Red Dead Redemption 2 Gets Fixes from Rockstar Games During Rocky Launch

Red Dead Redemption 2
(Image credit: Rockstar Games)

Updated, 11/6/19, 6:25am PT: Rockstar announced yesterday that it released a new version of the Rockstar Games Launcher to address numerous problems affecting Red Dead Redemption 2.  Rockstar said it fixed issues with the launcher failing to initialize, getting stuck during the preload decryption process and showing a “The Rockstar Games Launcher exited unexpectedly” message when starting the game. The company also said it fixed issues with opening the Rockstar Games Launcher or Red Dead Redemption 2 itself from the Epic Games Launcher.

Original article below:

Red Dead Redemption 2 arrived on PC today. Its launch should have been heralded (console gamers have been singing the game's praises since October 2018) but instead many players have reported crippling bugs that prevented it from even starting. Rockstar Games responded to those complaints, saying that many of the issues appear to have been caused by people relying on outdated graphics drivers.

Some issues with outdated drivers were to be expected--Nvidia and AMD only released their drivers optimized for the game on Monday. They don't appear to be the only cause of Red Dead Redemption 2's issues, however, because some players have reported bugs even after installing the most recent drivers. Complaints about unsteady frame rates, issues with Rockstar's launcher and other problems abound.

Reddit user "Baggzio" claimed earlier today that Rockstar's support team said an emergency patch would be released to address some of these problems. The customer support team's official Twitter account hasn't mentioned an emergency patch, though, at least at time of writing. Instead, the account has primarily urged frustrated PC gamers to submit tickets describing their issues directly to the devs.

It has been difficult to take some of the complaints seriously. A few people seem upset that Red Dead Redemption 2 can't run at 60 frames per second at Ultra settings with a 4K resolution even when it's being played on a system featuring the RTX 2080 Ti. While that might be frustrating, that issue is not exclusive to Rockstar and might depend on what game you're playing.

Rockstar had an extra year to develop the PC version of the game, yet its launch has been plagued with issues. It's bad enough that Steam users might actually have dodged a bullet after being forced to miss out on the game's pre-order bonuses and to wait until December to play it.

Nathaniel Mott
Freelance News & Features Writer

Nathaniel Mott is a freelance news and features writer for Tom's Hardware US, covering breaking news, security, and the silliest aspects of the tech industry.

  • InvalidError
    Does this mean that Rockstar has access to time travel so it can develop games using drivers from a year or two into the future to the point that they require day-0 driver updates to actually work because anything less is already too old for support?
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    Unacceptable excuse, period. Trying to shift the blame, of their incompetence.
    Reply
  • digitalgriffin
    InvalidError said:
    Does this mean that Rockstar has access to time travel so it can develop games using drivers from a year or two into the future to the point that they require day-0 driver updates to actually work because anything less is already too old for support?

    Kinda sorta

    They report issues they experience to AMD/NVIDIA and they get beta drivers with fixes. But AMD/NVIDIA has to make sure the fixes don't bork anything else, so AMD/NVIDIA holds onto them until it goes through full QA.

    We've done parallel releases like this with very alpha software drivers during development.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    logainofhades said:
    Unacceptable excuse, period. Trying to shift the blame, of their incompetence.

    I am somewhat happy this happened. Mainly because they delayed the Steam release only. I am so tired of seeing it. I know they did it to help boost direct sales but I wonder why it was only delayed on Steam.

    Either way I will probably skip this one. May get GTA 6 but then again if I have to use Rockstars launcher I might skip it as well.
    Reply
  • arnemaes
    Agesa 1.0.0.4 bios released few days back fixes a lot of the issues (it did for me too)
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    InvalidError said:
    Does this mean that Rockstar has access to time travel so it can develop games using drivers from a year or two into the future to the point that they require day-0 driver updates to actually work because anything less is already too old for support?
    They make console games.
    The whole point of getting x86 on consoles and DX12 on PC was so that devs wouldn't have to worry about porting anymore (not that they did before) does it run on consoles? = They did their job.
    Whoever is in charge of Dx12/vulcan on windows is the one that is not on top of things.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    TerryLaze said:
    They make console games.
    The whole point of getting x86 on consoles and DX12 on PC was so that devs wouldn't have to worry about porting anymore (not that they did before) does it run on consoles? = They did their job.
    Whoever is in charge of Dx12/vulcan on windows is the one that is not on top of things.

    Not even close. Consoles having x86 hardware only takes out one side of the equation. The consoles still run custom kernals and OS versions. That requires porting.

    Rockstar is the one responsible for programming their game and verifying it is working properly on Windows.
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    jimmysmitty said:
    I know they did it to help boost direct sales but I wonder why it was only delayed on Steam.
    People look up Steam reviews to help determine whether a game is worth buying. They probably knew the game was going to be a shoddy port prior to launch, and thought it might help reduce the amount of negative publicity. Or maybe they just got some Epic money to keep it off Steam for a while.
    Reply
  • boju
    Lol, i wonder if these issues relate to the wide spread problems GTA5 is having lately...
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    jimmysmitty said:
    Not even close. Consoles having x86 hardware only takes out one side of the equation. The consoles still run custom kernals and OS versions. That requires porting.
    No that only requires re compiling for a different target and if they stick to some general rules that can be done without re writing any of the code.
    You can see it in a lot of games where there is not even a way to close the game because on consoles the home button gives you that option.
    Reply