Hey guys, long story short, I'm coming off a semester in medical school that was really tough for me in terms of mental health. I'm about to get 3 weeks off for the holidays, and my family recommended that I go to their lakehouse for a bit to get away from everything. I was originally hesitant thinking about how bored I would be, and my plan was to stay home and catch up on shows/games on my PC. But I'm starting to think that sitting around the same apartment that I've been studying in for months may not be the best thing for me.

So I got the idea that I could bring my old XB1 (which I barely use) and buy RDR2, which seems like a game that I could really just immerse myself in and forget about stuff for a week or two. I was originally going to wait for a PC version, because I didn't really want to play objectively the worst version of the game. But on the other hand, I probably won't get another chance to lose myself in a game for a long time, and this game seems perfectly therapeutic for me at the moment.

Does anyone have any experience playing on a launch XB1? I'm aware of the resolution downgrade to 860p (or something similar). How does it actually look? I won't be playing on some massive TV, just a smaller HD set. Is the framerate bad enough to affect the gameplay? Just looking for some input. Thanks in advance for any advice you guys have.

This isn't first-hand experience, which I think is what you're looking for. But every time I see a thread asking about performance I can't help but shill for Digital Foundry, a resource I believe all game enthusiasts should be using, even if it's just for broader information sharing.

Here is their console comparison for Red Dead Redemption 2.

Long story short:

General level of detail is consistent across all four versions of the game. "Looks amazing on all platforms," is a direct quote from the analysis. Base Xbox One hardware has the lowest operational resolution (864p), which creates a shallower, muddier depth of field effect during play. Framerate runs close to 30 frames-per-second (the game's cap) in the open terrain, fluctuates slightly in smaller towns, endures noticeably lowered framerate--down to a consistent 26 frames-per-second--in the game's largest city.

The analysts describe the base Xbox One experience as one that "holds up well in a living room environment" and "runs better than any previous Rockstar release in its original form." By the second sentence, they mean to say base Xbox One Red Dead Redemption 2 is a smoother experience than Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto V was on an Xbox 360.

So, ultimately, if you want to play the game, the Xbox One is still a fine way to do so, despite being the weakest of the four platforms.

Likewise I don’t have experience with the XB1 but on a base PS4 the game ran absolutely fine everywhere but cities where the framerate dropped substantially. Even in the starting town of Valentine which is barely more than a street of houses the framerate dipped uncomfortably.

The good news is that outside of towns and cities the performance was perfectly fine and that is where 95% of the action takes place. So if the XB1 is anything like the base PS4 in terms of performance then it’s fine - not great but decent where it counts.

@humanity: I agree with that assessment. I played on a standard PS4, and performance is mostly fine. Even in cities it is mostly fine, apart from some framedrops here and there. Perfectly playable.

@nasher27: I played through the entire game on an XB1 and it was fine. Still looked good. There were some frame rate drops, but they weren’t common enough to be an issue and they didn’t affect the gameplay.