Red Dead Redemption 2 is lastly out on PC, just a little greater than a 12 months after launch. By Rockstar’s requirements, that is truly sooner than anticipated. Grand Theft Auto V took greater than two years to make its method over to the platform of alternative. And the unique Red Dead Redemption by no means did. Lots of individuals badly wish to play Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC. Considering how lengthy Rockstar saved everybody ready with Grand Theft Auto V, and contemplating that the unique Red Dead Redemption didn’t even arrive on PC, a one 12 months delay is completely acceptable. Rockstar likes to take its time to shine the titles it really works on. Red Dead Redemption 2 is not any completely different on this respect. This isn’t a straight port of the console model, warts and all. Instead, it’s clear that quite a lot of consideration has been lavished on making this a benchmark title for PC house owners. There are clear upgrades throughout the board over the console variations of the sport. Let’s take a deep dive into the enhancements the PC model brings. We’ll additionally see the way it stacks relative to the PS4 model of the sport. Settings, settings, and extra settings The very first thing you’ll discover when firing up the PC model of Red Dead Redemption 2 is absolutely the plethora of graphics settings. There are over 40 adjustable choices for every thing from distant volumetric results and fur high quality to regulars like texture high quality. Tweaking settings past easy presets all the time takes time. This is as a result of you need to use trial and error to search out out which settings hit efficiency the toughest. Rockstar’s been further considerate on this respect: they’ve created numerous presets that vary from “favor efficiency” to “favor high quality.” Each notch ramps up explicit settings. It’s not fairly as dependable as doing it by your self. (*2*), it helps you discover your baseline a lot sooner. Almost a generational enchancment There are some huge surprises available right here. For starters, the standard suspects like shadow high quality don’t incur the largest efficiency penalties. Leaving shadows at extremely offers you a noticeably higher presentation than the PS4 iteration of the sport, with out hitting efficiency an excessive amount of. What’s actually shocking is the huge impression that reflection high quality has on efficiency. At extremely, reflection high quality incurs a 40 p.c efficiency penalty, the one highest of any of the usual settings. This is puzzling to us since Red Dead Redemption 2 solely seems to be utilizing commonplace screen-space reflections. It is kind of attainable that that is an optimization subject. Plenty of open world titles utilizing display screen area reflections–Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, for one, scale effectively with ultra-reflections. This might be one thing that Rockstar addresses in future patches. As issues stand now, we’d counsel leaving reflections on medium, no matter your graphics card. Other settings outliers embody Water Quality and Volumetrics Quality, which incur 34 p.c and 25 p.c efficiency penalties respectively. Volumetrics are a recognized efficiency fiend. In Borderlands 3, as an illustration, dropping this alone was sufficient to spice up efficiency to playable ranges on a spread of {hardware}. In Red Dead Redemption 2, you get controls for each general volumetrics high quality and tweaks for close to and far volumetrics. Together, these three settings management the decision of volumetric results, in addition to LOD scaling for volumetrics. Because of the inherently fuzzy look of volumetric results, that is one setting we’re completely completely happy to drop, even all the way down to medium. You actually received’t have the ability to inform the distinction. And your PC will thanks. What about Water Quality, although? This is one space the place Rockstar’s actually taken issues to the following stage on PC. More than the rest, that is the one graphical facet of Red Dead Redemption 2 that suppose is a real generational improve. Water physics at max settings are unbelievable. Water caustics are precisely simulated, to the purpose that shifting in fast circle will create whirlpools. We’re pretty sure Rockstar’s leveraging GPU compute for its water simulation. This is probably going why the impact is so extremely demanding. We counsel dropping this down a notch or two, although: it solely applies in water surfaces and it drags your general efficiency down massively. LOD settings are additionally, unsurprisingly, main efficiency hogs. You get 5 choices for geometry LOD scaling and 10 choices for grass LOD scaling. The poorly-named “tree high quality” setting additionally apparently controls draw distances for bushes. Pushing the LODs out does rather a lot for Red Dead Redemption 2 as an open world sport: it fills out these large vistas within the far background, particularly on increased decision shows. This is one other space the place visuals take a transparent leap over the console model. Vulkan and DirectX 12 We’re completely happy to see Rockstar lastly transition to the brand new APIs. As a legacy seventh-gen title, Grand Theft Auto V was nonetheless constructed on a DirectX 9 spine. You bought some further visible goodies on DX11 however that was about it. With Red Dead Redemption 2, they’ve moved to supporting each Vulkan and DirectX 12. But, as we noticed earlier with Rage 2, Vulkan Support doesn’t robotically translate into higher efficiency. Red Dead Redemption 2 isn’t precisely CPU intensive. However, scaling tops out at 4 cores. This implies that single-threaded efficiency nonetheless issues: you’ll get higher general framerates with Coffee Lake components just like the 9700K right here, in comparison with Ryzen. There aren’t any large variations between Vulkan and DirectX 12 efficiency in-game. If you have got a higher-end GPU–the 1080 Ti onwards, you may even see higher Vulkan efficiency at decrease resolutions. But as quickly as you begin hitting GPU bottlenecks, the API doesn’t actually matter right here. Scaling up for increased decision gameplay The capability to run the sport at arbitrary resolutions is an enormous enchancment for Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC, in comparison with base console variations just like the PS4 version. However, the higher-end PC presets are completely brutal. At extremely, the 2080 Ti is actually the one GPU in a position to breach the 30 FPS barrier at 4K. You have to drop all the way down to the excessive preset in an effort to viably run this sport on GPUs just like the 2070 Super at 4K. However, whereas the collective PC enhancements are an enormous step ahead, it’s nonetheless essential to keep in mind that it is a title constructed with the bottom consoles in thoughts. We’ve discovered that medium settings kind of mimic the presentation on base consoles. Dropping all the way down to medium, it’s all of a sudden viable to crank decision up. And, be mindful, even at these settings, it is a breathtaking sport. How does it stack as much as the PS4 Pro model? When linked to a 4K monitor, PS4 Pro outputs a 1920×2160 decision with checker-boarding together with the TAA implementation masking up any aliasing. With a constant 30 FPS replace, it is a completely viable strategy to expertise this sport. But PC takes issues to the following stage. As we talked about earlier, water physics sees a generational enchancment on PC. Meanwhile, at increased high quality settings, LODs on the geometry and the surroundings are pushed method into the background for a denser, lush presentation. And, after all, the sport scales to 4K (and past) if in case you have the graphics horsepower. This is a sport that performs fairly effectively, even when locked at 30 FPS. 4K/30 Ultra from 1080 Ti-class {hardware} is an enormous leap over what the PS4 Pro delivers. All in all, Rockstar did higher than we anticipated right here. We bought Red Dead Redemption sooner than anticipated on PC and, efficiency points however, that is nonetheless the easiest way to expertise among the finest video games of this technology.
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Red Dead Redemption 2 PC Tech Analysis, Comparison With PS4 Pro, and More
