Red Dead Redemption 2 is coming to PC

I concur-- the acting and motion/gestures are brilliant. It's like Josh Brolin is your character…

But I'm also getting tired of "missions". I thought it was more sandbox, but I haven't played much yet so maybe it opens up later.

I'm still in Chapter 2. I seem to recall people talking about the first two chapters being a slog.

I think they're very well done, actually - I just hate feeling like I'm wasting time by free roaming. It's clear that the first 10-20 missions are there to teach you the basics, which I think is a very frustrating approach in an open world game with this kind of world in it.

I mean, it's so damned beautiful - so it shouldn't feel wrong going off on your own.
 
I was looking forward to the game and preordered it. GTAV had fine port and requirements seemed reasonable so I wasnt too worried.

But on release I encountered probably every shit this game was shipped with. From antivirus conflict, launcher problem, game crashing already in in-game benchmark, not to mention during the game. In few days, with some patch that came in and with some tweeking I managed to run the game.

But the game still kept freezing every now and then, whih felt extremely annoying. It didnt crash, just screen freezed for few seconds while you could still hear sound. And in 1-5 seconds the screen unfreezed again, catching up with sound.

Didnt go through whole thread, so perhaps it was already discussed, but never mind.
No tweeking helped in any way, whatever internet solution I tried, whatever graphic setting I used (including all on low), still same.

In desperation I started to think about upgrade possibilities. I had i5 (4th gen LGA1150) and GTX1060 6GB, 16GB RAM. Upgrading graphic card seemed unreasonable as game itself run very well even on higher settings. I suspected the problem might be processor and I was lucky to find second hand i7 from 4th gen. Since then all runs smooth as silk.

I think this is some shitty work on optimalization from Rockstar as 4. gen i5 should be viable option to play, perhaps with lower settings. But maybe it will help someone if Rockstar never repairs this problem, which is possible Im afraid.
 
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I haven't had any problems, really. I do get some strange micro-stuttering with Vulkan - which is ironic, since most people seem to get more stuttering with DX12, where I don't get any stutter, just an inferior frame rate.

However, I think Rockstar's mistake here was giving people TOO MANY options for visual adjustments. It takes some pretty extensive testing to get it just right.

That said, the game does have a slider that goes from performance to max quality - but I've yet to try it.

As for the actual game, it's growing on me - but I still utterly, utterly hate the controls. I still struggle with the simplest of things, like picking whatever weapons to take with me.

I thought about JDR as I was playing it, because you can play it without a HUD - with a toggle for the mini-map - and you can play it 100% in first person.

I know he would like that sort of thing.

I have to say, playing it in first person without a HUD is really something - especially since it has the best full body awareness implementation I've seen.

It reminds me of a smoother and prettier KCD, except KCD had better forests.
 
BTW, I highly recommend setting controls to "Horse Relative" under Third Person control options.

It makes controlling your horse while looking around a lot more natural, in my opinion.
 
The problem is you don't know why it is stuttering so any sort of upgrade is just a guess. You might try running on the perf monitors and monitor your disk, gpu and cpu to see if you can identify what is causing the stuttering....

I was looking forward to the game and preordered it. GTAV had fine port and requirements seemed reasonable so I wasnt too worried.

But on release I encountered probably every shit this game was shipped with. From antivirus conflict, launcher problem, game crashing already in in-game benchmark, not to mention during the game. In few days, with some patch that came in and with some tweeking I managed to run the game.

But the game still kept freezing every now and then, whih felt extremely annoying. It didnt crash, just screen freezed for few seconds while you could still hear sound. And in 1-5 seconds the screen unfreezed again, catching up with sound.

Didnt go through whole thread, so perhaps it was already discussed, but never mind.
No tweeking helped in any way, whatever internet solution I tried, whatever graphic setting I used (including all on low), still same.

In desperation I started to think about upgrade possibilities. I had i5 (4th gen LGA1150) and GTX1060 6GB, 16GB RAM. Upgrading graphic card seemed unreasonable as game itself run very well even on higher settings. I suspected the problem might be processor and I was lucky to find second hand i7 from 4th gen. Since then all runs smooth as silk.

I think this is some shitty work on optimalization from Rockstar as 4. gen i5 should be viable option to play, perhaps with lower settings. But maybe it will help someone if Rockstar never repairs this problem, which is possible Im afraid.
 
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Okay, a few early impressions.

PC version is a broken piece of shit. Okay?
Prepare for extensive troubleshooting on your side unless you have the exactly one combination of hardware in your rig Rockstar tested. Every other combo either has microstutters or freezes. Or plainly crashes to desktop. Or something. No, it doesn't matter if you're running the game with vulkan or dx12.

When the game runs without problems for a brief time, everything is clunky as hell.
Menus are atrocious, key mappings even worse (I bet the same goes for mushrooms) and the game is slower as ME elevators. MC gets a pole in his arse every now and then and due to back problems can't run.

Inventory management is horros worse than in mmos where you need to pay for more slots. Here, you need to put a cadaver on your horse and then transport it - but you can put only one. Backtracking got a new name.

Hunting is… OMG
Sneak and use whatever weapon needed not to ruin the skin. Oh and make sure to scan animal before even trying to hunt it down because you want (and need for upgrades) so called pristine skins and animals with these appear rarely and - randomly.

Shootouts are one of the most pathetic shooting designs I've seen in history of videogames. Not only it feels completely artificial, MC also has the Matrix power to slow down time to make things easier.

The story is jesus christ what the fuck is this. You're playing an arsehole which is okay - but everyone else and their mother in this game are the same arsehole.
So you're put in a world of arseholes.

And your horse? Give me the buggy Roach any day instead of this abomination. The horse in RDR2 is more stupid than EA's 50 test audience cretins. I wish the map wasn't so big so I don't need to ride the brainless creature that seems to be blind and hits rocks, trees or drops from a ledge to it's demise just because.

If one is thinking still about buying this game, based on my initial impressions, DO NOT DO IT.
Wanna western? Try with Call of Juarez or whatever was the title of that one can't remember.
 
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I wanted to comment on a few other comments, and I also have more impressions.

I agree that this is a stunning game visually, and in my humble opinion it is the best looking game I have ever seen. (and I'm no spring chicken! lol)

I also love how both modes look great and are immersive. I have tried both first person mode and third person view, and they both work equally well. Of course, to my taste first person is always the most immersive so I use that more of the time.

Next, the game does completely open up in Chapter 2. You don't have to follow the missions at all. I learned this from reading a guide. And after I got in chapter 2, I literally stopped doing missions (so far anyway) and just started roaming around. This is the perfect game for that. I have literally wandered around for hours. It is truly an old west simulator. I have had various adventures and run into cool side-quests scattered around the world. There are also really cool random encounters too, by the way.

For example, I interrupted a stagecoach robbery while just wandering around exploring randomly, and it was the dreaded rival "O'Driscoll" gang. When they saw me they exclaimed, "Isn't that one of those boys from our rival gang (I forgot what they exactly said, but this is the jist of it) - and then screamed - "Open up on him!" lol, it was hilarious. I was able to kill them both and rob them and also rob the stagecoach as well. I have had other funny mini-adventures as well, this is just an example.

Then I put one of the dead O'Driscolls on the back of my horse, and later was spotted by a "witness" who was alarmed and quickly galloped away to put my name as "wanted" by the law. I was trying to figure out the logic of this because the guy didn't see the stagecoach shootout, but then had a "Duh!" moment when I realized it made perfect sense because he saw the dead body on the back of my horse! lol Of course that would alarm a regular citizen.

Then I tried to ride into camp with the dead guy on the back of my horse and got this amusing message - "You are unable to bring dead humans into the camp" and a guy (fellow gang member) who was guarding the camp perimeter made an exclamation along with a sound of disgust when he saw how I was trying to bring in the dead body.
It was pretty funny.

Anyway, as a result I now have bounty hunters hunting me which is also hilarious and fun. I have just had another shootout and killed a couple of the bounty hunters at night time. I expect my bounty which is $15 right now will go up unless I go to the post office in town to pay it off.

Everything is western themed just like you would imagine it. (in terms of the encounters) I know what I need to to do to trigger the next part of the story but am just ignoring it by doing fun things like exploring the game world, marveling at the stunning graphics and immersiveness of the game.

Also, the story is nothing that innovative, but it is "classic" in terms of western tropes. I appreciate that. (I am still early in the game and am still very interested in where the story goes, but am a fan of the classic western themes and story lines) I especially like you can earn "honor points" by being a good guy and there are important decision points in the game to show whether you (your character) is evil or good.

Finally, regarding performance. I agree many are having issues. But you can do several things. My old laptop is being pushed to the limit by this game and so I have investigated various suggestions. The best one I have found and what greatly helped me is I did a fps cap on the game. You can do this through RTSS program and I put my cap at only 35 frames. Yes it is very low cap but my system is old and I like to turn up the graphics options because of how beautiful the game is, so I settled for a console-like fps and it works well. I can play the game with really nice eye candy but as a price I do have a "slow" 30 fps. To me It works.

Other gamers used to 60 fps at minimum will not be satisfied with this solution. But keep in mind you have to have a monster machine from what I can tell to get good frame rates on this game. The game is "future-proofed" and will bring even a monster system to its knees with certain graphic settings turned to the max.

Some people are even claiming the game requires a 6-core system at minimum in terms of what it was designed for, and that is why people like me with only 4 cores are having issues. Not sure I believe that, but just saying what I heard.

Here is a youtube video that explains how to cap your fps in-game and it works like a charm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raEg3GiT57I&t=9s

I apologize for the lengthy post but as you can see I had a lot to say. I also agree that this game's amazing graphics would make for an awesome fantasy game and even had my friend make the same comment yesterday.

Bottom line - if you are a gamer and have any interest at all in westerns or just what the cutting edge level of gaming will be, in terms of graphics and world simulation -this is a must buy game.
 
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Problem with free roaming in Chapter 2 is that a lot of the stuff you can buy is locked behind story missions. The game opens up in terms of items, horses and so forth as you progress through the story.

If you care about progression, you're basically wasting your time optimising your character before everything is available.

I realise some people don't really notice that sort of thing - and don't mind the grind more than once, but I tend to obsess a little over my character and his equipment.

What's more, you don't really know about the available activities until they're introduced to you. In fact, I think several of them are also locked behind chapter progression.

That's pretty much the Rockstar approach - and it has been since I can remember.

To me, that's 100% counter to a proper open world, which should be more or less fully explorable - with all meaningful progression available - from the word go.

That's certainly one reason I'm such a big fan of Bethsoft games.

On the other hand, I have to agree that Rockstar outdid themselves with the world itself.

While "random encounters" are too frequent to feel plausible, given the fidelity of the world simulation otherwise - there's a shit ton of variety. The amount of lines spoken by genuinely different actors is just out of this world.

They must have had literally hundreds of people recording endless hours of random stuff for this game.

Also, I must say that Saint Denis at night just surpassed everything else I've seen in terms of impressive cities in games. That includes the entirety of Division 1 and 2, Odyssey and Witcher 3.
 
Seems a very thoughtful and balanced opinion, as per joxer standards ;)
No. It's early impressions. I probably missed to write that, my bad. Dunno why do I think I did.
Didn't finish the game nor completed it's sidecontent to have a balanced opinion.
What I wrote however is exactly what I think about the game after dunno, 10ish hours. Will it become better or worse, dunno.

Finally, regarding performance. I agree many are having issues. But you can do several things. My old laptop is being pushed to the limit by this game and so I have investigated various suggestions. The best one I have found and what greatly helped me is I did a fps cap on the game. You can do this through RTSS program and I put my cap at only 35 frames. Yes it is very low cap but my system is old and I like to turn up the graphics options because of how beautiful the game is, so I settled for a console-like fps and it works well. I can play the game with really nice eye candy but as a price I do have a "slow" 30 fps. To me It works.

Other gamers used to 60 fps at minimum will not be satisfied with this solution. But keep in mind you have to have a monster machine from what I can tell to get good frame rates on this game. The game is "future-proofed" and will bring even a monster system to its knees with certain graphic settings turned to the max.
It's not your laptop, it's broken piece of shit code and mismanagement of CPU cores. No, not the same as AC4, while AC4 didn't even bother to use more than 2 cores of which one was hammered 100%, RDR2 does use all cores but occassionally doesn't know how to work with the fourth one and is waiting for it to do god knows what before proceeding.
Not everyone should cap 30 FPS, it's PC, not Nintendo Gameboy. Here's the solution how to force the game not to use the 4th core if it'll cause problems (Process Lasso):
https://www.reddit.com/r/PCRedDead/...er_freeze_temporal_fix_red_dead_redemption_2/
What it doesn't say there is that you should first start the game, then run Lasso and apply the rule (you may set if the spike lasts for 1 or 2 secs), then continue the story mode. I have no idea why but it happens Lasso fails if started before the game is running thus I'm saying first run the game then apply the 4th core shutdown rule through it.
While it works for me like a charm without any FPS loss, note that this doesn't work for everyone!
Problem with free roaming in Chapter 2 is that a lot of the stuff you can buy is locked behind story missions. The game opens up in terms of items, horses and so forth as you progress through the story.
This is true. No poker unless you see it in a mission. No sniper rifle unless you take a mission (and you need it for some perfect skins!). No the best horse (white arabian) unless you learn how to move the saddle during a mission!

Means go for missions but don't ignore all random encounters. 90% of those encounters are bullshit but sometimes you profit. I cracked a safe earlygame in one with $40 in it (whopping sum that early), met a herbalist twice who shown me and explained some herbs, fought some hostile wolves at lumberyard than was paid $500 IIRC for it(!). These are rare however, most of the time it's someone trying to rob you or someone in distress, pathetic. And those simple ones are hit or miss. If someone is bitten by the snake (already had 3 of those idiots) suck the venom from their groin I mean of course the snake aimed for genitals, give them whiskey, you get+2 rep. If someone wants you to ride them somewhere, shove them off, you're already riding the goddamned horse the whole time. If ambushed, just ride away, you don't have time for that bullshit as the loot from those hostiles is irrelevant.

By random encounters I don't mean white areas with "?" in the middle! Those are sidequests.
Also, I must say that Saint Denis at night just surpassed everything else I've seen in terms of impressive cities in games. That includes the entirety of Division 1 and 2, Odyssey and Witcher 3.
A blueprint on "how to spill all the milk"(TM)dart.
 
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No interest in this game. Not a fan of westerns or Rockstar games in general for that matter.
 
Also, I must say that Saint Denis at night just surpassed everything else I've seen in terms of impressive cities in games. That includes the entirety of Division 1 and 2, Odyssey and Witcher 3.

I got home yesterday and installed RDR2 on my main gaming rig, and RDR2 runs and looks stunning on my 34' ultrawide. Unbelievable, how immersive it looks.

And as I said, I tuned it to run pretty smooth. Main graphics settings on Ultra, some on high, some on medium. At 3440x1440p, and runs very smoothly. On a i7 Devil's Canyon, and a 1080TI.
 
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I got home yesterday and installed RDR2 on my main gaming rig, and RDR2 runs and looks stunning on my 34' ultrawide. Unbelievable, how immersive it looks.

Couldn't bother getting actual screenshots, so here's some quick photos. Man, what a stunner:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KDgYfKQYaZGIDotf_7lz2zHiw7Hz3yYP

And as I said, I tuned it to run pretty smooth. Main graphics settings on Ultra, some on high, some on medium. At 3440x1440p, and runs very smoothly. On a i7 Devil's Canyon, and a 1080TI.

Yeah, I don't want to dismiss all performance issues reported by other people - but, to me, it runs very well and is surprisingly even in its smoothness. As I said, I get a stable 60 FPS+ with my 21:9 UW 2560x1080 resolution.

When you add how it actually looks on top of that, it becomes extremely impressive to me.

I've deliberately avoided higher resolution monitors - because I don't think it's worth it in terms of performance loss, which tends to be massive at 4K.

Outer Worlds had more problems in terms of struggling frame rates in certain areas than this game does - and RDR2 is approximately 21 times prettier :)

This whole schtick of it being a terrible port is bullshit, based on complete ignorance. It had some launch issues for a single day, and that's about it. Same as half the games ever released.

This is, again, one of the best looking games out there (actually, it's THE best looking game in the world right now) - and we have a ridiculous amount of settings to tweak. Way more than is the norm on PC.

Ok, the controls suck - but they suck LESS than they did on console.

I've yet to experience a crash or any kind of bug in my ~15-20 hours of play.

My rig isn't the best, either - with a 1080 ti and 6700K. I'm running almost everything on high or ultra, using Vulkan.

I guess we're just lucky? That, or people don't really understand how to tweak games these days.

Now, with all that said - the game still isn't really my cup of tea. It's also, sadly, painfully easy in terms of combat.

They really need to implement a hardcore/survival mode. I can literally stand still and let a dozen guys shoot at me, and I don't go down before I've killed them all using Deadeye.

This makes cover almost pointless - and that's not at all how it should play.

Also, it's just not interesting enough in terms of progression - and I struggle to come up with reasons to go exploring.

I know, I know - I should just "exist" and let myself be immersed.

Unfortunately, I'm too much of a progression guy for that to really work with reward incentives.
 
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I guess we're just lucky? That, or people don't really understand how to tweak games these days.

I suspect it's also because most people don't know how to take care of their PCs, and keep them in tip-top condition. You'd be stunned how badly managed some people have their PCs, and even high end ones. Basically, their OS is a garbage dump of all the shit they download and install from where-ever.

I'm not saying that's all the people complaining about issues. I'm sure it has issues, and it does seem some people are just luckier. I only experienced one crash to desktop so far. But it does seem the issues have been overblown, especially in todays age of 10 youtubers piling on and making 2-3 videos amplifying the people that experience issues. And all of a sudden you're under the impression that it's just broken completely. Until you actually run it on a good PC that's also running a well-oiled/maintained OS.

Btw, do you also have the issue that when you attempt to start the game from the desktop shortcut that the Rockstar Launcher created, it's telling you to start it from the Launcher. It's ridiculous, and it's been there since launch. And they're not fixing it. Hilarious. :lol:
 
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I suspect it's also because most people don't know how to take care of their PCs, and keep them in tip-top condition. You'd be stunned how badly managed some people have their PCs, and even high end ones. Basically, their OS is a garbage dump of all the shit they download and install from where-ever.

I'm not saying that's all the people complaining about issues. I'm sure it has issues, and it does seem some people are just luckier. I only experienced one crash to desktop so far. But it does seem the issues have been overblown, especially in todays age of 10 youtubers piling on and making 2-3 videos amplifying the people that experience issues. And all of a sudden you're under the impression that it's just broken completely. Until you actually run it on a good PC that's also running a well-oiled/maintained OS.

Yeah, when you check out the Metacritic scores from users, it's utterly obvious that this is yet another target for the outraged baby culture.

Not sure what happened there, but I guess all games from big companies have become total shit. Shit that people still play, I might add :)

Btw, do you also have the issue that when you attempt to start the game from the desktop shortcut that the Rockstar Launcher created, it's telling you to start it from the Launcher. It's ridiculous, and it's been there since launch. And they're not fixing it. Hilarious. :lol:

Oh, yeah - I get that, but I tend to launch my games directly from their launchers these days. It's super stupid, sure - but I only noticed it by accident.

So, I guess that's one issue.

Well, that, and the fact that I can't get Reshade to work with Vulkan. I dearly miss my sharpening filter!
 
Yeah, yeah, I cant tweak my games or computer performance. I also cant maintain my computer to keep it in good condition. Anything else? Im lucky Im able to take piss into toilet, rather then my pants also I guess.

And Kingmaker had smooth and bugless release, because I didnt encounter single significant bug on my first playthrough upon release.

The truth is, your or mine experience and point of view means statistically nothing.
And the fact that you and your 2 friends didnt have stuttering problem caused by bad optimisation doesnt mean it doesnt exist.
 
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giphy.gif
 
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And by the way, I gave the game Metacritic score 5, although I think its quite great really.

I dont have high-end rig, but I have my well maintained (yeah) i5+1060/6GB which is perfectly able to run any contemporary game in decent 1080. More then enough for me. And after I dealt with antivirus conflict, administrator right and some tweeking, RDR2 also ran smoothly on this computer. That weird feezing was clearly not performance issue.

And when I put together all the annoyances I went through to play my pre-ordered game from renowned AAA studio, this release doesnt deserve more then 5/10 in my eyes, even though its generally good game. Not to mention I payed twice for it (PS4 + PC).
 
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Yeah, yeah, I cant tweak my games or computer performance. I also cant maintain my computer to keep it in good condition. Anything else? Im lucky Im able to take piss into toilet, rather then my pants also I guess.

And Kingmaker had smooth and bugless release, because I didnt encounter single significant bug on my first playthrough upon release.

The truth is, your or mine experience and point of view means statistically nothing.
And the fact that you and your 2 friends didnt have stuttering problem caused by bad optimisation doesnt mean it doesnt exist.

At least you're not taking this to heart :)

No one directed this at you, specifically. I don't know about you - but your experience means something to me - as does my own. All we have is our experience - and that's what we're exchanging here.

It's not about putting you down.

So…. I'm not talking about statistics, I'm talking about my experience. In my experience, people really don't have much knowledge when it comes to tweaking games and making them run optimally.

I know, because I've worked with IT people for most of my life - and I'm always finding myself in the situation where I have to explain how games respond to a huge variety of setups and driver settings, etc., and what they should be doing to get them to run right.

If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say maybe 1 in 50 of the IT people/gamers I've personally interacted with - actually knows enough about tweaking and optimizing to make me trust their opinion.

That's a pretty significant statistic, based on my experience. It could be 1 in 45 - or maybe 1 in 70, I don't know. All I know is that it's EXTREMELY rare that I encounter someone that actually knows what the hell he or she is talking about, when it comes to game optimization.

A lot of people THINK they know more though - which is not quite the same.

Maybe you're the exception? Could be.

Forgive my scepticism, though. I have no idea what you're like in that way - or if you actually understand how these things work.

I dont have high-end rig, but I have my well maintained (yeah) i5+1060/6GB which is perfectly able to run any contemporary game in decent 1080. More then enough for me. And after I dealt with antivirus conflict, administrator right and some tweeking, RDR2 also ran smoothly on this computer. That weird feezing was clearly not performance issue.

Great, so you can get it to run smoothly? I guess that sort of supports my point.

But, as I said, the game has a ridiculous amount of settings to tweak - and you're not telling us much in the way of how you set it up? Maybe somewhere else in the thread?
 
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This mess is why you should play consoles games on consoles? :thinking:

/ducks
 
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