Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the best games we have. It is famous for an amazing storyline set in a vast fictitious wild west country. The game was released back in 2018 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and performed very well. On November 5, 2019, the game was released for PC, where it outclassed many games and continues to rule with its online mode. However, some players are experiencing various issues like Lag, FPS Drop, Crashing, Stuttering, and Black Screen while playing the game.
This problem is not new with the games for PC. Many games had similar problems after the launch. So, we have listed all possible solutions for FPS Drop, Crashing, Stuttering, and Black Screen problems that you can do from your side to improve the performance.
Red Dead Redemption 2 PC Lag, FPS Drop, Crashing, Stuttering, and Black Screen Fix
Before checking out the steps, compare your gaming rig with the Red Dead Redemption 2 system requirement as it is very hardware demanding game.
Minimum Specifications:
- OS: Windows 7 – Service Pack 1 (6.1.7601)
- Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K / AMD FX-6300
- Memory: 8GB
- Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 2GB / AMD Radeon R9 280 3GB
- HDD Space: 150GB
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
Red Dead Redemption 2 PC Freeze/ Stuttering Fix BES
The most recommended solution to fix the freeze and stuttering issues in the game is to limit CPU usage of RDR2.exe. You can do it via Task Manager, but it is better to do directly with a utility named as Battle Encoder Shirasé (BES). BES directly halts or stops the programs from CPU power as you want.
Download BES from here.
To make BES work, run Red Dead Redemption 2 and then boot up the cowboy boot simulation. Then return to BES and select RDR2.exe and click on ‘Limit This.’ Then use the sliding bar to keep CPU limit to -2 percent for allocating the use of 98 % CPU power. If this doesn’t solve the frame drops or stuttering, keep the limit between -5 and -10 %.
Optimize the Game Settings
If your game is lagging, then lower down or optimize your game’s graphic or video settings. Turn FXAA, MXAA to off, make reflection quality low, disable motion blur.
According to many Reddit threads, optimal settings for Red Dead Redemption 2 are as follows:
- Resolution – 1600 x 900
- Screen mode – fullscreen (it keeps switching out of it and into windowed borderless when you alt+tab, change it back then)
- Vsyncv – off
- Triple Buffering – off
- Focus loss – off
- Mouse cursor – off
- Texture Quality – Ultra (this option does NOT give you any significant fps loss or gain. As in other games, it is solely linked to your available VRAM. If you have enough (more than 3gb), definitively choose ultra. This will make your game look incredible and will cost no fps. I cannot stress this enough because there are guides from “official gaming journals” out there, recommending setting textures to medium. This will make your game look awful, yet gives you nothing!)
- Anisotropic – 16x (performance loss is marginal or non-existent; set to 16x)
- Lightning – medium (definitively a more expensive setting; set to medium or lower)
- Global Lightning Quality – high (small or no influence on fps)
- Shadows – medium (as in every other game this is quite an expensive option; go to low if needed)
- Quality of distant shadows – medium
- Sight Ambient occlusion (?) – medium
- Reflection Quality – low
- Mirror Quality – medium
- Water quality – medium (will change to “individual” when you are changing water physics)
- Volumetry Quality – medium
- Particle quality – medium
- Tesselation – medium or high
- TAA medium
- FXAA – off
- MSAA – off (very expensive!)
- Leave the advanced settings as they are EXCEPT for:
- API – DirectX 12 (see step ONE)
- Quality of water physics – turn completely off (very expensive, even when no water is in sight!)
- Motion blur – turn off (unnecessary shenanigans)
- Detail of geometric effects – turn completely off (very expensive, can’t see a difference in the quality of picture)
Update Graphic Driver
Nvidia launches an update for their graphics cards whenever a new game arrives to ensure the best performance. For AMD, we are not sure whether it releases updates for games, but it also releases updates frequently. Check the links for downloading the latest drivers of AMD and Nvidia.
Change Your Graphic Card Settings
You can do some tweaks in graphic card settings to improve Red Dead Redemption 2 PC performance.
For Nvidia Users
- Open Nvidia Control Panel
- Click on Manage 3D settings on the left bar
- Click on the Program Settings tab
- Locate Red Dead Redemption 2 from the drop-down menu under “Select a program to customize.”
- If you don’t see the game on the list, then click on the Add button and another list will appear
- If you still cannot spot the game, then you need to add the .exe file manually.
- Click on Browse
- Locate the folder where you have installed the game
- Select the executable file or the .exe file which in this case should be rdr2.exe
- Once you have successfully added the game, you will then see the program settings become available for the game
- Now tweak the following settings:
Threaded Optimization: On
Power Management: Prefer Maximum Performance
Low Latency Mode: Off
Texture filtering – Quality: Performance
AMD Users
- Anti-Aliasing Mode: Use Application settings
- Anti-aliasing Method: Multisampling
- Morphological Filtering: Off
- Anisotropic Filtering Mode: Use application settings
- Texture Filtering Quality: Performance
- Surface Format Optimization: On
- Wait for V-sync: Off
- OpenGL Triple Buffering: Off
- Shader Cache: AMD optimized
- Tesselation Mode: Override application settings
- Maximum Tesselation Level: Off
- GPU Workload: Graphics
- Chill: Off
- Frame Rate Target Control: Disabled
Disable Full-Screen Optimizations and High DPI
Switching Full-Screen Optimizations and High DPI off helps to reduce several gaming issues. To disable follow the steps given below:
- Locate the game installation
- Find the .exe file of the game
- Right-click > Properties > Compatibility Tab
- Tick the “Disable Full-Screen Optimizations” tab
- Now, click the “Change high DPI settings” button
- Tick “Override high DPI scaling behavior” and select “Application” from the drop-down menu
- Save Settings.
Turn off Game Mode
According to the Windows, game mode optimizes all other windows processes while running games, but it has been found that it causes issues related to FPS. So keep it off while playing games. To turn it off:
- Click Start > Settings > Gaming
- On the Game Bar, set “Record game clips, screenshots, and broadcast using Game bar” to off.
- Now head to the Captures tab set the “Record the background while I’m playing a game” to Off.
- Lastly, click on the Game Mode tab and turn it off.
Disable Hardware Acceleration In Discord
If you’re using Discord, then disable hardware acceleration as it uses GPU power. To turn it off:
- Open Discord
- Click on User Settings > Appearance
- Under advanced, click on the Hardware Acceleration radio, it will be off if turned on.
Also, if you’re using a two-monitor setup, then turn off ” in-game overlay.” Steps:
- Open Discord
- Go to Overlay under App Settings
- Click on the radio next to “Enable in-game overlay,” this will turn it off.
Increase Priority In Task Manager
It is an old method to increase the performance of the games, but it only affects CPU usage. To set the priority:
Press CTLR+Shift+ESC to open the task manager and find Red Dead Redemption 2 PC. Right-click on it and go to details. Then, click on the process file and set priority to “high.”
It will prioritize your game over the other applications in terms of CPU usage.
Turn Off Overclocking Software
If any chance your game is randomly crashing and freezing, then there are chances that an overclocking application is causing it. A lot of games have been suffering from random crashes and freezes because of software like MSI Afterburner or Zotac firestorm. So, turn off these software and run the game on default speeds for safer side.
The above methods are pretty basic; they may or may not fix lag, stutter, and frame drop 100 percent. If you’re facing serious issues, then you can complain on game’s support forum.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available for PS4, PC and Xbox One.
