Red Dead Redemption 2 – The Real Performance Killers (Turn Them Off)

RDR2 Guides:

• 100% Achievement Guide + Red Dead Online.
• All Poisonous Trail Treasure Map Locations and Solutions.
• All Jack Hall Gang Treasure Map Locations and Solutions.
• All High Stakes Treasure Map Locations and Solutions.
• Trusty Steed / Reach Max Bonding Level.
• Cigarette Card Set Collectibles Guide.
• All Dinosaur Bones Locations.
• All Dreamcatcher Locations.
• All Minigames Locations.
• All Hideouts + Ambush.
• All Grave Locations.

If you want to achieve the best looking game possible but can’t quite figure out what it is that is tanking your framerates that much.

The Bad Guys

Note: Credit goes to Daxank

So, after a good amount of testing on a really good PC, I’ve managed to pin down the effects that will absolutely tank your framerates

First: Triple Buffering

• Is actually fairly pointless it seems and uses enough resources for it to be better left turned off

Second: MSAA (Both Instances)

• For some reason, this technique of AA is just terrible on this game, TAA works way better and costs less resources (at the cost of picture clarity, so maybe use a reshade sharpening effect)

Third: Water Physics Quality

• I’ve tried setting it to many things and have barely noticed any changes in graphical fidelity… but oh boy if that one doesn’t use a lot. 75% used 30% more of the gpu than 50% for an effect that I have yet to notice

Fourth: Tree Tessellation

• This one is actually a bummer because it does make the trees look more 3d and lifelike but just like the water physics quality, you can expect the same increase in GPU usage just by turning that one on

Note: I also recommend playing the game on Vulkan, even if you’re an NVidia user. As the lighting and physics engines of the game will often just malfunction on DirectX 12.