News Rockstar Blames Red Dead Redemption 2's PC Issues on Outd Drivers

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.

I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't both. Everyone knows Steams reviews are big, especially since the majority buy through Steam on PC. They may have known there would be launch issues and wanted to avoid it.

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.

That is not correct at all. The PS4 uses a custom Linux kernel which is completely different from Windows. You cannot take a program compiled to run on Linux and use it on Windows if it has the same base hardware. The XB1 uses a custom 10 kernel and has custom x86 hardware.

Games written for a console are also written more directly to the hardware while Windows still relies heavily on APIs.

Even without that Rockstar is responsible for optimizing and fixing their game on whatever system they have it on.
 

McGaz

Prominent
Feb 15, 2019
28
6
535
My experience is that the game isn't shoddy at all. It looked and played great.

The big issue is that they did a world-wide launch at the same time. My installer didn't receive the update straight away and after restarting it, it failed to load for about 20 minutes. I'm sure they essentially DDoS'd their own services by making such a stupid decision.

A timezone based launch should have been used. Midnight for everyone and if people use a VPN or whatever, so be it. Waiting for most of the world to be awake hammering their services was a bad decision and wound people up before they could get into the game.
 

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator
Moral of the story, for me anyway, is don't buy a game, at launch.
Given how many games are DLC and microtransaction orgies where stuff that should have been in the initial launch get sold separately these days, I find it increasingly difficult to get excited about anything. And with so many single-player games requiring online services for no real reason, there is also the constant threat of games just going poof on the studio/publisher's whim, not a fan of that either.
 
  • Like
Reactions: digitalgriffin
Given how many games are DLC and microtransaction orgies where stuff that should have been in the initial launch get sold separately these days, I find it increasingly difficult to get excited about anything. And with so many single-player games requiring online services for no real reason, there is also the constant threat of games just going poof on the studio/publisher's whim, not a fan of that either.

A lot of it is to track metrics of performance, use, as well as bug occurrence. It's all written in the license agreements. But I agree. You should be able to play offline without issue, and metric tracking should be an opt-in only. I would opt out most of the time because I don't know what data they are truly collecting, storing, using, or disseminating to others.
 
Last edited:
That is not correct at all. The PS4 uses a custom Linux kernel which is completely different from Windows. You cannot take a program compiled to run on Linux and use it on Windows if it has the same base hardware.
While this is what should be happening in a perfect world it hasn't happened since the 90ties...
Devs do not code for a specific OS or for specific hardware they code for the game engine they are using,which is rage for rockstar which I know nothing about, other popular engines like unity for example have compilers even for smart phones.
As long as you follow the rules of the engine you code the game once and then just compile to a new target.
https://unity3d.com/unity/features/multiplatform
Build once, deploy anywhere
 
  • Like
Reactions: TJ Hooker
While this is what should be happening in a perfect world it hasn't happened since the 90ties...
Devs do not code for a specific OS or for specific hardware they code for the game engine they are using,which is rage for rockstar which I know nothing about, other popular engines like unity for example have compilers even for smart phones.
As long as you follow the rules of the engine you code the game once and then just compile to a new target.
https://unity3d.com/unity/features/multiplatform

I know and understand that. But that does not mean it will be bug free. Compilers are not perfect. Once compiled for Windows they have to test it and verify the game works. If there is a bug, and there will be bugs in a game as large as RDR2, they have to go back, fix the code and recompile the new build and hope no new bugs appear, they will.

They can't just compile once and deploy to any system. They have to pick what kind of system they are compiling to then optimize for that system.
 
I know and understand that. But that does not mean it will be bug free. Compilers are not perfect. Once compiled for Windows they have to test it and verify the game works. If there is a bug, and there will be bugs in a game as large as RDR2, they have to go back, fix the code and recompile the new build and hope no new bugs appear, they will.

They can't just compile once and deploy to any system. They have to pick what kind of system they are compiling to then optimize for that system.
Yes that is what they should be doing.
But as you can see they don't even make sure that windows drivers have all the routines they use for the game, so you can figure out how good the chances of something like that are.
Just as a clue GTA V still has all the performance issues it had from day one(stutters/missing textures/ram leaks/etc)