Textures/graphics look bad all of the sudden

[Sambanch]

Just started replaying the game for the first time in months a week or so ago, then took a few days off. It was running fine, and looked like I remembered. When I went to play again a couple of days ago, I think the Social Club app updated. I don't recall seeing RDR2 update, as it was pretty fast.

Anyways, I jump in the game and I quickly notice it doesn't look right. Like the settings were all reset to low or something. In open spaces, characters/animals are popping in badly in the distance, textures are really blurry and overall everything just looks worse. Like the textures are stuck in lo-res. The lighting doesn't look right, like everything is blown-out. I noticed in benchmarks and in story mode that the particle effects weren't appearing at all or were buggy. I thought trees/vegetation looked way worse than they used to, but watching video from benchmarks maybe they've always looked bad and I'm just now focusing in on that.

I've rechecked and played with the settings, tried deleting the settings folder, updated drivers, then reinstalled the game and the R* app. On reinstalling, some things might be slightly better-- particle effects like fog seem to be appearing again. But overall, I still feel like there's something really off and I'm not sure if this is just in my head. I've scoured looking for others that have noticed issues like this in the last few days but haven't seen any posts similar to mine yet.

9900k with 2080ti. I've been running most settings on Ultra, except for a few that hit FPS hard like MSAA (was running MSAA on off, with TAA high and FXAA on). I've booted other games and they're running fine. I can't think of anything else that has changed recently, besides some Windows updates perhaps?

Anyone else experiencing similar issues out of the blue recently, or have any suggestions? Thanks!

[Zwut]

I'm using an 8700k and a 2080, I havent noticed any difference in the last cpl of week regarding texture differences, draw distances or lighting. I'm inclined to say GPU issue but as you said, nothing happening in other games.

Could you take a screenshot or two?

[Mr [Gh0st]]

Hey,

I noticed some performances differences lately, like you are.
I though the problem came from my computer, but it's quite possible that it's actually coming from updates of the game

I wish I could downgrade the game to see if there is any differences. But doesn't seems possible :/

[🦝𝓟𝓗𝓘𝓛𝓛🦝]

Looks like your save got corrupted, try starting a new game, happend to me as well thank god in the start of the game, usually that happens when you set the settings to more than your gpu can handle, cheers ihope this will resolve your problem

[GOD RAYS ON ULTRA™]

Have you tried geforce experience? Windows has a new graphic option and maybe you enabled it? It's called hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling and I run with it off. The reason is it was causing me issues with performance and graphics.

Leaving this option off is a must for me so maybe you can try it? I always let geforce experience optimize this game. It just works really well for me and my graphics look spectacular. You have to make sure you're not forcing any settings elsewhere like nvidia control panel. That should always be default for this game.

What ram do you have?

[Sambanch]

Originally posted by ANTI-MASKER™:

Have you tried geforce experience? Windows has a new graphic option and maybe you enabled it? It's called hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling and I run with it off. The reason is it was causing me issues with performance and graphics.

Leaving this option off is a must for me so maybe you can try it? I always let geforce experience optimize this game. It just works really well for me and my graphics look spectacular. You have to make sure you're not forcing any settings elsewhere like nvidia control panel. That should always be default for this game.

What ram do you have?

I don't have the new Windows 10 version 2004 update available yet (still running 1909), so it's not the new feature you mentioned-- but thanks, I hadn't heard about that!

I did do the "optimize" in GeForce Experience, just to see if that would fix anything. It did seem to help... Maybe as Phill Modder mentioned, something got out-of-whack trying to push the graphics a little too hard. Not sure about that though, as it was running decently before and the settings now I think are virtually the same.

RAM: 32gb of TridentZ RGB 3200, so no bottlenecks there I shouldn't think.

[Zwut]

I just did a little tweaking to force out a little more fps and clarity, my actual settings below, this may help. I get a consistent 75-93fps in most areas, with the only real stutters in the stupid places the game troubles to render quickly (Strawberry/ Valentine station).

Resolution 1440
Refresh Rate 165 (Go as high as you can)
Screen type - Full Screen (although I do switch to Borderless window sometimes.)
Vsync Off
Triple buffering Off


Textures - Ultra
Anistropic Filtering x4
Lighting - Ultra
Global Illumination - Ultra
Shadows - Medium
Far Shadows - Medium
Screen space ambient Occlusion - High
Reflection Quality - Medium
Mirror Quality - Medium
Water Quality - Medium
Volumetrics (Custom - adjust in advanced)
Particle Quality - High
Tesselation Quality - High
TAA - Medium
FXAA - Off
MSAA - Off

Graphics API Used - Vulkan
Near Volumetrics - High
Far Volumetrics - Medium
Volumetric Lighting - High
Unlocked Volumetric Raymarch - Off
Particle Lighting Quality - High
Soft Shadows - High
Grass Shadows - Low
Long Shadows - Off
Full res screen space ambient occlusion - Off
Water Refraction - Medium
Water Reflection - Medium
Water Physics - 50%
Resolution Scale - Off
TAA Sharpening - point 20 from 0
Motion Blur - Off
Reflection MSAA Off
Geometry LoD - 2/5
Grass LoD - 4/10
Tree Quality - High
Parralax Occlusion mapping quality - Med
Decal Quality - Med
Fur Quality - Medium
Tree Tesselation - Off

I'll be doing some gameplay tests and tweaking further for a couple of hours from now, i'll edit the post with any new changes and state completed at the end when done so.

Edited after 1hr testing:

In Saint Denis there are 2 points in the benchmark I call the ♥♥♥♥ zones, the first is as you leave the store and the game switches from indoor to outdoor, the second is the corner you turn prior to having the wagon with the npc's chase you. This seems to put a heavy toll on your gpu and I was occasionally seeing hiccups (a drop from high fps to low 60's possibly 50's).

I benched most settings on DX12 due to the perceived higher overall fps but these issues did not occur on Vulkan API.

In each benchmark Zone as follows:

DX12
Snow - Min FPS seen 78- Max FPS seen 86 - No hiccups
Swamp - Min FPS seen 88 - Max FPS seen 87 - No hiccups
Sunset - Min FPS seen 98 - Max FPS seen 101 - No hiccups
Valentine - Min FPS seen 76 - Max FPS seen 80 - No hiccups
Saint Denis - Min FPS seen 74 - Max FPS seen 97 - ♥♥♥♥ zone 1 hit 68, ♥♥♥♥ zone 2 hit 57
Benchmark actual results: MinFPS 18/ MaxFPS 128/ Avg 82

Vulkan
Snow - Min FPS seen 78 - Max FPS seen 85 - No hiccups
Swamp - Min FPS seen 90 - Max FPS seen 97 - No hiccups
Sunset - Min FPS seen 100 - Max FPS seen 102 - No hiccups
Valentine - Min FPS seen 80 - Max FPS seen 85 - No hiccups
Saint Denis - Min FPS seen 78 - Max FPS seen 94 - No hiccups ( No... really, even the ♥♥♥♥ zones stayed stable)
Benchmark actual results: MinFPS 69/ MaxFPS 107/ Avg 87

System Specs:
Intel i7 8700k Stock (Probably better results when I reapply the overclock.)
16Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR4 at 3000Mhz
Asus Nvidia RTX 2080 (Not super)
SanDisk Ultra 2 480Gb SSD install location.
Asus VG27AQ Monitor at 1440p with Gsync enabled.

After a final bit of 'in game' testing using the same settings and switching between Vulkan and DX12, although Vulkan gives the better overall bench results, it still doesnt perform as well as DX12 with free flowing images. I havent yet noticed the hiccup issue at the Valentine station or in Strawberry at night. So for now I will be sticking with the above settings, in DX12.

[RecklesFlam1ngo]

Sorry for necro, but somehow even on a mix of high/ultra @1080p RDR2 looks worse than it did on my damn slim ps4. Very confused

[$2 Hero]

I think it's in your head. I've had this same feeling. This usually happens because you play a different game for long period of time with different framerate and crispyness.

My game is looking/running better than ever.

That being said maybe it defaulted or something got changed because of a bug. Double check settings and then trust it. Run Benchmark.