modding HUGE Problem with Modding RDR2 That No One is Talking About

[TheWrath 1]

9 minutes ago, JKL409 said:

 

I've given up on the game until a solution is found.

Yea, I pretty much have done the same. I do not think there is a solution. Also, I do not think the blame lies with any mod authors. I am sure that game used to work fine. However, shitstar keeps updating the game for no reason really and must have changed something on their end. It may even have to do with the way LML streams the textures itself. DominatorGT alluded to this in his findings, that Rockstar changed the way the files mount, if I remember correctly. He said that even in the games own updates there are issues with how Rockstar is mounting their files to be loaded. Combine that with how difficult it is to track this issue and the randomness of it all. I do not think this issue will ever really be solved, I also use many mods that are basically essential playing without them really sucks. 

 

Also, it is difficult to keep track of everything that DominatorGT says because he only leaves comments on random texture mods and there is a language barrier. Add to this that he will also not be around for 6 months. So nothing new will be said by him either. What I could try doing at this time is try to compile links to everything he has said on Nexus.

[Dagger323 25]

21 minutes ago, JKL409 said:

 

I've given up on the game until a solution is found. I'm about 50% of the way through the story. 

 

I personally have doubts that any gameconfig alone will fix the issue, although I commend the modders for trying. Similar issues have occurred in the past with GTAV. 

 

I'm unsure if it's the fact the engine simply can't cope, or the way the game was designed. But... At present, the RDR2 modding scene isn't huge. So I have doubts this will ever get fixed. 

 

I think people have made good points regarding inconsistencies with mods etc. But I would seriously seriously recommend before claiming this is also happening in vanilla for people to do a full clean of their folders, including mod folder and documents folder etc.. Otherwise this is just going to add unnecessary confusion to the mix. 

 

I have previously dabbled with train mods and know for a fact if you have any mods that mess with how fast time travels, this will effect trains, and potentially break them alltogether so they don't spawn at all. 

 

Side note: I also worry... GTAVI, once released on PC, could also be effected.

I can sympathize with your sentiment regarding giving up on the game for now. It's not in a good place for modding enthusiasts. I don't believe that the gameconfig can fix the trains either, as I've spent a week editing it with no improvement. There is a noticeable and stark difference between the train spawns in vanilla and modded, and the Railroad Engineer mod confirms that. I agree that people need to be attentive to completely cleaning out their folders when comparing to vanilla, as one simple script can affect results. I have also tried out and tested wickedhorseman's recent "Timescale" mod, and while it doesn't completely eliminate trains like other solutions have in the past, I have definitely noted an observable reduction in train spawns that is alleviated by uninstalling it. So I echo your statement about staying away from mods that affect the timescales. Frankly, I'm more concerned with RDR2 than GTAVI, given that the latter is the far more popular franchise and a fix would be more likely to be found for it than for the former, which is a going on six-year-old game, and quite depressingly may not get the attention it needs for a solution at this point. I truly hope that's not the case, and I intend on keeping this thread alive and continuing to raise awareness about it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the community will get to the bottom of this.

Edited May 7 by Dagger323

[Sanah 17]

54 minutes ago, JKL409 said:

any mods that mess with how fast time travels, this will effect trains, and potentially break them alltogether so they don't spawn at all. 

As we already have stated before: practically any mod can and will alter the train system. Same goes for the animal spawning system, but that one is far less noticeable for obvious reasons. Not seeing spoonbills near St. Denis can easily go unnoticeable, not seeing trains outside of a couple stations... not so much. 

 

I said the base game acts weird when it comes to dynamic stuff because that's just how it is, and that's solely on R* and their multiple and totally needless RDO updates through these last couple years. Though I have to agree that those vanilla related issues are (almost) negligible compared to the whole mess this game turns into after dropping two or three very basic .asi mods.

[Sanah 17]

52 minutes ago, TheWrath said:

shitstar keeps updating the game for no reason really and must have changed something on their end.

Exactly. Many mod authors have said how much of a fucking mess RDR2 code is. All I can say is that everything started going downhill after that Naturalist update.

 

A compilation of the info dominatorgt has dropped on Nexus would be very much appreciated.

[Sanah 17]

1 hour ago, Dagger323 said:

They assume their game is "fixed" just because they've removed enough problematic mods to start seeing rare birds and stagecoach passengers again, not realizing that trains are still almost completely vacant from the world.

I just can't for the life of me understand how Stutter Fix, No Vignette and Smoking Complete mods can literally wipe out the trains from the open world. None of those edit ped pools as far as I know. At this point those three are the only mods I can't play without, but using them together simply breaks the game.

[Dagger323 25]

11 minutes ago, Sanah said:

I just can't for the life of me understand how Stutter Fix, No Vignette and Smoking Complete mods can literally wipe out the trains from the open world. None of those edit ped pools as far as I know. At this point those three are the only mods I can't play without, but using them together simply breaks the game.

It's probably either No Vignette or Smoking Complete in your case. I have used and still am using the Stutter Fix mod, because I too can't play without it due to the horrendous pop-in that was introduced after the game's September 2022 title update, and that mod completely fixes it. It has never caused spawning issues from any of my tests. Having the Smoking Complete script files installed in the root folder also didn't seem to noticeably affect spawns for me, but when isolating it I didn't have Online Content Unlocker or LML activated at the time as I was simply trying to test .asi files. I can't comment on what happens to the train spawns when you do. I would definitely try testing that and the No Vignette (which I haven't used personally) and seeing if you can locate the culprit.

Edited May 7 by Dagger323

[Sanah 17]

49 minutes ago, Dagger323 said:

It's probably either No Vignette or Smoking Complete in your case. I have used and still am using the Stutter Fix mod, because I too can't play without it due to the horrendous pop-in that was introduced after the game's September 2022 title update, and that mod completely fixes it. It has never caused spawning issues from any of my tests. Having the Smoking Complete script files installed in the root folder also didn't seem to noticeably affect spawns for me, but when isolating it I didn't have Online Content Unlocker or LML activated at the time as I was simply trying to test .asi files. I can't comment on what happens to the train spawns when you do. I would definitely try testing that and the No Vignette (which I haven't used personally) and seeing if you can locate the culprit.

Thank you again. I'm gonna try and see if I can fix it, but something tells me Online Content Unlocker is the one to blame.

 

By the way, have you ever encountered an issue with the spawning system (trains, peds or wildlife) that persisted even after removing all mods from the game directory? I'm just curious, since it would be a real bummer having to reinstall the whole game again if that ever happens to me while testing or troubleshooting. Oh, and also, what exactly is your testing method? If you don't mind telling me of course. Apart from the famous roseate spoonbill chase, do you roam around Flatneck, Valentine or Rhodes stations like you said before, to test if train spawns are working?

Edited May 7 by Sanah

[Dagger323 25]

34 minutes ago, Sanah said:

Thank you again. I'm gonna try and see if I can fix it, but something tells me Online Content Unlocker is the one to blame.

 

No problem. I'm going to further test and isolate OCU later and see if it causes the issue.

 

34 minutes ago, Sanah said:

By the way, have you ever encountered an issue with the spawning system (trains, peds or wildlife) that persisted even after removing all mods from the game directory? I'm just curious, since it would be a real bummer having to reinstall the whole game again if that ever happens to me while testing or troubleshooting.

 

No, I haven't ever encountered that. I believe that the notion that the spawning problem carries over and is somehow embedded into game saves that were created after installing problematic mods is a myth. The spawning problem is only specific to each active game session; as soon as problematic mods are removed, the issue subsides.

 

34 minutes ago, Sanah said:

Oh, and also, what exactly is your testing method? If you don't mind telling me of course. Apart from the famous roseate spoonbill chase, do you roam around Flatneck, Valentine or Rhodes stations like you said before, to test if train spawns are working?

 

I'm no longer testing for wildlife/ped spawns (unless a new mod or update is released that I'm interested in trying), as I've done that extensively over the past four-plus months and feel that I've gotten my game fairly stable in that regard. I'm strictly testing train spawns, as they are by far the most problematic and sensitive. I am mostly chasing train icons from the Railroad Engineer 2.5 mod, especially at locations that I know get little to no train activity with mods installed, but really anywhere where those icons show up. I ABSOLUTELY recommend that you download that mod specifically for testing this problem, because otherwise it's basically a shitshow trying to track down trains and make guesses as to when they're supposed to pull into a station or drive past a stop. That mod will make your life A LOT easier. I'd also recommend that you start each test as consistently as possible by loading from the same consistent game save. That way the trains should all be starting out in the same relative locations on the map.

Edited May 7 by Dagger323

[kaozzz777 18]

Well, let's be real here. We just cramp in stuff into a very interwined engine with dozens of systems/scripts running simultaneously - all reacting to one another depending on the situation. I wonder how many millions line of code there is. All of the modding is based on injected hacks by a handful of people which aren't active/around anymore from what I can see. The rest is trial and error programming and modifiying without understanding what potentially can happen.

Even something like PDO that's been around forever, rather seems to brake the more complicated and advanced it tried to become. Then, many mods seem to be designed as if it's the only mod around, editing stuff all over the place and having no chance to be compatible with something else. Sucks, but you have to find out yourself if compatibility works when mixing mods.

If the game is played in vanilla state, I have zero issues, so I can't complain about the product itself being broken. Pop-ins happen in big vast open worlds, there are technical limits in live computing. Especially so ones that were designed to be run on a PS4.

 

 

I also wanted to give up modding it, but it's not as bad. Learn which mods brake the game and accept it. Everyone want's something different obviously, so it's a personal decision where you have to compromise. I can live without texture mods and clothing and have a primary focus on gameplay difficulty like Bolmin's mods and some minor visual hud edits. Appears to work.
OnlineContentUnlocker + RDO seems to work without issue, if you want some special fancy clothes, just add it through RampageTrainer. Check out if it also has other stuff that saves you injecting mods, too.

In terms of visuals the game is still one of the best, it reacts a lot to render resolution. I use "DLSS Tweaks" and run it with DLDSR + DLSS. Surely you can set-up something similar on Radeon. Add Ultra for Fur Quality in config and you'll be surprised that you suddenly don't need any mods for textures.

Edited May 7 by kaozzz777

[Sanah 17]

24 minutes ago, Dagger323 said:

I'm going to further test and isolate OCU later and see if it causes the issue.

Thank you. Gonna do the same in the upcoming days.

 

25 minutes ago, Dagger323 said:

I ABSOLUTELY recommend that you download that mod specifically for testing this problem

I was trying to avoid using it, because of many other users' reports about the mod itself causing train spawning issues, lmao. Since mods altogether are part of the problem I avoided it, but anyway I'm going to try and see what I can do. Like I said I'll be posting the results in here. Thanks for your assistance!

[Dagger323 25]

14 minutes ago, Sanah said:

I was trying to avoid using it, because of many other users' reports about the mod itself causing train spawning issues, lmao. Since mods altogether are part of the problem I avoided it, but anyway I'm going to try and see what I can do. Like I said I'll be posting the results in here. Thanks for your assistance!

I haven't personally observed a problem with using it. Either way, it's far too useful a tool for troubleshooting this issue to omit it.

[kaozzz777 18]

Sidenote:
I also strongly recommend that you purge your documents folder entirely and start fresh. Seriously, the game can get super finicky.
On Nexus recently someone uploaded a fresh save for the last game build. Use it.
If you have overlays, make sure nothing is running when you try to evaluate mods/spawns.


And to people still underestimating the issue, the stuff that is not spawning if the game brakes is absolutely ridicoules. Use the fresh savefile with a clean game and you'll see. Start of chapter 2 the amount of animals and NPCs in great variety spawning hits you right in the face even when you just leave the hideout. Game has an entire zoo and safari to experience,

Spoiler

Stags fighting and clashing their antlers, flocks of cayotes, horses, deers and wolves roaming their terretories, hawks catching snakes and rabbits, ton of small animals hushing over the grounds. I even saw a crocodile dragging a boar into water and killing it. There really is a ton of stuff in the game, so I dunno how much NPC and random encounters can be missed aswell when the engine brakes.

 

[Sanah 17]

32 minutes ago, kaozzz777 said:

Even something like PDO that's been around forever, rather seems to brake the more complicated and advanced it tried to become

The whole situation is very funny. If you take a look at Nexus, the most downloaded mods are probably the most broken or rather the ones giving more problems. PDO is quite a mess, making practically impossible to progress through the story with it enabled. RampageTrainer breaks the game when you die and restart a mission. And, yeah, let's not talk about WhyEm'sDLC, which basically kills every dynamic activity in the open world.

 

Mods in this game, in its current state, are a nice little playground, meaning they are just experimental tools to fool around for a bit and then uninstall them (if you actually care about the base game mechanics and funcionalities working properly that is). But that doesn't mean there is no possible fix. I believe there is and that is what this thread is about.

 

Vanilla game is wonderful as it is - for the most part at least - so I understand what you are saying, but this site is about mods so we are just trying to get this issue more attention and maybe ultimately find a way to bypass it or even fix it. It's not about compatibility, nor about having too many outdated mods installed at once. Simple scripts can, and will break the game.

 

In my experience using OCU + RDO does introduce some inconsistencies with the train spawning system.

Edited May 7 by Sanah

[Dagger323 25]

18 minutes ago, kaozzz777 said:

Learn which mods brake the game and accept it. Everyone want's something different obviously, so it's a personal decision where you have to compromise. I can live without texture mods and clothing and have a primary focus and gameplay difficulty like Bolmin's mods and some minor visual hud edits. Appears to work.
OnlineContentUnlocker + RDO seems to work without issue, if you want some special fancy clothes, just add it through RampageTrainer. Check out if it also has other stuff that saves you injecting mods, too.

In terms of visuals the game is still one of the best, it reacts a lot to render resolution. I use "DLSS Tweaks" and run it with DLDSR + DLSS. Surely you can set-up something similar on Radeon. Add Ultra for Fur Quality in config and you'll be surprised that you suddenly don't need any mods for textures.

That's fine and all, but even non-texture mods affect spawns, specifically train spawns. That's the specific issue I've been discussing. I've already got the game almost completely stable, or at least totally acceptable for me, in regard to ped and wildlife spawns, and as a result I have moved on from even testing that stuff. As I pointed out before, train spawns are more easily affected by the problem and start disappearing before peds and wildlife do. I know that RDO contributes to it, because I've found less consistent train spawns during troubleshooting with it installed (though not quite to the degree that WhyEm's breaks them, but then again few mods do). If I were to whittle it down to which mods don't cause it, I'd be left with virtually no mod that I actually want to use. Texture mods are a major culprit, yes, but as I pointed out, even many simple script files contribute directly to disappearing trains from the world. The issue with trains is even more widespread than the peds and wildlife spawns, and not enough people have been checking for it specifically. They assume their game is in an acceptable state as soon as they start regularly seeing wagon passengers and flocks of spoonbills and ignore the complete lack of locomotives in the game.

[Sanah 17]

12 minutes ago, kaozzz777 said:

I dunno how much NPC and random encounters can be missed aswell when the engine brakes.

If you install a couple retexture mods and/or dare to touch ped pools you can see RDR2 turning into a PS2 game, in terms of how little things are shown up on screen.

[Dagger323 25]

38 minutes ago, kaozzz777 said:

Add Ultra for Fur Quality in config and you'll be surprised that you suddenly don't need any mods for textures.

Sidenote: I've tested setting the fur quality to "Ultra" extensively since the game came out, and even took side by side screenshots, and confirmed that fur does not render in a higher quality than "High". So unless something has changed in a more recent title update since I last tested that setting, ultra fur is a placebo and you're not actually getting higher fur quality than "High".

[Sanah 17]

4 minutes ago, Dagger323 said:

you're not actually getting higher fur quality than "High".

Correct, it doesn't really go any higher than High. Same goes for Lighting Quality, it stays at Medium.

Edited May 7 by Sanah

[kaozzz777 18]

The Train spawns I will check with my install, thanks for the detailed explanation. Stuff is even more complex than already assumed for sure.
Regarding Fur quality, I'm happy to check again. But you are aware that the game resets all values to vanilla options as soon as you enter the graphics menu ingame? Only way to lock it is by write-protecting the config in Documents folder or adding a mod that unlocks those settings through LML. I modified the vestigia install and only use the unlocked settings for graphics and audio menu to set higher fur quality and wider audio dynamic range while leaving everything else, not screwing with LODs especially.

[Dagger323 25]

7 minutes ago, kaozzz777 said:

Regarding Fur quality, I'm happy to check again. But you are aware that the game resets all values to vanilla options as soon as you enter the graphics menu ingame? Only way to lock it is by write-protecting the config in Documents folder or adding a mod that unlocks those settings through LML.

Yep, completely aware of that. I have a custom system.xml file that is set to read-only and I only edit the graphics settings through that. I have set deepsurfacequality to Ultra and tweaked various other lighting settings to increase them beyond what is accessible in the in-game settings menu. That file is how I tested for Ultra fur quality and found that setting it to Ultra changed absolutely nothing from High. I was under the placebo effect though at first and didn't realize that there was no difference until I took screenshots with both settings and compared them.

Edited May 7 by Dagger323

[Sanah 17]

2 minutes ago, Dagger323 said:

Yep, completely aware of that. I have a custom system.xml file that is set to read-only and I only edit the graphics settings through that. I have set deepsurfacequality to Ultra and tweaked various other lighting settings to increase them beyond what is accessible in the in-game settings menu. That file is how I tested for Ultra fur quality and found that setting it to Ultra changed absolutely nothing from High. I was under the placebo effect though at first and didn't realize that there was no difference until I took screenshots with both settings and compared them.

Wait what? Does that mean that I need to reapply ingame graphic settings every time I open the game? Is the graphic settings menu broken too? I don't get it.

[Dagger323 25]

18 minutes ago, kaozzz777 said:

The Train spawns I will check with my install, thanks for the detailed explanation. Stuff is even more complex than already assumed for sure.

Also, before testing make sure that you go back and read what I said on the previous thread page about train spawns. You might be tricked at first into thinking they're working if you simply see them in the distance from a gang camp or encounter them immediately near you when you first spawn in from a game save. These are NOT valid scenarios, as the game can and likely does still omit train spawns from spontaneously occurring at random locations throughout the world, and testing for them must be conducted across these various locations and across multiple in-game hours.

Edited May 7 by Dagger323

[Dagger323 25]

Just now, Sanah said:

Wait what? Does that mean that I need to reapply ingame graphic settings every time I open the game? Is the graphic settings menu broken too? I don't get it.

No. Just don't go into the in-game settings menu if you have a custom "system.xml" file that has edited values higher than what the in-game settings menu offers. Doing so will temporarily overwrite the system file by applying the highest default in-game settings from the menu into the current active game session. Also, if you have custom edited that file, make sure it's set to "read only" so that if you do happen to accidently enter the graphics settings menu in-game, the game does not permanently change the edits you've made to that file.

[kaozzz777 18]

About trains, I tried to look up schedules online, but it's all over the place. Several different lines, and they have a week schedule. I see that at stations there are schedules hanged out, but some are so low res they aren't readable. Plus, after i took a train to riggs station, got out and chilled there, the clerk started shouting the train is behind schedule. When you buy a ticket, the game spawns one for you.
And with these particular circumstances we dealing, I'm not sure we should use a mod that controls trains and their spawns as a benchmark tool 😉Ideally there is a place where the most trains pass through and could do a conservative timelap for evaluation.

I noticed Rampage also shows the scripts that the game is running under Misc. I guess there is a pool for peds,vehices,objects and scripts that share resources and communicate with each other while having to load within a certain timeframe for everything to work correctly.

[Sanah 17]

13 minutes ago, kaozzz777 said:

but it's all over the place. Several different lines, and they have a week schedule.

Yeah it's such a mess even the official wiki page states that "they just spawn randomly" even though there are lots of schedules posted online. I'm not using Railroad Engineer either, not for testing, not for anything. If mods are the problem of game engine being altered and acting up, then using a mod to test stuff is just plain absurd. Besides, the mod itself is outdated, and it has been reported by several users that it introduces the very same problems we here are trying to solve: the train spawning. It's illogical to use it for troubleshooting.

[kaozzz777 18]

OK, forget the timelapse idea, it doesn't affect how fast the trains get served. once they arrive and stop at the station, they have their own timer for when to take off again which obviously doesnt work while you speed up everything around.
While the modding issues annoy the hell out of me and are way to timeconsuming, i gotta say it's amazing to see how organic the game world is and how many scripts run in the background while studying the game 😄