After all, why should I be combining low quality volumetrics with high quality mirror reflections, for example? The slider attempts to inform the user that some features have heavier performance implications than others as you move through the settings - but there's almost like an inbuilt mentality for the PC user that low/medium is bad and is best avoided.Īll of which leads us onto the console-equivalent experience. The game is attempting to get the balance right for you - but for the user seeing a combination of medium, high and ultra settings, there's bound to be confusion. As you move the slider, the settings menu adjusts dynamically.
Instead, there's a slider that allows you to balance performance and quality. It lacks the option to move between ultra, high, medium or low presets on a global scale - most likely because this doesn't really make sense for the game.
In common with most PC games, Red Dead Redemption 2 is best tuned to varying degrees on a per setting basis. These are interesting figures, but based on our later 'real world' tests, those results are likely to be more stark on lower end kit. From a resolution perspective, dropping from 4K to 1440p adds 56 per cent of performance, rising to 93 per cent at 1080p. From top to bottom - ultra to low - there's an increase of 53 per cent. Dropping from a blanket array of ultra settings (without touching the advanced menu) down to high, performance increased by 21 per cent, increasing to 36 per cent to medium. In terms of basic scalability, we started out with RTX 2080 Ti set to 1800p resolution. Comparing both APIs on GTX 1060 and RX 580, Vulkan delivered faster results on both and eliminated infrequent stutter on the AMD side we noted when DX12 was used. The Vulkan API is the default and we'd suggest sticking to that. At 60 frames per second on the closest we could get to console equivalent settings, the game does have significant CPU usage, but core utilisation is fairly level on both APIs - usually a good sign for the quality of a PC port. For starters, the engine has transitioned away from supporting older graphics APIs and offers options for both Vulkan and DirectX 12. Red Dead Redemption 2 is based on the latest version of Rockstar's Rage engine and while there are many similarities to the technology's last outing in Grand Theft Auto 5, much has evolved. Is it really a 'sub-optimal' port then? In many ways, the exact opposite is true. There's the sense that only high or ultra will do, and in the case of RDR2, this can cause lower than expected performance. However, running at low and medium settings seems to come with a stigma for the committed PC gamer.
#How much is red dead redemption 2 1080p#
Plug those settings into a perfectly affordable mainstream graphics card like the AMD Radeon RX 580 and achieving 1080p gameplay at 60 frames per second isn't difficult. The complete list can be found below, but suffice to say, Rockstar targeted the best bang for the buck on consoles and even effects that exhibit lower quality on X than on PC's lowest - volumetric resolution, for example - still look outstanding. Crucially, the game still impresses: PC simply adds further fidelity. However, after extensive granular analysis of the game's vast array of graphics options, what's clear is that the existing Xbox One X version - an outstanding technical achievement of this generation - is running using a mixture of settings across the board, with many of the effects actually running 'lower than low'. In fact, they may even present improvements over their Xbox One X equivalents.Īcross the week of Red Dead Redemption 2's PC launch, benchmarks have been revealed, users have tested the game on their own rigs and in some quarters, there's the belief that the game is poorly optimised because changing settings to high or ultra can cause poor performance. The thing is, excellent results can be achieved on some of the most popular gaming PC hardware: it simply requires the user to accept that in many cases, low and medium settings aren't inherently bad things. As always with technology that pushes boundaries, there is a cost, and the fact that a fully maxed experience is beyond most mainstream graphics hardware is causing controversy. Rockstar has taken one of the most advanced game engines in the market and opened up almost every aspect of its rendering to the audience, allowing graphics enthusiasts to push already pristine visuals to a new level of precision. Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC has some issues - fixable issues - but they shouldn't distract too much from the scale of the overall achievement.