Graphics Nerf in Red Dead Redemption 2

A new HDR Calibration menu has been added. Players can now switch between the existing ‘Cinematic HDR’ and new ‘Game HDR’ styles, and a new option has been added to allow manual adjustment of Peak Brightness values for different displays
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That doesn't affect me, as I'm on an SDR display. It's funny because RDR2 got slammed for its 'fake HDR' when it released, but for those of us on SDR, it's the best fake HDR I've ever seen!

Sometime today I'm going to compare 1.09 screenshots on my system with 1.00 to see if I can easily discern the differences. When ED's graphics were downgraded, it was an obvious 'in my face' loss of quality. In RDR2 the difference is much more nuanced.. It doesn't help when one starts looking at the graphics with a critical eye instead of just playing the game, as this is when we see the man behind the graphics curtain.

I wish the DF review of 1.09 focused on other things than just AO and HDR. The fact they waited so long to even address the issue (which supposedly was introduced in 1.03) shows they weren't looking too terribly hard at things like general lighting quality, texture resolution, filtering, etc. If you look at the comment section of their video on the matter, there's lots of people claiming certain details remain downgraded in 1.09. 🤷‍♂️
 
I'm back to playing the original 1.00 version. I had to start from the beginning due to save data not being compatible, but I discovered that I missed some interesting dialog my first time 'round, so this is not 'bad news' for me (and I'm working my way back to where I was much quicker now that I know what I'm doing).

Right now based on gut feeling alone, I think 1.00 looks better. It's very nuanced things like shadow edges, texture quality, night time lighting, etc. It definitely feels a bit more sluggish in spots, but I'm okay with this as I tend to play at a slower pace. I think the lower FPS in places implies a higher graphics quality. Rumor is quality was 'nerfed' because twitchy RDO gameplay wouldn't tolerate these lower FPS in towns.

The disclaimer here is that I play on a gaming monitor just a couple feet from my eyes, and my eyes are 'calibrated' to notice nuanced differences in quality. I'm also playing on a PS4 Slim, which likely would see quality reductions made for greater FPS than a powerful console like the XB1X. So for me personally, I prefer the little extra quality in 1.00 and will attempt to finish the Story before updating. So far I've avoided all the 'game-breaking' bugs, and the bugs I have noticed were still in the game even after the 1.10 update.

Thats one of the things Ive always enjoyed about PC. The ability to tweak the experience completely for looks - performance. The ability to get ages out of a rig due to tweaking cause you dont have much money is a godsend.

I noticed recently on minecraft for xbox there's a few performance options you can tweak. Very cool to see that on a console.
 
Thats one of the things Ive always enjoyed about PC. The ability to tweak the experience completely for looks - performance. The ability to get ages out of a rig due to tweaking cause you dont have much money is a godsend.

I noticed recently on minecraft for xbox there's a few performance options you can tweak. Very cool to see that on a console.
Don't like consols, they are to restricted and I can mod the heck out of many of my games, I like that.
 
Don't like consols, they are to restricted and I can mod the heck out of many of my games, I like that.

With these new streaming services for pc games they can only be played vanilla no mods, another small snippet of freedom the industry would love to chip away I'm sure.
 
The release version produced almost a halo like artifact around characters due to a extremely high AO radius. That's fixed now.

Every change a developer makes doesn't need to be a downgrade. The AO looks more sensible now. I don't know about the other changes.
 
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