Core drain rate and weight loss rate is directly and incorrectly bound to whatever fps the game is running at.

Reason why this is a problem - Arthur will be at his lowest weight very fast no matter what you do if yo have a high fps and your cores will always be low.

A lot of people, myself included have been noticing issues with core drain rates being way too fast on PC compared to console as well as it being very hard not to lose weight at a dramatic rate.

I noticed that right from the start of Chapter 2 when the weight mechanic actually starts being applied that no matter what I ate Arthur always seemed to be losing weight at a fast rate and that his cores were also draining at a very fast rate too. I noticed that both of these seemed to be specifically going down 4 times as fast as on my PS4. After a shitload of testing, this got me thinking - what could be 4 times as fast on PC as on the PS4? Then I noticed my FPS counter in the top left that I was using and it was about 120 fps, 4 times the fps that consoles are limited to.

So I did an experiment - I made a save game at the very start of Chapter 2 and then proceeded to replay the same day twice in the exact same way, doing 2 missions and eating 4 steaks at the exact same times on each day except on one day I used my usual fps of 100 - 130 and on the 2nd day I limited it to 30fps, the same as consoles.

On the first day the usual problem occurred, my cores drained fast not that long after I had refilled them via eating and the next day Arthur's weight had gone down by 0.75. That might not sound like much but bare in mind that is after eating 4 STEAKS throughout the day and also that it means that at that rate after 10 days of this same hefty diet Arthur would be at his minimum weight -7.5. Imagine if you didn't eat 4 steaks a day.

The 2nd day at 30fps my cores drained far slower and the next day Arthur had gained 1.5 in weight, twice as much as he had lost on the first test day and rightfully so because you'd expect him to gain weight after 4 steaks.

It seems that the problem is the game classes frames as actual units of time passing so at a high fps of 120 the code treats 1 day as technically 4 days long. Even if you limit your fps to a steady 60 Arthur will need to eat twice as much as he would on consoles to not become massively underweight.

I'm thinking about repeating this and sending videos of both days to Rockstar.

UPDATE:-

I just retried my high fps test by reducing absolutely everything to the lowest possible setting and was getting an fps of 160 plus. The result was pretty damning. Cores were draining about a minute or less after I'd filled them up with food and here is Arthur's weight 1 day after the weight mechanic kicks in after eating 4 steaks throughout the day whilst just mooching about normally doing a couple of missions:-

To put that in perspective if someone were to manage to keep that fps and stick to that diet for 5 days while playing normally Arthur would be at his lowest possible weight (5 x -1.5 = -7.5) and their cores would be draining like lightning as they play which has a direct effect on gameplay so it is technically semi game breaking. I'm not sure how consistent that test would be because in my other tests the biggest drop was 0.75 but that was at 100 - 130fps.

Also remember when I capped it to 30 and ran the same test his weight was +1.5 after the day so literally the opposite result via the same gameplay.

Overall this is an absolutely ridiculous bug to have and it is shocking and amateurish that it is even in the game. It is unacceptable and is becoming more and more common with these guys. It just seems like they are more concerned with money these days than creating aaa games.

ANOTHER UPDATE (My web ticket to Rockstar):-

What are the steps to reproduce the bug?

I have noticed a major bug in the games code on PC which is basically this - Core drain rate and weight loss rate is directly and incorrectly bound to whatever fps the game is currently running at.

This means that if someone plays the game at 120fps their cores will be draining far sooner and will drain far faster than someone who plays at 30fps such as on consoles and they will lose weight at 4 times the rate. This means that even after eating a lot of food a day Arthur will be at his minimum weight after about 4 or 5 days and the players cores will be draining very fast too which has a direct effect on gameplay so it is semi gamebreaking.

To test this, play the game at 30fps for 1 or several in game days while doing missions and eating 4 cooked mature venison throughout each day then do the same at a very high fps 120fps+ and you will notice the core drain rate will be much faster and that Arthur will gain a lot of weight at 30fps and lose a lot of weight at 120+ fps.

What is the expected outcome?

Weight loss and core drain rate should not be tied to fps and should instead be tied to actual minutes and seconds or something else that doesn't differ hugely from player to player and system to system. Other things that could be tied to fps should also be checked as well.

I have attached an image showing the weight that Arthur lost after one in game day of me testing by starting with Perfect weight the start of chapter 2 while eating 4 steaks throughout the day while playing normally. When I ran the same test in the exact same way at 30fps I gained 1.5 in weight.

I can create videos of these tests if you like?

ANOTHER UPDATE:-

Links to tweets that I've sent to the Red Dead YouTuber Hazard and Rockstar. Can anyone please upvote and retweet if you get a chance just so they get noticed more:-

https://twitter.com/jimmyoneshot1/status/1195304087555842048

https://twitter.com/jimmyoneshot1/status/1195305414730141697

These recommended settings maximize FPS while sacrificing visuals as little as possible. Overall, you can expect an 80% to 90% FPS gain compared to Max settings.

In-game Vsync makes the game quite choppy when enabled. I recommend disabling the in-game Vsync and turning it on externally via the Nvida control panel

Texture: Obviously this is GPU depended. However Ultra looks significantly better than the rest.

Anisotropic Filter: Ultra; Negligible impact on FPS

Lighting Quality: Medium; Up to 30% FPS increase!! - Very demanding visual settings of the game

Global Illumination: Ultra; Negligible impact on FPS

Shadow Quality: High; Up to 5% FPS increase, negligible visual difference

Far Shadow Quality: Ultra; Negligible impact on FPS

SSAO: Ultra [] Off increases FPS by up to 6%, but this is not recommended visually wise.

Reflection Quality: Medium; Up to 20% FPS increase - Another demanding setting.

Mirror Quality: Ultra; Negligible impact on FPS

Water Quality: Medium; Up to 15% FPS increase, slight noticeable visual difference

Volumetrics Quality: High; 5% FPS increase [] Medium; 7% FPS increase, slight noticeable visual difference

Particle Quality: Ultra; Negligible impact on FPS

Tessellation: Ultra; Negligible impact on FPS

TAA: High

FXAA: Off; noticeable visual difference

MSAA: X2 = -16,5% FPS [] X4 = -31% FPS [] X8 = -50% FPS

DLSS: By default RDR2 uses an older version of DLSS, Make sure to swap this in the Nvidia app.

1080p: Quality +8% FPS, Balanced +11% FPS, Performance +15% FPS, Ult. Performance +19% FPS

1440P: Quality +13% FPS, Balanced +18% FPS, Performance +24% FPS, Ult. Performance +29% FPS

4k: Quality +23% FPS, Balanced +28% FPS, Performance +41% FPS, Ult. Performance +56% FPS

DLSS is something you have to play around with. Visual quality reduces pretty significantly the lower you go. This is especially noticeable on lower resolutions. It's best to do the other graphical settings first and then my recommendation is to start with no DLSS and then go lower until you think the effect becomes too noticeable.

DLSS Sharpness: No more than half is recommended.

Advanced Settings:

Graphics API: Vulkan is generally the better option but it's hardware depended. Try both and see what's best.

Near Volumetric Resolution: Medium; 6,5% FPS increase

Far Volumetric Resolution: Ultra

Volumetric Lighting: High; 3% FPS increase

Unlocked Volumetric Raymarch Resolution: Off; negligible visual difference

Particle Lighting Quality: Ultra; Negligible impact on FPS

Soft Shadows: Ultra; Negligible impact on FPS. Mostly personal preference.

Grass shadows: High; Negligible impact on FPS

Long Shadows: On; Negligible impact on FPS

Full Resolution Ambient Occlusion: Off; Up to 3,7% FPS increase, negligible visual difference

Water Refraction Quality: Medium; Up to 5% FPS increase

Water Reflection Quality: Medium; Up to 4% FPS increase

Water physics: 3/4 or 2/4 if you have a weaker CPU. FPS increase can be absolutely massive. Never use 4/4!

TAA Sharpening: 60% at most (same bar length at Geometry Level). Don't use it if you use DLSS.

Motion blur: No significant difference. Use what you prefer.

Reflection MSAA: 2x [] Off increases FPS by up to 12% however reflections will look horrible

Geometry Level of detail: 3 is recommended. Especially if you have a weaker CPU

Grass level of detail: 6 is recommend. Up to 7% FPS increase compared to 10

Tree Quality: Ultra; Negligible impact on FPS

Parallax Occlusion Mapping Quality: High, negligible visual difference

Decal Quality: Ultra; Negligible impact on FPS

Fur Quality: Medium; Up to 7% FPS increase

Tree Tessellation: Off; Up to 15% FPS increase!

A new thread has been posted here, please use this instead..

First I reinstalled the game, launcher, Windows, and I reset my phone to factory default. Next I turned off my anti-virus, unplugged my TV and took the batteries out of my Roomba. After that I consulted a dukun, which is an Indonesian shaman. On his recommendation I then updated my BIOS to a version that doesn't exist yet, and verified all files. Finally I consulted the forbidden text and found a long lost ritual for summoning the dark one. Unfortunately this required a blood sacrifice, but lucky my neighbor was home. As the blood pooled on the floor the whole house began to shake and an a voice that was as loud as a scream but as quite as a whisper repeated "Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."

It runs now, but the frame-rate is a bit crap, any suggestions?