When Red Dead Redemption 2 released back in 2018, it was heralded as one of the most beautiful games due to its extremely detailed graphics. But with all of that eye candy came an immense cost to hardware performance, with the game bringing even the most powerful GPUs at the time to their knees. Now, no longer.
red dead redemption 2 steam
Following the official release of NVIDIA's DLSS for RDR2 last year, a new mod for the game has unofficially introduced AMD's competing FSR 2.0. As per GameRant, this mod replaces the notoriously hardware-locked DLSS with FSR 2.0, which allows more people with non-RTX GPUs to get some free extra performance out of the game.
The mod is already available for download from Nexus Mods if you want to try it out. Installing the mod into Red Dead Redemption 2 is pretty simple, as long as you follow these steps to the letter:
- MAKE SURE that your game is set to DX12, NOT Vulkan. Do this by going to the Red Dead Redemotion 2 graphics page, unlocking Advanced Settings, finding the Graphics API option, and picking DirectX 12.
- Go to your game's system.xml file in Documents\Rockstar Games\Red Dead Redemption 2\Settings\system.xml and find the line "asyncComputeEnabled." Set that line to "false."
- Download the mod and unzip its contents into your RDR2 executable directory
- Launch the game and pick DLSS, as it would've been replaced by FSR 2.0 by the time you install the mod
The mod was made possible by AMD ensuring that FSR 2.0, just like FSR 1.0, is open-source. This means that anyone with the right knowledge and tools can include it in any game that doesn't officially support the tech at the moment. And it's also worth noting that this mod is actually based on a similar one made for Cyberpunk 2077.
That mod was created by modder PotatoOfDoom, who uploaded the files to GitHub recently (via WCCFTech). As such, all bugs and future updates rely on PotatoOfDoom's work, so be sure to watch out for that if the FSR 2.0 implementation in copy of Red Dead Redemption 2 is a bit wonky.
red dead redemption 2 steam
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What's Taking AMD So Long To Bring FSR 2.0 To More Games?
By this time, a good amount of games looking to add AMD's second-gen upscaler will have to rely on the open-source community (i.e. modders). That's because so far, only three games can be played with 2nd gen FSR right now: Deathloop, God Of War, and Farming Simulator 22. There are way more games already supporting FSR 1.0, though. But in comparison, NVIDIA has added DLSS to several hundred games, as per RockPaperShotgun.
Team Red, however, did promise more games are getting official support for their new upscaling technology. As of early June, Digital Trends reports 10 more games coming with FSR 2.0 implementation:
- Asterigos
- Delysium
- EVE Online
- Forspoken
- Grounded
- Hitman 3
- Microsoft Flight Simulator
- NiShuiHan
- Overprime
- Perfect World Remake
- Super People
- Swordsman Remake
- Unknown 9: Awakening
RDR2, as you can see, is still not there - even if it remains one of the most hardware-demanding games out there. So it's good that 2nd-gen FSR is open-source, then.
Related: God Of War PC Port Receives Official Support For AMD's FSR 2.0
