My goal is to make this guide as simple to follow and as accurate as possible, it's good to remember that we all make mistakes, even those who push to be perfect.

If this guide helped you it would be heavily appreciated if you liked, favorited or commented on it!

If you're feeling charitable feel free to give me some steam points ~ check below to learn how!

Red Dead Redemption 2 can be a very demanding game, so I expect this guide may be used quite a bit. This section is based on community input and just testing on my own, the below settings are what I found to be the best. If you disagree please comment respectfully and let me know so I can test more!

Textures - As high as your VRAM can handle. I use Ultra.
Anisotropic Filtering - 16X
Lighting Quality - Medium
Global Illumination - High
Shadow Quality - High
Far Shadow Quality - Ultra
SSAO - High
Reflection Quality - Medium
Mirror Quality - High
Water Quality - Medium
Volumetrics Quality - Medium
Particle Quality - Ultra
Tesselation Quality - Ultra
FSR 2.0 (AMD) - This could lead to a ERR_GFX_STATE crash and error and it may create ghosting with camera movement. I recommend setting to Quality. Anything below although great for performance will affect image quality.
DLSS (Nvidia) - Quality
TAA - High
FXAA - On
MSAA - Off

API - VULKAN is best for performance and if you run into crashes and/or errors you can swap back to DX12. This very much depends on your system though.
Near Volumetric - Medium
Far Volumetric - Medium
Volumetric Lighting Quality - Medium
Unlocked VRR - On
Particle Lighting - Ultra
Soft Shadows - Ultra
Grass Shadows - High
Long Shadows - On
Full Resolution SSAO/b] - Off
Water Refraction - Medium
Water Reflection - Medium
Water Physics - 2/4 (Half)
Resolution Scaling - Off
TAA Sharpening - Any or Default
Motion Blur - Off
MSAA Reflections - Off
Geometry LOD - 5/5
Grass LOD - 5/10
Tree Quality - Ultra
Parallax Occlusion - High
Decal Quality - Ultra
Fur Quality - High
Tree Tesselation - Off

Target: 720p / 30fps
Texture Quality: Ultra
Antiostropic Filtering: x4
Lighting Quality: Medium
Global Illumination Quality: Low
Shadow Quality: High
Far Shadow Quality: Ultra
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: Ultra
Reflection Quality: Medium
Mirror Quality: Ultra
Water Quality: Custom
Volumetric Quality: Custom
Particle Quality: Ultra
Tessellation Quality: High
TAA: Medium for better anti-aliasing - off for less blur (Subjective)
FXAA: On (Subjective)
MSAA: Off

Near Volumetric Resolution: Low
Far Volumetric Resolution: Low
Volumetric Lighting Quality: High
Unlocked Volumetric Raymarch Resolution: Off
Particle Lighting Quality: Low
Soft Shadows: High
Grass Shadows: Medium
Long Shadows: On
Full Resolution Screen Space Ambient: Off
Water Refraction Quality: Medium
Water Reflection Quality: High
Water Physics: Half
TAA Sharpening: On (The value is subjective)
Motion Blur: Preference
Reflection MSAA: Off
Geometry Level of Detail: 5
Grass Level of Detail: 4
Tree Quality: Ultra
Parallax Occlusion Mapping: Ultra
Decal Quality: Medium
Fur Quality: High
Tree Tesselation: Off

Red Dead Redemption 2 uses a very old version of DLSS unfortunately, however this can be fixed by installing DLSS 3.8.10 and replacing the old version with this version. For Nvidia users this can lead to significant performance gains without the issues the old version suffers from.

Note: This seems to only work for the Steam and Epic Games versions.

1. Download the NVIDIA DLSS DLL[www.techpowerup.com] file. Make sure you select the latest version, this may not match identically with the image below:


































2. Move the nvngx_dlss.dll file to the game path. This is normally located at:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Red Dead Redemption 2
3. If you are asked to replace a file in the destination please select "Yes"

Anyone who has widescreen may notice the game has letterboxing and pillarboxing in some parts of the game. Personally, as a widescreen user, this doesn't really bother me, but it may bother others. Below are several fixes to remove these. Please note this may lead to graphical bugs.

There are two fixes you can use, the second one must be launched every single time you open the game which is it's major downside, however it provides more than just a letterbox fix. The choice is entirely yours since both of these work and do what they say they will do.

This version is a few simple downloads and does not require to be opened every time you want to play the game. You can just download this and it should work.

1. Download Script Hook RDR2[dev-c.com]
2. Follow the download guide located at the above link.
3. Download the No Letter Box Black Bars (Script Mod)[www.nexusmods.com]
4. Unzip the mod download and copy the .asi to the game path. This is normally located at:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Red Dead Redemption 2


This version must be opened every time you want to play the game, however it provides more fixes.

1. Download the Letterbox Fix, Pillarbox Fix and FOV hack mod[community.pcgamingwiki.com]
2. Enter the password, it is pcgw and load the .exe whenever you want to play

Note: You may get a false virus flag. If this makes you uncomfortable see the other method.

There are two different versions of this fix, depending on what you prefer. I will list them both below and explain each method in-depth and what they do. If you run into any issues please comment.

Skip Intro Videos

1. Download the Legal Screen Skip mod[www.nexusmods.com]
2. Unpack the archive and copy the files to the game path. This is normally located at:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Red Dead Redemption 2

Skip Intro Videos + Main Menu and load into Story immediately

1. Download the Legal and Main Menu Skip mod[www.nexusmods.com]
2. Extract the x64 folder from the zip file into to the game path. This is normally located at:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Red Dead Redemption 2
3. If you are asked to merge please select "Yes"

Donations would be greatly appreciated, thanks so much for reading my guide!!


If you have any questions regarding ANY of the above fixes or content please feel free to leave a comment below or add me on Steam and DM me. I also recommend checking out my other guides here to see if there are any guides for games you actively play or would like to play!