Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) – Freezing and Stuttering fix

Gaming Guides Red Dead Redemption 2 | January 14, 2020 | By

Are you experiencing random freezes and stutters while playing Red Dead Redemption 2 on you PC? Don’t worry we got you.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) – Freezing and Stuttering fix

Why is the game constantly freezing and stuttering

At this point of time issues like these have become very common to us. Most of the AAA titles released on PC in 2019 have not been able to make it through the launch day without performance issues. Same is the case with the PC version of Red Dead Redemption 2. Though the console version of the game was and is excellent. The game came with a huge number of performance related issues on the PC platform. Players have started complaining about lag, various bugs and glitches, crashes, exited unexpectedly error, being stuck at decrypting, launcher failed to initialize error, etc.

And players who have somehow managed to start the game are now complaining about freezing and stuttering problems. This is probably happening due to lack of proper optimization.

How to fix this issue

I was also facing these issues and let me tell you, I am playing this game on the decent gaming rig. My main specifications are:

  • RTX 2060 Super
  • Intel i7 8700
  • 16 GB DDR4 3000mhz RAM
  • 256 GB SSD
  • 2 TB 7200 RPM HDD

So as you can see even my medium-high end gaming PC was experiencing constant freezing and stuttering. Here are the few fixes I tried. I am not sure which one did the trick so I am going to list all of them.

Change API

I am 99% sure that the freezes were happening due to the Vulkan API. There was a similar problem in the game World War Z where I would get extremely low frame rates after switching from DirectX to Vulkan. Here is how to change you API:

  • Go Settings
  • Click on Graphics
  • Look for the setting that says Graphics API
  • Change it to DirectX 12

Lower your in-game graphics settings a bit

You can try toning your graphics or video settings a bit. Here is our complete guide to best or optimal graphics settings for Red Dead Redemption 2. We have tried various combinations and decided to go with the one that suits our medium end gaming rig the most.

If you think this guide had helped you then let us know in the comment section below. Also, if you are facing problems that are not mentioned on this article then also you can comment below. We will try come out with a fix. Good luck!

That’s all folks!

Last Updated on January 14, 2020