It’s been an extended ol’ wait however Red Dead Redemption 2 is lastly out there on PC. Over a yr since its console launch, Rockstar’s six-shooting, turn-of-the-century western is now optimised and able to roll on the very best graphics cards and CPUs from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel – however how nicely will Red Dead Redemption 2 run on PC?
For some, not nicely in any respect – and also you don’t want me to inform you that. It seems {that a} handful of customers are nonetheless experiencing the “exited unexpectedly” bug that plagued programs from launch – and presently stays with out an official resolve that works for everybody. We discovered that nuking Windows again to the Stone Age labored for us, but it surely’s some value to pay for a little bit cowfolk motion.
If you’ve managed to salve your launcher woes and boot the game, nonetheless, you’ll be able to lastly get pleasure from some gunslinging gameplay in sharp, 4K glory. But Red Dead Redemption 2 isn’t precisely what Arthur Morgan would possibly name a pot shot in efficiency. In reality, you would possibly simply want an RTX 2080 Ti to run it anywhere close to high settings at 4K.
So let’s run via the fundamentals of at the moment’s testing. Lucky for us, Red Dead Redemption 2 has an in-game benchmark comprised of 4 passes – three of these are scene fly-overs. The closing go, nonetheless, is gameplay following protagonist Arthur Morgan on a police chase via one of many west’s bigger cities. Thankfully that is consultant of the game itself, and saves us trudging about within the snow attempting to determine one other for at the moment’s functions.
We’re additionally opting to disregard the in-game graphics constancy slider inside the game’s graphics settings. Rather than easy excessive, medium, and low presets, Rockstar has opted for a granular slider that adjusts to favour both efficiency or high quality – the values of which seem to vary alongside the GPU put in within the machine. That received’t internet us constant outcomes, so we’re going to as an alternative go for a mixture of medium and excessive settings that span two pages of A4 paper, as evidenced within the desk under, and with extremely texture high quality to essentially make each Ne’er-do-well and ageing frontier settlement come alive in vivid technicolor. And, after all, we’ll be disabling V-Sync and triple buffering, too.
| Graphics settings | |
| Texture high quality | Ultra |
| Anisotropic filtering | x16 |
| Lighting high quality | High |
| Global illumination high quality | High |
| Shadow high quality | Medium |
| Far shadow high quality | Low |
| SSAO | Medium |
| Reflection high quality | Medium |
| Mirror high quality | Medium |
| Water high quality | Medium |
| Volumetrics high quality | Medium |
| Particle high quality | Medium |
| Tesselation high quality | High |
| TAA | Medium |
| FXAA | Off |
| MSAA | Off |
| Advanced graphics settings | |
| Graphics API | Vulkan |
| Near volumetric decision | Medium |
| Far volumetric decision | Medium |
| Volumetric lighting high quality | Medium |
| Unlocked volumetric raymarch decision | Off |
| Particle lighting high quality | Medium |
| Soft shadows | Medium |
| Grass shadows | Medium |
| Long shadows | On |
| Full decision SSAO | Off |
| Water refraction high quality | Medium |
| Water reflection high quality | Medium |
| Water physics high quality | Middle |
| Resolution scale | Off |
| TAA sharpening | Lowest |
| Motion blur | Off |
| Reflection MSAA | Off |
| Geometry stage of element | Lowest |
| Grass stage of element | Lowest |
| Tree high quality | Medium |
| Parallax occlusion mapping high quality | Low |
| Decal high quality | High |
| Fur high quality | Medium |
We’ve carried out a couple of exams favouring each high quality and efficiency – graphics constancy slider to both excessive – to gauge the potential efficiency throughout the span of choices. We discovered that whereas maximising high quality was visually exceptionally pleasing, it carried out notably worse than our excessive/medium preset for under a slight tangible profit to visuals. Maximising efficiency, however, was a serious boon to general fps. However, with textures dropped all the way in which all the way down to low, the game was a shadow of its former self – and a relatively dismal affair.
But don’t fret in case you discover your card isn’t performing fairly as you’d hoped with the graphics settings we’ve determined upon. We’ll be delving into the perfect settings for 60fps in Red Dead Redemption 2 later on this information.
As for API, Red Dead Redemption 2 has two choices: Vulkan or DX12. We’ll be utilising Vulkan for almost all of our exams, however we can even be pitting each APIs towards each other and testing Vulkan’s Asynchronous Compute performance.
Which is the perfect graphics card for Red Dead Redemption 2?
If you actually wish to nail down 60fps or higher in Red Dead Redemption 2 at excessive/medium settings, you’ll must pack not less than an Nvidia 16-series GPU or higher. While the GTX 1060 6GB is without doubt one of the hottest graphics playing cards in the marketplace for mainstream gaming, it solely simply scrapes 1080p60 on common in our benchmark run.
PCGN take a look at bench: Intel Core i7 8700Okay, 16GB Corsair Dominator @ 3,466MHz, MSI Z390 Gaming Edge AC, Seagate Firecuda 510 1TB, Corsair HX1200i, Corsair H100i V2, Philips BDM3275
Across the board, framerates above and past 60fps are doable at 1080p, however don’t anticipate ultra-smooth excessive refresh fee gaming on something apart from the highest Nvidia Turing graphics playing cards – such because the RTX 2080 Super and RTX 2080 Ti.
The 1440p membership is much more elusive. At this decision even the most recent 16-series mainstream playing cards fall a little bit wanting 60fps. An RTX 2060 Super will internet you acceptable body instances, though its bitter rival, the AMD RX 5700, manages only a few frames extra.
Ramping as much as 4K is a privilege loved solely by graphics card royalty. Red Dead Redemption calls for critical silicon to succeed in 60fps at 4K, and even the RTX 2080 Super struggles to get there regardless of its energy and price ticket. The RTX 2080 Ti is the one choice for 4K in Red Dead Redemption 2 – not less than with out drastically dropping graphics settings.
In case you have been questioning concerning the lack of RX 570 4GB outcomes, we couldn’t get this card to boot previous the launcher. Sadly, it appears the 4GB GDDR5 at this card’s disposal was not sufficient to see it via, with our collection of settings almost maxing out its VRAM allocation at even 1080p. However, a couple of tweaks, akin to these outlined under, may even see this card whir again to life.
What is the perfect CPU for Red Dead Redemption 2?
Both AMD and Intel supply CPUs greater than able to delivering the efficiency required to let your graphics card run free. The Intel i9 9900KS was the perfect of the bunch, with the i7 8700K not far behind, possible as a consequence of each chips’ frequency buffs and single-threaded efficiency.
PCGN take a look at bench: Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti, 16GB Dominator @ 3,466MHz/Trident Z Royal @ 3,600MHz, MSI Z390 Gaming Edge AC/MSI X570 GODLIKE, Seagate Firecuda 510 1TB, Corsair HX1200i, Corsair H100i V2, Philips BDM3275
AMD’s 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X additionally carried out nicely, trailing by only some frames within the CPU-intensive 1080p benchmark. And what this chip lacked in common framerates, it greater than made up for with excellent minimal framerates – even larger than that of frontrunner Intel.
What are the perfect settings for 60fps in Red Dead Redemption 2?
If you’ll be able to’t fairly hit the magic 60fps mark in Red Dead Redemption 2, don’t fret. All you’ll want to do is drop one of many following graphics settings: TAA anti aliasing, texture high quality, world illumination high quality, or display house ambient occlusion. Only a minor change to any of those settings will see enhancements wherever from 2-4fps, whereas sustaining a excessive stage of visible constancy.
PCGN take a look at bench: Intel Core i7 8700Okay, Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti, 16GB Corsair Dominator @ 3,466MHz, MSI Z390 Gaming Edge AC, Seagate Firecuda 510 1TB, Corsair HX1200i, Corsair H100i V2, Philips BDM3275
And whilst you received’t internet any main uptick in efficiency, these few frames right here or there could possibly be the distinction between a {smooth} gameplay expertise and a sluggish one.
Should you utilize Vulkan or DirectX 12 in Red Dead Redemption 2?
Simple reply: Vulkan. This open API presents probably the most constant and highest fps in our testing throughout each Nvidia and AMD GPUs.
There’s yet one more consideration in case you’re working crimson group tech, nonetheless. AMD GPUs assist asynchronous compute, which primarily means compute duties usually are not held to a gradual clock and thus are sooner in number-crunching duties with supported software program. Asynchronous compute will be activated in Red Dead Redemption through a small file tweak, which we’ll clarify under.
PCGN take a look at bench: Intel Core i7 8700Okay, 16GB Corsair Dominator @ 3,466MHz, MSI Z390 Gaming Edge AC, Seagate Firecuda 510 1TB, Corsair HX1200i, Corsair H100i V2, Philips BDM3275
To allow asynchronous compute in Red Dead Redemption 2 comply with these easy steps.
- Head to Documents > Rockstar games > Red Dead Redemption 2 > Settings
- Locate System.xml and open in notepad
- Locate the road “asyncComputeEnabled=false”
- Change false to true
- Save the file
- Boot the game
In our testing, Asynchronous Compute netted us zero avg fps acquire on an AMD RX 5700. However, if we ignore 99th percentiles for a second and look straight on the slowest body instances throughout runs, these have been dramatically sooner with asynchronous compute switched on. Minimum body fee elevated from 29fps to 59fps because of this characteristic, making for a smoother gameplay expertise. It’s nicely price looking on the directions under in case you are working on any suitable AMD Radeon GPU.
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