Another upgrade....

I wonder what a "budget" GPU capable of 30FPS would be.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Re: Great game, pity about the hardware requirements

Depending on your rig, you could probably get 30fps out of an rx480

[chuckufarley]

If a game studio wants my money...

...They need a native Linux port. If they don't want my money they can KMA.

[mrmond]

Re: If a game studio wants my money...

Dual booting is so easy, you could play games on both.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Re: If a game studio wants my money...

Dual booting is easy if you bought a Windows machine. The rest of the computer world doesn't have a Microsoft serial number burned into like cattle branding.

[chuckufarley]

Re: If a game studio wants my money...

It's been two days and this post has two up votes?

Where have all the haters gone?!? Oh wait (looking at calendar) it must be Dim Tech Day. At least the haters will pile up more debt and the sins of fathers (or mothers) with indeed be visited upon their sons (or daughters and/or any gender/genderless preferred pronouns of their offspring's choosing).

The point is that any choices I can make should be choices we can all make. If you don't want to down vote that and you don't want to up vote that then what do *you* really want?

The status quo? There is no such thing. That is just Foucault's Pendulum in super slow motion: the harder you try to keep things they way they are, the harder your children will get hit in the face.

As I said a few posts about: Freedom has Price. Your freedom not to choose at this point in time is their inability to choose. Use it wisely.

[Tommy Pock]

If you haven't finished it yet, or even played it yet, I highly recommend turning off the mini-map entirely, only bringing it up when absolutely necessary.

It's a beautiful and varied world and you'll soon learn to navigate by scenery alone.

If you leave the mini-map on, you'll travel everywhere simply staring at the satnav and it will ruin the experience.

[anonanonanon]

Not sure if possible on a PC, but there's a companion RDR2 mobile app that shows the live map view, among other things

[RyokuMas]

Just out of interest...

How much of the game is actual "game", and how much is "glorified cut scene with occasional button-press"?

[jospanner]

Re: Just out of interest...

Oh that's most of it.

You'll note nobody is discussing how good the actual gameplay is.

[anonanonanon]

Re: Just out of interest...

I didn't find that to be true at all in well over hundred hours of gameplay on the PS4

[noboard]

Re: Just out of interest...

I've completed the Xbox version and the game is equal parts brilliant and idiotic. They have created a beautiful world and it does feel like the wild west when you're happily wandering about doing very little. However, try and achieve something and it can become a pain.

The developers have decided they want you to play the game their way and under no circumstances can you do anything else*. If the game engine was well designed, they'd probably get away with it, but it isn't, so they don't. It's *very* easy to walk into someone and cause a fight, this can reset the progress you've made on a mission. If you could get back to the location swiftly it wouldn't be so bothersome, but lots of times it's another 5-10 minutes riding your horse to the start of the mission and trying again.

Hunting the legendary animals can be fun, but multiple times I've traveled for ages, got to the location, only for a side-quest to kick off and scare the animal away. You then have to leave the area and come back later. More time wasted.

As I said I've completed the game, but I hate the thought of spending any more time in the game, as I'm fed up with wasting 20-30 minutes playing time through no fault of my own.

* As the PC game can be modded, the crappy issues may be fixed over time.

[Pascal Monett]

I'd better stay away from this game

I have enough time-wasters and not enough time as it is. Blimey, it does sound appealing though.

I'm pretty sure that my rig is up to giving a good experience, but my 980 Ti Lightning is no longer top of the heap, that's for sure. Looks like I'm going to be saving up for an upgrade next year.

[Anonymous Coward]

Horribly inefficient

PC Gaming.

2080 isn't your bog standard gpu, only half a month's wage for most.

Throw in your coin + get 60fps on the 144hz monitor. That's fine ofc

Article reads your content (ish) spending a shit ton only for "sub-par"... I'd be fully pissed

Inbalance in quality + performance on the whole scene is enough to throw out most people.

It's a top grade title, but anger around this port is completely justified

[jospanner]

I really didn't like this game at all.

Same issue as with GTA:V - everything feels floaty and weird, in terms of controls. Like I am giving mere suggestions to my character. It commits the cardinal sin of interface design - holding down a button to achieve something, which is necessarily slower. And QTEs.

It is very obviously a PC port designed for the limitations of a controller. More an interactive movie than a game. Shooting things has rarely been so boring, navigation rarely so clunky.