Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC comes with an absolutely monstrous set of PC gaming graphics settings. By our count we put it at 42 graphics settings along, and this doesn't even account for video settings on top of that. There are a phenomenal number of graphics settings to tweak to achieve your ideal performance. That could either fill you with glee or dread but at least we ultimately have control over how RDR2 looks and plays on PC.
Just about everything can be tweaked from the water quality and the physics down to some very granular volumetric lighting settings. Grass shadows can be handled individually; soft shadows, long shadows, SSAO. There's a ton to play around with basically, so plenty of room for finding the ideal balance between visuals and performance in Red Dead Redemption 2.
One particular thing we'd like to focus on for a moment as well. By default, RDR2 runs on the Vulkan graphics API, which is certainly not what we were expecting. There is a toggle for DirectX 12 but it is not the default. Grand Theft Auto V was a DirectX title through and through so we expected much the same here. Historically, Vulkan games have benefited AMD users so we'll certainly be keen to see whether that ends up being the case here.
Red Dead Redemption 2 Video Settings
- Output Adapter
- Output Monitor
- Resolution
- Refresh Rate
- Screen Type - Fullscreen/Windowed/Windowed Borderless
- Vsync - Off/On/Half
- Triple Buffering - Off/On
- Pause Game on Focus Loss - Off/On
- Constrain Mouse Pointer - Off/On
Red Dead Redemption 2 Graphics Settings
- Quality Preset Level - Favour performance/Balanced/Favour Quality
- Texture Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Anisotropic Filtering - Off /2x/4x/8x/16x
- Lighting Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Global Illumination Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Shadow Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Far Shadow Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Screen Space Ambient Occlusion - Off/Medium/High/Ultra
- Reflection Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Mirror Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Water Quality - Low/Medium/High
- Volumetrics Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Particle Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Tessellation Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- TAA - Off/Medium/High
- FXAA - Off/On
- MSAA - Off/2x/4x/8x
Red Dead Redemption 2 Advanced Graphics Settings
- Advanced Settings - Locked/Unlocked
- Graphics API - Vulkan/DirectX 12
- Near Volumetric Resolution - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Far Volumetric Resolution - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Volumetric Lighting Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Unlock Volumetric Raymarch Resolution - Off/On
- Particle Lighting Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Soft Shadows - Off/Medium/High/Ultra
- Grass Shadows - Low/Medium/High
- Long Shadows - Off/On
- Full Resolution Screen Space Ambient Occlusion - Off/On
- Water Refraction Quality - Low/Medium/High
- Water Reflection Quality - Low/Medium/High
- Water Physics Quality - Min>Max
- Resolution Scale
- TAA Sharpening - Min>Max
- Motion Blur - Off/On
- Reflection MSAA - Off/2x/4x/8x
- Geometry Level of Detail - Min>Max
- Grass Level of Detail - Min>Max
- Tree Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Parallax Occlusion Mapping Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Decal Quality - Low/Medium/High/Ultra
- Fur Quality - Medium/High
That's it for now but we'll be hopping into Red Dead Redemption 2 pronto to get some preliminary performance benchmarks ready for you folks. We know a number of you will probably be waiting for the Steam release but the good news is you should have a very firm idea of how RDR2 should run on your system by then.
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PC Specs
Could I run it on medium and some on high at 60fps?
PC Specs
can my cpu handle RDR2? its slower then i5-2500k
PC Specs
Tinkered for 3 hours with this piece and still keeps crashing on me. Next time I'll think twice about buying a day-one game and buy a bottle of bourbon instead.
Got an answer from support though:
''We are receiving many reports like yours, practically no one can access the game. Rest assured that the problem is not with your computer.
We have already informed Rockstar, but we have not yet obtained any information, but be aware that we should receive some feedback soon.
We had feedback from some users who turned off Antivirus and it worked. Therefore, if you want to try it may be an alternative.''
PC Specs
I can't run it anymore
Worked initially but no longer
PC Specs
I've bourbon on the ready just in case this happens to me too.. not looking like the best of launches.. AGAIN! similar crap when GTAV was released on PC..
PC Specs
Count myself lucky that i ran 2 benchmarks and played a couple hours then.
PC Specs
Remember the "thanks console players for the beta testing" comments?
PC Specs
Haha, too funny. That will never ever translate to PC users though. I'm hoping it has nothing to do with nvidia drivers, it is a bit weird that a 1070 would work and a 2060 wouldn't when Felix tried testing it. It's very odd.
PC Specs
Yeah, I'm waiting on Steam. By then the biggest bugs will be sorted :D
PC Specs
Optimisation is all over the place. This so unexpected considering the fact that it runs on the same engine as GTA V and GTA V is very well optimnised. No SLI support... oh well, £50 wasted :( I guess I'll never learn not to preorder lol.
PC Specs
you have rig that doesn't meet the MINIMUM game requirements and you complain about optimization?
really?
PC Specs
That's not my actual rig mate. I guess I should have added that to my original post...
PC Specs
Regardless, that was a hilarious exchange.
PC Specs
Good CPU Josh, but the rest of your rig isn't suited for this game :/
PC Specs
Benchmark tool
Ultra: 50 FPS average 1080p
High: 65 FPS average 1080p
On my system
PC Specs
Nice, i get about 65 on ultra textures the rest is on high. Runs pretty smooth, i noticed that when holding shift to spring and panning the camera the game has mad microlag, caps and ctrl do the same if i hold em down.
PC Specs
After reading the comments even upgrading my old R9 280 to a RX480 probably will mean low-medium settings. Oh well, will get the PS4 come Christmas I gues.
PC Specs
Lol 1080p Ultra give me 40-45 fps and i am gpu bound.I must set on high to achieve 60 fps Wow Rockstar optimization zero.
PC Specs
This game remind me of GTA IV, the performance is bad specially on Nvidia cards , i Think i'll get the game on PS4, my poor gpu can't run this game even on low 1080p
PC Specs
yes the 1050 ti really struggles only settings playable are medium to low and yet you still gets 35 fps^^
PC Specs
I don't think so , the only way to get +30 fps on this GPU is 900p , let's hope the performance gets better in the near future
PC Specs
still the 900p is not that bad on native screen ;)
PC Specs
With all things ULTRA and msaa 4x refection msaa 2x i got avg of 36 FPS. XD
PC Specs
What res?
PC Specs
You don't need MSAA. It has TAA...MSAA tanks FPS really hard
PC Specs
Using 1440 res. thats also with TAA on. wanted to see what fps was with all things on.(thats with all thing on ultra or high. haven't touched sliders)