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

13 thoughts on “Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) – Freezing and Stuttering fix”

  2. Daniel

    For me it’s the same thing, I get 60 FPS most of the time then it freezes and audio stutters every few seconds-minutes, but in between these moments of painful freezing and stuttering I get a clean smooth 60FPS, at first I thought maybe RAM but I have 16GBs of RAM so it can’t really be that, and I have a 6GB 1060 graphics card

    Reply
    1. Shoaib

      The recommended GPU to play this game at 1080p 60fps on medium-settings is RTX 2060 which provides almost double the performance when compared to a GTX 1060. So you might have to lower your graphics settings a bit.

      Reply
      1. Jonas

        Where did you get this info from? On https://www.rockstargames.com/reddeadredemption2/pc it says that a GTX 1060 is recommended. I have a

        * 6GB GTX 1060,
        * 16GB DDR4 3200MHz,
        * 5400RPM HDD for the game,
        * 256GB NVMe SSD for the OS,
        * Core i5 6500.

        Most of the time my CPU is at 40-60% on all cores, but on every freeze it spikes to 100% on all cores. My GPU und HDD are not even close to being maxed out.

        Reply
  3. burnerX

    I have an i5 6500, 16gb ram, a gtx 1070 gpu, windows 10 on a ssd and rdr2 on another ssd.
    I tried everything, from the highest settings to the lowest, from vulcan to directx, and my game still hangs at least once every minute.

    Conclusion: issue is with the game, not the rig or settings.

    Reply
  4. AmShaegar

    Yes, the issue is clearly with the game. I can sometimes play for 10-15 minutes without any problems while having a constant smooth fps. But then the game will randomly begin to stutter and freeze and become unplayable until I restart it. Then I can play properly again for a few minutes until the problem reappears.
    The CPU usage never goes above 60%, the GPU usage is at 99% on high-ultra settings (as expected), and about 60-70% usage on medium-hight. The RAM memory is also only half full. So there’s obviously enough power and resources available, but this stutter/freezing problem stills occur no matter what I do.

    Reply
  5. Jesse Conklin

    This helped A little but I still have freezing. I tried lowering my graphics settings to bare minimum and it has the same amount of freezing as ultra settings.

    Reply

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *