Red Dead Redemption 2's stuttering issues have a workaround in 1.14 patch
And Rockstar offer players a free poncho
Update: Rockstar have patched Red Dead Redemption 2 again, expanding their 1.14 patch notes with lots more detail of various stability fixes that have come to the cowboy game. The apology for the rocky launch and the free items for RDR2 Online players mentioned below are nice, but presumably not as nice as the game gradually smoothing out its wrinkles.
In a separate update linked from the patch notes, Rockstar also say they've identified the cause of stuttering issues Nvidia users have been experiencing. "While we work with NVIDIA to improve driver performance, a temporary work around can be added to the launch arguments of the game to re-balance workload on the CPU cores and avoid the conditions that cause this issue."
Original story:
Put that six-shooter away, cowboy. While it looks mighty purdy on desktops, Red Dead Redemption 2's PC debut has been anything but smooth. From framerate dives to hard crashes and issues getting the game to boot in the first place, a fair few outlaws had trouble experiencing the wild wild west during last week's troubled launch.
This afternoon, Rockstar offered two gifts to tide troubled fans over: an apology for the game's sorry state, and a complimentary care package for players who bear through the pain.
Red Dead Redemption 2 arrived on PC last week, but any excitement for high-fidelity hijinks was immediately snuffed by some truly awful problems. Beyond the new Rockstar Launcher occasionally failing to recognise a purchase and some shaky framerate nosedives, the dang thing just wouldn't stop crashing.
Rockstar took to Twitter earlier today to assure fans that these issues are actively being resolved, offering online goodies in the meantime. Hop into RDR2 this week, and you'll receive a "complimentary care package" for Red Dead Online including ammo, provisions, and a free Prieto Poncho.
A limited-time cache of supplies and a snazzy poncho is nice, sure, but I'm not sure it's much consolation to players for whom even booting up RDR2 is a fraught experience. Having already fixed a particularly nasty issue with the Rockstar Launcher, however, the developers are shifting their sights towards more technical concerns.
Certain Nvidia drivers, GPUs and a number of CPUs have been causing headaches for some players. Rockstar are rolling out an update today to help clear up some stuttering, and are in talks with Nvidia to put these issues to bed for good.
Bit of a shame, launching in a state like that. Even as others on our team struggled to get the game to boot, Matthew had a rollicking great time and called it one of our bestest bests in his Red Dead Redemption 2 review.
Unlike RDR2's notoriously long opener, there's no skipping ahead 'till the game gets good in fixing a massive piece of software.
Disclosure: My long-term partner, our current flatmate, and a bunch of our pals all work down the road at Rockstar North. Look, Edinburgh is packed with game developers and very few places to put 'em. What am I to do?