OPINION: Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC is exactly the reason why some people still HATE gaming on PC

[swnny]

Benchmarks (like those being posted above) don't tell the full story because they typically run everything at "ultra".

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That's why I linked Guru3D's benchmark, they have a whole page dedicated to the options they used. Intense options like Hairworks are disabled and others like AO, toned down.
Game was demanding and there are no two ways about that. Same is now with RDR2, and same will be with Cyberpunk.

 

[Joffy]

Calm down. I just said it's a bad port because I assumed X1X runs at high or medium-high settings. If it's actually running on low settings or lower than that, then I stand corrected.
Still, from a visual and not a technical standpoint, the increased hardware hunger of the higher settings is not worth it at all, if you look at the comparison from the previous page.

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I can tell you the Xbox one X version absolutely does not look like Low settings on PC. It's very comparable to medium/high

 

[Serious Sam]

I can tell you the Xbox one X version absolutely does not look like Low settings on PC. It's very comparable to medium/high

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Don't know where this rumor originated from, but X1X most defnintely doesn't run on PC's low settings. Low settings textures look horrible, where as textures on X1X look excellent.

 

[Zonal Hertz]

No offense, OP, but you're using a Ryzen 1600 and a 1060, that's fine for running games on medium/high, but you can't realistically expect to reach 1080p60 on one of the most technically demanding games of the generation with that.

I had your exact same setup and that's insane.

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I have a 1080TI and 4770k and honestly I run nothing on max, mostly high/medium (admittedly at 1440p).

Expecting high 1080 60 on a rig as old as that is wild.

 

[Talus]

Don't know where this rumor originated from, but X1X most defnintely doesn't run on PC's low settings. Low settings textures look horrible, where as textures on X1X look excellent.

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Textures are that one setting that X1X usually hits the high and even ultra setting regularly.

Nobody was ever suggesting that X1X was running low texture settings..

 

[dsk1210]

Don't know where this rumor originated from, but X1X most defnintely doesn't run on PC's low settings. Low settings textures look horrible, where as textures on X1X look excellent.

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Its obviously not running textures on low for goodness sake, use your brain.

 

[KKRT]

PC gaming was way too annoying for me, issues all time, crashes, confusing issues etc.
And of course arkham knight that really soured me, it all built up to me leaving PC gaming mostly behind and moving to the more convenient console, and outside of few game crashes (never major OS crashes that are common experience to me on PC) i dont have issues really

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What? Do You know how hard it is to crash Win 10? If you have a common BSODs then your installation is totally messed up by some virus or trojan or you have faulty hardware in your PC.

 

[Serious Sam]

Its obviously not running textures on low for goodness sake, use your brain.

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So if it's not running texture on low, it's reasonable to expect that X1X is running other settings on medium/high.

And also, is it not possible to have forum discussion without personal attacks in 2019?

 

[daninthemix]

What? Do You know how hard it is to crash Win 10? If you have a common BSODs then your installation is totally messed up by some virus or trojan or you have faulty hardware in your PC.

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Yes or more probably a hardware issue. I used to get very (very) occasional BSODs until I installed a high quality 1kW PSU. That was over a year ago and I've not seen a BSOD since.

Some hardware issues only surface very occasionally, because whatever triggers them doesn't happen often.

 

[modiz]

What? Do You know how hard it is to crash Win 10? If you have a common BSODs then your installation is totally messed up by some virus or trojan or you have faulty hardware in your PC.

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It was faulty hardware that i sent to 3 different "experts" and all of them were wrong, in the end i fixed it myself by replacing the PSU.

Now i have a gtx 1050 laptop instead and even it started crashing lately with nvidiamkm or something like that... maybe i am just unlucky idk, but my luck on a console has just been much, much better in terms of faults (to be fair i didnt have a 360 so i didnt go through RROD).

 

[Lupercal]

Yeah, it's Rockstar. It's going to be rough performance-wise the first few weeks.
Best just to wait a bit.

 

[Thorrgal]

I was a HC PC gamer for 20 years but when I got an OLED TV in 2013 paired with a PS4, I didn't look back.

Convenience + Picture Quality + Comfort.... FOR ME, nothing beats console gaming on my new 65" C9, and I can't wait to play with the PS5 on it

PS: I deal with enough shit at work working wit automation CPU's, so I need none of that when I get home

 

[dsk1210]

So if it's not running texture on low, it's reasonable to expect that X1X is running other settings on medium/high.

And also, is it not possible to have forum discussion without personal attacks in 2019?

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Try to to be hyperbolic then.

Textures are most likely ultra, view distance is probably low/medium, motion blur quality will likely be low.

Wait for the digital foundry take on it, I am sure you will be quite surprised how future proof this version is. Shame the launcher is causing problems for people though.

 

[PixelatedDonut]

So if it's not running texture on low, it's reasonable to expect that X1X is running other settings on medium/high.

And also, is it not possible to have forum discussion without personal attacks in 2019?

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We've literally have had multiple df vids where console games are running a mix of PC settings, its not unheard of. There are some extreamly demanding settings on PC.

 

[c0Zm1c]

That's why I linked Guru3D's benchmark, they have a whole page dedicated to the options they used. Intense options like Hairworks are disabled and others like AO, toned down.
Game was demanding and there are no two ways about that. Same is now with RDR2, and same will be with Cyberpunk.

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I've skimmed through the article and - correct me if I'm wrong - but I don't see any benchmarks for lowest/medium settings? That's what I mean about these benchmarks not telling you the whole story. Of course it's going to perform poorly if you run it at "ultra" on a GTX 760!

Also, as the article points out, VRAM usage is really low even at 4K. That's impressive compared with some other VRAM guzzlers I could mention.

 

[Pipyakas]

Everyone here wants to see the "ultra" label on the graphics settings regardless of what it actually means. RDR2's "low" = high in other games but no one wants to see the "low" label then they call it a "bad port".

This thread is an example of why devs limit PC port capabilities and call normal settings "ultra".

More games should do what RDR2 does. This is the beauty of PC gaming. Give me options I can't play on right now. It's okay.

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My stance on that is if you want to scale up massively, then you should also give people the option to scale down
Like Destiny 2 literally ran on anything, even with an Intel iGPU

 

[Iichter]

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This sums it up, the port seems to be very futureproof and stop expecting running the game Ultra everytime for every game.

 

[ThreepQuest64]

The difference is if the games optimization is wack I can work around the settings and make it stable and 60 with a PC game.

a console game I have to tolerate the awful performance n such. Especially rockstar shit.

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This.

I thought it was about all the crashes at launch people have. But performance? C'mon guys. It still runs better than on console. Obviously 60fps requires TWICE as much performance than 30fps does. And when I see that some people turn the shit up into outer space and then say, look how bad it runs, I don't understand. There is some next-level graphics scaling in this game, it's that graphics people always talk about before dOwNGraDe and now we can push things beyond any open world game right now and people seriously expect 60fps with mid-range GPUs? I have a 1070 and with the preset "balanced" which is a mixture of high/medium/ultra settings I get 40-60fps depending on the situation while having a MUCH better image quality and clarity than on PS4 Pro. The blizzard storm at the beginning of the game is fucking taxing, so only 35fps there, which is still better than console. In more "everyday" scenarios performance is more than acceptable.

What's wrong with PC gaming is usually, as with many gaming related stuff, that thing in front of the keyboard. PC gaming is about scalability on your hardware, not that games magically look and run better than on console.

However, that I had to update my bios in order to start a game was new to me and never had that before. THAT'S something worth noting and talking about. And there are still people who can't even start the damn game.

 

[Fishook]

Mid to Low tier gaming PC's can be frustrating for people wanting to play AAA games, Tried the game on my Nephews PC last night which is similar to the OP and it was perfectly playable with 45-55 FPS on performance settings at 1080p after minor tweaks.

For most people I would recommend sticking to consoles, unless you know what you doing. I find not using FPS counters and other benchmark software helped me a lot , especially on older rigs in the past.

 

[Davilmar]

Managed to play 10 hours or so, but the game kept crashing randomly and now at a specific mission. Really tired of jumping through hoops just to get my game to play properly. Even worse than having to jerry rig older games just to get them playing on modern systems.

 

[My Name is John Marston]

So if it's not running texture on low, it's reasonable to expect that X1X is running other settings on medium/high.

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No way X1X is running other settings on medium/high. We'll wait for the Digital Foundry breakdown, but if I had to bet, X1X is running on low in most settings. I don't expect high settings on X1X except for textures and anisotropic filtering.

 

[degauss]

The game looked great on the PS4 Pro - one of the few third party games that I thought looked as good in a lot of ways as the best looking first party titles, semi-nextgen. So no surprise it needs an expensive PC.

But wait until next year and the new consoles and their titles and that jump in fidelity. Your mediocre experience with Red Dead will be even worse! Anyone who is barely clinging on to the latest titles, with lowered settings, ambient occlusion off, maybe 4-6 CPU cores, running their game library off a HDD or even a cheap slower SSD - good luck!

The other side of PC gaming - PC exclusives - DOTA, Warcraft, titles designed around the bulk of the PC market (laptop specs) - yeah it's not expensive. Running console ports at higher settings than consoles do? It can be pricey and a struggle at times unless you are just over provisioning and spending a lot more than a console costs.

I'm old and have a PC game as my avatar and a name related to the old days of playing on CRT monitors, probably 15+ years of playing PC games under my belt. Bbut like anyone else I know over 30 who doesn't have time to tinker and dick about with stuff, I just play on console now.

 

[Kittens McMittens]

So seeing this thread made me think that this game must be a trash fire, but upon actually reading more I came across this post in the performance thread, which has this video in it:



Like, that system is just a little slower than OPs and seems to be getting 50-60fps. It's fine. If you have a VRR display, that would be a great experience. Also Nvidia reckons a 2070 Super is fine for 1440p60 at high settings, which means my 5700XT will hopefully get that - and even if it doesn't get locked 60, I have FreeSync so whatever.

Just for reference too: a GTX 1060 6GB is comparable to a PS4 Pro. If R* were really maxing out the GPU to get the best look on console, you shouldn't be surprised that your PC GPU struggles to hit consistent 60. You're basically trading the extra resolution they were going for on PS4 Pro for more frames.

My stance on that is if you want to scale up massively, then you should also give people the option to scale down
Like Destiny 2 literally ran on anything, even with an Intel iGPU

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Destiny is a CPU bound game on console - the devs have pretty much said that. It's why even a modest desktop CPU has no trouble hitting 60+. RDR2 is clearly hitting the GPU very hard, so it's a different story.

 

[Alexandros]

If that's the case, then it sure does not look like it. It still looks like a current gen game, nothing amazing graphically or anything.

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Having the opinion that the visual improvement from higher settings isn't worth the cost in performance is perfectly valid. The question is, why is the existence of these settings an issue? If you like them, use them, if you don't like them, don't use them. On a platform that gives users the option to customize their experience to their liking, what is the problem with adding those expensive settings?

 

[-Amon-]

Pc has inherent problems not being an unified architecture, I don't think no one could deny that. Probably this add to rdr2 being a console port and at the same time a game that can be extremely demanding.

Nowadays pc is my main gaming platform, ps4 pro and switch being the others, but the problems that plagued the platform from its infancy are still there. A subpar operating system not entirely dedicated to gaming is probably the bigger one, the constant need of maintaining it trough patches that sometimes create more problems than they solve is another one, just to name a few.

 

[-Amon-]

How dare developers push forward in the graphical department, RDR2 should run at 4K 60 on my old voodoo card

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Future proofing is not a great idea where the market buys games at day one and often are done with them after a couple of months.

 

[Alexandros]

Future proofing is not a great idea where the market buys games at day one and often are done with them after a couple of months.

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As proven by GTA V's awful sales legs.

 

[My Name is John Marston]

Future proofing is not a great idea where the market buys games at day one and often are done with them after a couple of months.

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GTA V is still constantly one of the top selling games...

I bet it's at least top 5 best selling on Steam right now.

EDIT: yep lol

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[AlwaysSalty]

Isn't this normal for rockstar games. I didn't bother with gta v, but I remember gta iv running like dog shit for no reason.

 

[My Name is John Marston]

Isn't this normal for rockstar games. I didn't bother with gta v, but I remember gta iv running like dog shit for no reason.

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GTA IV was a bad port. Max Payne 3, GTA V, and now RDR2 are amazing ports.

 

[Mars People]

Its worse when developers release crappy optimised versions of their games and NEVER patch them.

I'm looking at you Evil Within 2. Has awful CPU and GPU utilization and stutters like a bastard.
Did they fix it? Did they fuck?

 

[Menchin]

I'm on a 2080Ti and having no issues aside from the Rankstar Launcher crashing on me but from what I've read, it does seem like this port is pretty bad

Let's hope they fix it before GTA VI comes out

 

[dmix90]

SEtting names are arbitrary and it is choice of the user to cripple their own performance experience. I see no problem with including incrementally or stupidly expensive video options in games.

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If there is no noticeable visual gain then such settings only add more confusion for regular users and waste electricity.

PC enhancements should bring something that's not available on consoles... maybe new or improved assets, not just crank various shader internal values for no reason when other assets can't support such increase/do not benefit from it.

Can't wait for your vid. Really curious what this port brings on the table and if any enhancements are visible from normal viewing distance.

 

[My Name is John Marston]

I don't understand why people want devs to restrict a game's graphics settings to current hardware capabilities. Let graphics settings be as demanding as possible. They're optional after all. Not everyone needs to run the game at ultra. Even if no one can play at ultra, options should be included for future hardware.

Medium settings look stunningly good. Rockstar could've just called that "ultra" and people would've been happy with it.

 

[c0Zm1c]

Isn't this normal for rockstar games. I didn't bother with gta v, but I remember gta iv running like dog shit for no reason.

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I had mostly a locked 60fps in GTA V when it release on PC, at generally high settings on what was then a 3-year old computer.

 

[Deleted member 18161]

The difference is if the games optimization is wack I can work around the settings and make it stable and 60 with a PC game.

a console game I have to tolerate the awful performance n such. Especially rockstar shit.

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The game is a locked 30fps at Native 4k on the X...

I feel the same as the OP between Dark Souls, AC Unity, Ryse, Arkham Knight, Watch Dogs 2, Mafia 3 and now RDR 2. DS will be the same. AAA developers don't care about PC.

 

[Deleted member 59983]

Is this an egg/chicken analogy or is this something more deep?

If the publishers didn't treat the PC like an afterthought we didn't had this issues (or, for example, Nier Automata's). They treat it like an afterthought... why? Because it's a smaller public?

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It's more a comment that people will see the worst in something in a bad situation.

When a console game is broken or is having issues I lament that it isn't on PC and can't be fixed by the community. When a game is broken on PC or is having issues I lament that it isn't as simple as the console experience.

Also Rockstar has for a long time treated the PC platform as a huge afterthought despite numbers showing it makes them quite a bit of money. People shouldn't be surprised that their launcher is garbage, the game is having issues, and this isn't anywhere close to a smooth experience. This is the company who can't even bother to let fans know they are releasing something on their platform simply to get them to double dip. They are so tone deaf that they figured their own launcher was the way to go for this when they've got like two games on PC people will actively play and some so-so ports of older titles amounting to a handful.

 

[Dictator]

If there is no noticeable visual gain then such settings only add more confusion for regular users and waste electricity.

PC enhancements should bring something that's not available on consoles... maybe new or improved assets, not just crank various shader internal values for no reason when other assets can't support such increase/do not benefit from it.

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I agree on a philosophical level: because like dgrdsv I also think we are seeing some rather classic "rasterisation can only go so far here" kinda stuff here. But I also Enjoy that a game allows us to tweak even incrementally better things. Like... I like it a lot!
I would prefer both, a lot of incremental options AND some gob smackers that change the rendering (RT does that)

The game is a locked 30fps at Native 4k on the X...

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It is not locked on X - we made a point of that in our review, PS4pro in 1080p mode runs best.

 

[Dust]

One of the reasons why I went with consoles as primary was 2 weeks of torture back when Return to the Castle Wolfenstein released and I just fucking couldn't get it to work properly no matter what (had decent PC enough).
Something broke in me back then.

 

[Marble]

I just came back from checking some PC footage on YT. Came across this guy below. Video is like 2.5 hours and the first 1.5 hours he's fiddling with the graphics settings because of low fps and flickering graphics. I really don't have time for that kind of stuff in my life. And the difference to me (aside from fps) isn't even spectacularly big.

https://youtu.be/guaJU3yok6k

Also checked the RDR2 PC thread on a Dutch forum to check what the PC people think of the game. I couldn't find any posts regarding that topic, because every single post on every single page was about settings, settings and settings.

 

[KKRT]

I just came back from checking some PC footage on YT. Came across this guy below. Video is like 2.5 hours and the first 1.5 hours he's fiddling with the graphics settings because of low fps and flickering graphics. I really don't have time for that kind of stuff in my life. And the difference to me (aside from fps) isn't even spectacularly big.

https://youtu.be/guaJU3yok6k

Also checked the RDR2 PC thread on a Dutch forum to check what the PC people think of the game. I couldn't find any posts regarding that topic, because every single post on every single page was about settings, settings and settings.

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I skimmed through this video and he plays the game normally and from time to, like every 10 minutes, he goes to option for several seconds to change something.

Hyperbole is so strong in this thread. I personally do not remember when was the last i spent more than 5 minutes tweaking graphics setting in the game.
And people tweak settings, because they want to play game on the best fitting, for them, setting possible, but you do it once.

 

[Kuosi]

The game is a locked 30fps at Native 4k on the X...

I feel the same as the OP between Dark Souls, AC Unity, Ryse, Arkham Knight, Watch Dogs 2, Mafia 3 and now RDR 2. DS will be the same. AAA developers don't care about PC.

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So you list one game with supposedly solid performance on consoles(on one of them and 30fps), then you use games that run like dogshit on console to discredit pc versions?

 

[singo]

Op is furious with PC gaming because he didn't buy a PC powerful enough to play the games he wants to play.

 

[Chief Malik]

I'm DEAD at the digital foundry dude coming through and chin checking all the goofies in this thread.

 

[oneils]

I gotta be honest with you, I was kind of excited that RDR2 was finally hitting PC after a year, in fact I do own a PS4 but decided to wait so I could hopefully run it at 1080p@60fps since most games I've tried run perfectly fine with my rig:

Ryzen 5 1600 3.20 GHz
16gb of ram
GTX 1060 6GB

I checked the recommended specs and found this:

Recommended Specifications:

• OS: Windows 10 - April 2018 Update (v1803)
• Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X
• Memory: 12GB
• Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB / AMD Radeon RX 480 4GB
• HDD Space: 150GB
• Sound Card: DirectX compatible

Truth be told, even guys with even better graphics card have been struggling to get 60 fps consistently, just read this thread and you'll notice it's a total mess:

Red Dead Redemption II PC performance thread

(Click for general game info.) 🖥️ System requirements: 🧰 Latest drivers: (as at 24/02/2022) AMD: 22.2.2 Nvidia: 511.79 📊 Benchmarks: ComputerBase (German; 06/11/2019 build[?]) GamersNexus (English; launch build; CPU-focused) GamersNexus (English; 06/11/2019 build[?]; CPU-focused) GamersNexus...

www.resetera.com

Don't get me wrong, I love PC gaming but I hate wasting my time trying different settings. Now I understand why some people refuse to let consoles behind.
Sometimes I go as far as thinking that developers don't optimize their games properly on purpose so companies like NVIDIA can sell their new cards at ridiculous prices.

It's really discouraging.

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Have you actually tried the game yet? it has so many options that i think you would be able to find settings that lead to 60fps. Its part of the reason why i prefer pc. Dont be discouraged by graphs. try the game and lower settings until you get the performance you want. i think you will be surprised by the results.

 

[Chief Malik]

Im being petty quoting all the goofs in this thread when the digital foundry video drop.

 

[Marble]

I skimmed through this video and he plays the game normally and from time to, like every 10 minutes, he goes to option for several seconds to change something.

Hyperbole is so strong in this thread. I personally do not remember when was the last i spent more than 5 minutes tweaking graphics setting in the game.
And people tweak settings, because they want to play game on the best fitting, for them, setting possible, but you do it once.

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"Like every 10 minutes". Is that normal on PC? That's a lot of minutes of not playing, imo. It's fine some people don't mind tweaking a little, but I don't want to try every setting in order to "discover" what cause certain problems. That's not hyperbole, just like my Dutch forum comment is not hyperbole.

 

[GhostTrick]

I just came back from checking some PC footage on YT. Came across this guy below. Video is like 2.5 hours and the first 1.5 hours he's fiddling with the graphics settings because of low fps and flickering graphics. I really don't have time for that kind of stuff in my life. And the difference to me (aside from fps) isn't even spectacularly big.

https://youtu.be/guaJU3yok6k

Also checked the RDR2 PC thread on a Dutch forum to check what the PC people think of the game. I couldn't find any posts regarding that topic, because every single post on every single page was about settings, settings and settings.

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Are we watching the same video ?
In the entire video, which is 2.5 hours, there's like 5 minutes of settings fiddling at most.

 

[thediamondage]

I have all the consoles and a PC, my feeling is generally early in a console gen the console versions tend to be far better as they get better support and usually work out of the box with no/minor issues. Late in the cycle, like now, PC ports tend to be pretty good although generally you should wait a few days at least to get the heads up on whether the port is fucked or not. I can't really think of any 2019 big game releases that had really fucked PC ports, it was all over the place a few years ago - Quantum Break (10 fps with gSync for MONTHS), Batman Arkham Knight (fucked port), MK 11 (fucked port and network issues), many more.

This year I've played more on my PC than consoles really, like playing Gears 5, Borderlands 3, and Outer Worlds on my PC and not many issues. Some FPS lag issues occasionally but pretty good ports. I still bought Modern Warfare on PS4 over PC just because I mostly (100% so far) match against other console controller players, don't have to worry about cheaters (can turn off cross play if I want), the exclusive PS4 mode, and PS4 tends to retain a much bigger player base much longer.

Its really just a case by case basis, I finished RDR2 on my X last year and have zero desire to play again on PC, I don't think I'd want to wait a year to play that game. Control, I'll wait, no real rush to play and might as well wait to play until the DLCs are out and there is a discount on EGS or steam (when/if it arrives on there). Jedi Fallen Order I'll be playing on my X because I want that cinematic experience on TV, and while I can play my PC on TV its a bit more of a hassle plus once I'm done with the game I can trade it in (buying physical).

 

[TitanicFall]

You just need a good 480p CRT monitor and you'll be set.