Rockstar apologises for Red Dead Redemption 2 PC launch, new patch tries to fix stuttering

Red Dead Redemption 2
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Rockstar has posted an apology of sorts after what’s been a frankly disastrous launch week (and change) for Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC. It couldn’t have been more different to GTA V’s PC launch, which all went swimmingly, from what we can remember.

Red Dead Redemption 2 has been plagued by performance issues (see here for top tips on optimising RDR2’s PC performance) such as stuttering, low frame rates, crashes to desktop, Rockstar Games Launcher problems, and even failing to boot entirely.

Rockstar claims it’s been working as quickly as possible to address these issues and has published a total of three PC patches for Red Dead Redemption 2 already, which is three more patches than Nier Automata has ever got on PC. The latest of these is targeted at those experiencing the stuttering issue, which Rockstar believes is a result of special combinations of Nvidia drivers, GeForce graphics cards, and certain CPUs.

By Rockstar’s own admission, this latest patch doesn’t totally resolve the issue but it should help in the short-term. For the long-term, Rockstar is working with Nvidia on a further patch which will totally eliminate the issue.

“We sincerely apologize for this temporary inconvenience and will update you as soon as we have more information to share – we want everyone to be able to experience Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC as we intended as soon as possible,” wrote Rockstar Games is a message to the PC gaming community. “If you are experiencing any issues that are impacting your experience with Red Dead Redemption 2 for any reason, please start by first visiting the troubleshooting page on our Support site for assistance.”

It’s words which all ring hollow to me because, well, I still can’t run it even after this patch. Nothing in this statement even mentions the issue myself and many others are having, namely Red Dead Redemption 2 fails to boot and crashes out with the error “Red Dead Redemption 2 exited unexpectedly”. I’d love to be getting slightly iffy performance, that’d be a whole lot better than what I’m getting right now, which is precisely nothing.

Ah well, onward, we guess. Plenty of folks seem to be running the game just fine but it’s obviously the ones that don’t which garner the most headlines. We’ve had several patches now which have tackled some high-profile issues, but a few ones such as this still remain.

As a little make-peace, Rockstar is offering PC fans who play Red Dead Redemption 2 this week through to the holiday season a Red Dead Online care package (provisions and ammo) as well as the Prieto Poncho. This stuff’s already been made so it’s not like it costs them anything but it’s better than nothing.

How are the rest of you faring with Red Dead Redemption 2? Anyone else still struggling to even get the game running? Let us know!

UPDATE: Rockstar has reached out to me in regards to the ‘Exited Unexpectedly Error” so I’ll update this piece if they can help me find a solution.