It’s been a rocky 24 hours for Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC. From in-game crashes to Rockstar’s personal launcher “unexpectedly” upping sticks and driving the hell away earlier than anybody may even get a whiff of a menu display screen, it’s clear Rockstar nonetheless have a heck of a variety of work to do earlier than we are able to really get pleasure from all the things their long-awaited cowboy epic has to supply.
Indeed, I’ve been having launcher issues of my very own at this time, so my makes an attempt to check Red Dead Redemption 2’s PC settings and graphics card efficiency has been considerably curtailed. I’ve, nonetheless, managed to steal a number of moments on RPS vid bud Matthew’s functioning PC to convey you some preliminary efficiency ideas that I’ll comply with up later with a extra detailed set of benchmarks. For now, although, right here’s the way to get the perfect efficiency from Red Dead 2 on PC, together with which of its many dozens of graphics choices you’ll be able to flip down to assist increase your body price, in addition to the way to wrangle its 21 totally different high quality presets (sure, you probably did learn that appropriately) into one thing playable.
Red Dead Redemption 2 PC necessities
Before we do this, let’s remind ourselves of Red Dead 2’s PC requirements. As you’ll be able to see under, each the minimal and advisable necessities are each surprisingly manageable. Nvidia’s GTX 1060 stays one of the vital fashionable and extensively used graphics playing cards on the planet, in response to Steam’s {hardware} charts, so most PCs on the market ought to give you the chance get a good degree of efficiency from it.
Minimum PC necessities:
OS: Windows 7
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500Ok / AMD FX-6300
RAM: 8GB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 (2GB) / AMD Radeon R9 280 (3GB)
Storage: 150GB
Recommended PC necessities:
OS: Windows 10
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770Ok / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X
RAM: 12GB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB) / AMD Radeon RX 480 (4GB)
Storage: 150GB
However, on the day Red Dead Redemption 2 launched on PC, Nvidia struck concern into the hearts of one and all by publishing their very own record of recommended graphics cards for hitting that every one necessary body price determine of 60fps. Naturally, the record contained nothing however Nvidia RTX playing cards, however the concept you’d want no less than the £350 / $380 RTX 2060 to get 60fps on High at 1920×1080 did make me query whether or not Rockstar’s personal PC necessities had been completely correct.
Add to that a number of individuals failing to run the game on even its lowest graphics settings at 1080p on launch day and it’s clear Red Dead Redemption 2 isn’t fairly as pleasant as we would have thought.
Red Dead Redemption 2 PC settings: How to get the perfect efficiency
Luckily, I’m right here to assist, as a result of boy howdy is Red Dead Redemption 2’s graphics menu complicated. For starters, Rockstar have fully eschewed the usual high quality presets like ‘Low’, ‘Medium’, ‘High’ and ‘Ultra’ for a sliding scale that goes from settings that ‘Favour Performance’ to those who ‘Favour Quality’. And to make issues worse, there are 21 of them. Twenty-one! That’s seven for ‘Favour Performance’, seven for ‘Balanced’, and one other seven for ‘Favour Quality’, which is, frankly, insanity.
Plus, every preset gives you fully totally different outcomes primarily based on what graphics card you could have in your PC. When I turned the settings proper down on my RTX 2080 Ti, for instance, Texture Quality was robotically set to High, though the remainder of the graphics settings had been a mixture of Low and Medium. On my 6GB GTX 1060, nonetheless, the bottom preset gave me Low Texture Quality, with a mixture of Low and fully turned off settings. More insanity.
That’s going to make Red Dead Redemption 2 extremely arduous to benchmark within the coming days, however I’ll do my finest to convey you some (hopefully) helpful recommendation on the way to tame this beast of a game.
The excellent news, no less than, is that even Red Dead Redemption 2’s highest bunch of settings (all the things cranked as much as the farthest ‘Favour Quality’ finish of the dimensions) solely requires 3.5GB of your graphics card’s reminiscence banks at 1080p, so no less than they received’t be overloaded from that standpoint.
Red Dead Redemption 2’s built-in benchmark makes use of numerous in-game scenes to check the game’s efficiency, from snowy mountains, boggy swamps, the wild outback and a shootout (on foot and on horseback) within the busy St. Denis. This is what the game appears to be like like on fully maxed out settings (click on to enlarge).
So, seeing as how a 6GB GTX 1060 is Rockstar’s advisable graphics card for Red Dead Redemption 2, let’s take that as our place to begin for the way to get the perfect efficiency from it at 1920×1080.
At first, it wasn’t wanting too hopeful. Using the game’s lowest potential preset within the ‘Favour Performance’ class, my Asus GeForce GTX 1060 card managed a mean bang-on 60fps. But that’s with low Texture Quality, low Lighting Quality, low shadow high quality, low all the things. The solely Medium settings it provides me are for SSAO (display screen area ambient occlusion, the stuff wot does a game’s ambient shadows and tender lighting) and TAA anti-aliasing (which helps easy out tough, jaggedy edges). It’s hardly what I’d name the “recommended” graphics settings for a game of this calibre.
Thankfully, Red Dead 2’s higher-end PC settings are surprisingly forgiving. Moving as much as the game’s so-called ‘Balanced’ preset, for instance (which is definitely the second preset on this class, as a result of the primary provides you precisely the identical settings as what I’ve described above), this turns the Texture Quality straight as much as Ultra, together with Medium Light Quality, SSAO, Water Quality, Particle Quality, Tessellation Quality and TAA once more and Low all the things else (see under). With these settings, my GTX 1060 managed a mean of 56fps, which is so much higher than I used to be anticipating given the massive bounce in Texture Quality.
The above preset continues to be a good mixture of Low and Medium settings, nonetheless, which will not be fairly to your liking. The subsequent Balanced preset rectifies that with a larger emphasis on Medium settings (whereas nonetheless preserving that Ultra-fied Texture Quality), and in addition introduces High Shadow Quality and x4 Anisotropic Filtering versus x2. This began to take its toll on my GTX 1060, which solely managed a mean of 49fps with these settings, however it nonetheless seemed good and easy within the benchmark and was greater than playable in-game.
To assist push that quantity again up a bit, flip Shadow Quality again all the way down to Medium and switch Anisotropic Filtering again all the way down to x2. This boosted my common body price as much as 51fps, which isn’t a lot, all instructed, however it’s higher than nothing.
Perhaps extra shocking was what little distinction the Texture Quality makes. Admittedly, this isn’t wholly shocking given the tiny drop of simply 4fps down from that preliminary 60fps, however knocking this all the way down to High along with altering the Shadow Quality and AF settings made no distinction to my general body price in anyway. As such, you would possibly as properly depart this as excessive as potential, since you’re not likely getting a lot profit from having it decrease.
Instead, you’ll wish to flip your consideration to Red Dead Redemption 2’s Advanced Graphics settings. These are locked by default and alter robotically relying on what high quality preset you resolve to choose, however you’ll be able to simply unlock them so you’ll be able to change them manually. On the largely Medium-based ‘Balanced’ preset, for instance, there are fairly a number of settings which have already crept as much as High or above, together with Soft Shadows and TAA Sharpening. Once I’d turned the latter all the way in which off and Soft Shadows all the way down to Medium (and turned off Motion Blur, which can also be discovered right here), that nudged my common body price up once more to 53fps.
That’s most likely about pretty much as good because it’s going to get for GTX 1060 house owners, nonetheless, as making an attempt to run the game on the subsequent ‘Balanced’ preset, which largely consists of High setting choices decreased my card to a mean of simply 44fps. It’s playable, positive, however not fairly as silky easy as you would possibly hope.
Still, I’ll be taking a better take a look at how different graphics playing cards fare over the subsequent couple of days, together with whether or not Nvidia’s claims about needing an RTX 2060 to hit 60fps on High at 1920×1080 really maintain water. Remember, the RTX 2060 is just about on par with a GTX 1070 Ti when it comes to general energy, so I’ll be intrigued to see what an everyday GTX 1070 could make of Red Dead Redemption 2 as an alternative.
For now, although, hopefully what I’ve described above might be of some use for lower-end graphics card customers who’ve been fortunate sufficient to flee Rockstar’s dreaded launcher crashes. I’ll be again with extra tomorrow.
