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

[Dagger323 25]

21 minutes ago, Sanah said:

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 Besides, the mod itself is outdated, and it has been reported by several users that it introduces the very same problems we here are trying to solve: the train spawning.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.

Don't just rely on what others say; test it for yourself. Take my anecdote for what you will, but I have not noticed a difference in the vanilla train spawns with the Railroad mod uninstalled versus installed. At the bare minimum it is still a constant that at least gives a clear indication of what other mods are doing to the train spawns themselves. I'm going to conduct more thorough testing with and without it, but for now, I'm using it, as it provides a much quicker way for me to track down trains without having to just guess where they are. If you're not going to use it, then keep in mind what I said before about certain locations like Riggs and Wallace Station, and that on average you should be able to come across two to three trains on your route from Flatneck across the bridge past Riggs and before you reach Wallace Station if you start out between 9 and 10 A.M. and ride at a medium-slow gallop. Rhodes should have several trains per day coming through the station. Anywhere between four to six of them.

[someguylarz21 0]

damn thats some pretty interesting stuff basically this is just my first playtrough on pc (i only played it once on the ps4 when it released) and i just wanted to to install some upscaler mods to make the game look a little better and i do not wanna test too much and in depth cuz i feel like that will ruin the feel of the second time playing, so would you guys recommend just uninstalling every texture mod?

[Sanah 17]

17 hours ago, Dagger323 said:

Don't just rely on what others say; test it for yourself. Take my anecdote for what you will, but I have not noticed a difference in the vanilla train spawns with the Railroad mod uninstalled versus installed. At the bare minimum it is still a constant that at least gives a clear indication of what other mods are doing to the train spawns themselves. I'm going to conduct more thorough testing with and without it, but for now, I'm using it, as it provides a much quicker way for me to track down trains without having to just guess where they are. If you're not going to use it, then keep in mind what I said before about certain locations like Riggs and Wallace Station, and that on average you should be able to come across two to three trains on your route from Flatneck across the bridge past Riggs and before you reach Wallace Station if you start out between 9 and 10 A.M. and ride at a medium-slow gallop. Rhodes should have several trains per day coming through the station. Anywhere between four to six of them.

Thanks for the intel on the trains and schedules, it's been really helpful. I have been doing some testing and just as you pointed out yesterday Stutter Fix has absolutely no impact on trains nor animal spawns. But good news end there for me sadly lmao. I ended up using Railroad Engineering to reassure if OCU and Smoking Complete were causing issues on my end and yeah, bingo. I had very inconsistent trains when isolating those two mods (I waited a whole ingame day around Bard's Crossing and didn't see a single train. Crazy).

It would be wonderful if someone else could also test those two mods so we can compare the results.

 

 

Edited May 8 by Sanah

[Dagger323 25]

42 minutes ago, someguylarz21 said:

damn thats some pretty interesting stuff basically this is just my first playtrough on pc (i only played it once on the ps4 when it released) and i just wanted to to install some upscaler mods to make the game look a little better and i do not wanna test too much and in depth cuz i feel like that will ruin the feel of the second time playing, so would you guys recommend just uninstalling every texture mod?

If that's your goal then I would recommend that you just not mod on your playthrough, period. You will already get a superior graphical experience to console on PC if you just turn up the graphics settings in the game itself.

[Dagger323 25]

16 minutes ago, Sanah said:

Thanks for the intel on the trains and schedules, it's been really helpful. I have been doing some testing and just as you pointed out yesterday Stutter Fix has absolutely no impact on trains nor animal spawns. But good news end there for me sadly lmao. I ended up using Railroad Engineering to reassure if OCU and Smoking Complete were causing issues on my end and yeah, bingo. I had very inconsistent trains when isolating those two mods (I waited a whole ingame day around Bard's Crossing and didn't see a single train. Crazy).

It would be wonderful if someone else could also test those two mods so we can compare the results.

 

 

Glad you were able to find the cause of it (but sorry it ended up being a mod you enjoy using). I use Smoking Complete too and have troubleshot it — but just the script files without activating Online Content Unlocker at the same time — and the scripts didn't seem to affect train spawns by themselves. I have a feeling that the fault lies with OCU, but I'll have to isolate it and test further to confirm.

[Sanah 17]

1 hour ago, someguylarz21 said:

so would you guys recommend just uninstalling every texture mod?

Just like Dagger said I would avoid upscalers altogether. If you got an NVIDIA card then DLDSR + DLSS (or DLAA via DLSSTweaks) is a perfect combination. If you are going to use DLSSTweaks I'd say use the latest DLSS; if you prefer DLDSR + DLSS then go with v2.5.1.

Avoid using the ingame resolution upscaler too, since it aggravates the VRAM leaking issues.

[Sanah 17]

19 minutes ago, Dagger323 said:

Glad you were able to find the cause of it (but sorry it ended up being a mod you enjoy using). I use Smoking Complete too and have troubleshot it — but just the script files without activating Online Content Unlocker at the same time — and the scripts didn't seem to affect train spawns by themselves. I have a feeling that the fault lies with OCU, but I'll have to isolate it and test further to confirm.

OCU was very buggy before the latest update so it doesn't surprise me, but anyways it's still way more reliable than version.dll, which is pretty obsolete by now.

I'll be happy to see your results, whenever you wanna share them with us.

[SerjRozov 0]

Has anyone seen Gavin?

[Dagger323 25]

3 hours ago, Sanah said:

OCU was very buggy before the latest update so it doesn't surprise me, but anyways it's still way more reliable than version.dll, which is pretty obsolete by now.

I'll be happy to see your results, whenever you wanna share them with us.

Yup. I'm actually the one who reported the sped-up walking animation bug to the mod author, and he thankfully fixed it along with the beggar's not being able to be donated to in the latest patch. It's probably just got something to do with loading in online content that wasn't originally supposed to be available in single player messing with the spawning system. I doubt it can be fixed until there is a fix available for everything else too. I'll be testing it more later on, but frankly I'm a bit burned out from all the endless troubleshooting I've been doing lately and am going to take a few days off to just play the game for once lol. I'll definitely report back more findings though soon when I start testing again.

 

The problem I see is that the only potentially viable solution that's been worked out so far is solely aimed at fixing the way texture and streaming mods load, and nothing has been found for the plethora of mods that do completely different things than upscaling and/or replacing terrain, items or clothing. As promising as dominatorgt's file replacement loading method has seemed to be, it isn't going to provide the solution to everything else that's breaking train spawns (and to some degree the animal and ped spawns too) that doesn't happen to be editing textures and using streaming files. Which is why ultimately there should be some sort of collective solution that can address all types of mods affecting spawns and not only a certain category of them.

[Sanah 17]

2 hours ago, Dagger323 said:

Yup. I'm actually the one who reported the sped-up walking animation bug to the mod author, and he thankfully fixed it along with the beggar's not being able to be donated to in the latest patch. It's probably just got something to do with loading in online content that wasn't originally supposed to be available in single player messing with the spawning system. I doubt it can be fixed until there is a fix available for everything else too. I'll be testing it more later on, but frankly I'm a bit burned out from all the endless troubleshooting I've been doing lately and am going to take a few days off to just play the game for once lol. I'll definitely report back more findings though soon when I start testing again.

 

The problem I see is that the only potentially viable solution that's been worked out so far is solely aimed at fixing the way texture and streaming mods load, and nothing has been found for the plethora of mods that do completely different things than upscaling and/or replacing terrain, items or clothing. As promising as dominatorgt's file replacement loading method has seemed to be, it isn't going to provide the solution to everything else that's breaking train spawns (and to some degree the animal and ped spawns too) that doesn't happen to be editing textures and using streaming files. Which is why ultimately there should be some sort of collective solution that can address all types of mods affecting spawns and not only a certain category of them.

Yeah I probably spend more time testing shit and making sure all works as intended than actually playing lmao, I totally get you.

I barely understand dominatorgt posts if I'm completely honest with you, they seem too technical, but I'll be nonetheless awaiting for a fix, if it ever comes. For now I'm gonna experience the game as it is, with Stutter Fix and Just Disable Vignette as the only mods installed.

[Dagger323 25]

22 hours ago, Sanah said:

Yeah I probably spend more time testing shit and making sure all works as intended than actually playing lmao, I totally get you.

I barely understand dominatorgt posts if I'm completely honest with you, they seem too technical, but I'll be nonetheless awaiting for a fix, if it ever comes. For now I'm gonna experience the game as it is, with Stutter Fix and Just Disable Vignette as the only mods installed.

I've downloaded dominatorgt's install file and followed his instructions for installing the texture mods (though I'm only using it for the environmental textures and not the upscaled windows or registers), but it took a long time to decipher what he was trying to say because of the language barrier and the fact that he uses a translator.
 

The problem is that I've seen zero improvement with his method, because I didn't notice a spawning issue with the environmental texture mods before even when they were installed via the "incorrect" file streaming method. The other problem is that I don't know how to implement more mods into using his file replacement method that might be currently causing the spawn issues through being loaded as streaming files. And finally, the "Upscaled Animals AIO" mod by garbageman42069 does apparently use the new file replacement method, and it ABSOLUTELY still causes a massive spawning problem with trains, peds, and wildlife. As soon as I installed the mod I saw animals practically vanish from the world with only about three birds in the sky and one or two deer in the Heartlands. So either that mod is still loading incorrectly, or the file replacement method is not all it's cracked up to be. And if the latter is the case, then we're essentially back to square one and no working solution has yet been found at all. Just some food for thought.

Edited May 9 by Dagger323

[someguylarz21 0]

i'm using terrain textures overhaul and upscaled aio and there are the normal amounts of pedestrians, animals and train spawns. but sometimes there are objects fading in and out, and models being loading a little too late. it isnt too bad but it sometimes ruines the immersion, im also using increased level of detail and that combined with the pressure put on the engine with the 4k textures probably causes that. im gonna remove the retextures for now and im also gonna test out increased geometry of level detail. vram is not the problem, lmk if you had/have the same problems.

[Sanah 17]

34 minutes ago, someguylarz21 said:

i'm using terrain textures overhaul and upscaled aio and there are the normal amounts of pedestrians, animals and train spawns. but sometimes there are objects fading in and out, and models being loading a little too late. it isnt too bad but it sometimes ruines the immersion, im also using increased level of detail and that combined with the pressure put on the engine with the 4k textures probably causes that. im gonna remove the retextures for now and im also gonna test out increased geometry of level detail. vram is not the problem, lmk if you had/have the same problems.

Using retexture/upscaling mods does break the engine in multiple ways. It definitely affects train spawns, as stated by many people in and outside this thread. There are even videos on YouTube demonstrating it. There's very little we can do for now. You might be okay with less trains, but that doesn't mean the number isn't reduced ostensibly. All the "fixes" up to this point have been proven either placebo or just plain fake, including the cryptic messages dropped by dominatorgt on Nexusmods.

Edited May 10 by Sanah

[Sanah 17]

14 hours ago, Dagger323 said:

I've downloaded dominatorgt's install file and followed his instructions for installing the texture mods (though I'm only using it for the environmental textures and not the upscaled windows or registers), but it took a long time to decipher what he was trying to say because of the language barrier and the fact that he uses a translator.
 

The problem is that I've seen zero improvement with his method, because I didn't notice a spawning issue with the environmental texture mods before even when they were installed via the "incorrect" file streaming method. The other problem is that I don't know how to implement more mods into using his file replacement method that might be currently causing the spawn issues through being loaded as streaming files. And finally, the "Upscaled Animals AIO" mod by garbageman42069 does apparently use the new file replacement method, and it ABSOLUTELY still causes a massive spawning problem with trains, peds, and wildlife. As soon as I installed the mod I saw animals practically vanish from the world with only about three birds in the sky and one or two deer in the Heartlands. So either that mod is still loading incorrectly, or the file replacement method is not all it's cracked up to be. And if the latter is the case, then we're essentially back to square one and no working solution has yet been found at all. Just some food for thought.

I think we can conclude that these issues are deeper than just changing the file replacement method. They are related to mod installation, sure, kind of I guess, but the problem is far more complex. I don't think modding tools will fix none of this, at least not at the stage they are at. And I doubt those tools will improve, in all honesty. It's been half a decade since RDR2 PC release.

[someguylarz21 0]

I dont think thats normal, is it?

[someguylarz21 0]

do you guys think mods like new horse coats could cause problems?

[Dagger323 25]

On 5/10/2024 at 6:50 AM, someguylarz21 said:

I dont think thats normal, is it?

 

Sorry for the delay in response; I've not been on here in a couple days. I believe the issue causing the fading in and out on your end is likely due to the Increased Level of Detail. That absolutely causes a spawning problem and a texture loading issue, because you're forcing the game to render a much higher number of textures further away from the camera than it was intended to do. I certainly saw a reduction of wildlife and peds when I used it and had far more abnormal texture pop than without it, so I stopped using it. There is actually a way to get a higher LOD by just manually editing values in the gameconfig, system.xml, visualsettings.dat and the timecycle files that alleviates the texture pop in, but unfortunately it still causes the spawning issues due to the greater number of textures it's loading into the distance. I'd stay away from any increases in LOD for now if I were you.

 

12 hours ago, someguylarz21 said:

do you guys think mods like new horse coats could cause problems?

 

I tested and still use tons of custom horse models/coats, particularly from the Realistic Cowboy Horses mod collection, and while my initial testing didn't reveal any noticeable impact on peds and wildlife, I have since concluded that it does contribute to reducing the number of trains. The potential solution would be to load in custom horse models and textures using the file replacement method as opposed to streaming them in, but I have no idea how to install them that way. Unfortunately, modded horses are something that I simply can't do without at this point, so I'm still going to use them regardless.

Edited May 13 by Dagger323

[Sanah 17]

7 hours ago, Dagger323 said:

 

Sorry for the delay in response; I've not been on here in a couple days. I believe the issue causing the fading in and out on your end is likely due to the Increased Level of Detail. That absolutely causes a spawning problem and a texture loading issue, because you're forcing the game to render a much higher number of textures further away from the camera than it was intended to do. I certainly saw a reduction of wildlife and peds when I used it and had far more abnormal texture pop than without it, so I stopped using it. There is actually a way to get a higher LOD by just manually editing values in the gameconfig, system.xml, visualsettings.dat and the timecycle files that alleviates the texture pop in, but unfortunately it still causes the spawning issues due to the greater number of textures it's loading into the distance. I'd stay away from any increases in LOD for now if I were you.

 

 

I tested and still use tons of custom horse models/coats, particularly from the Realistic Cowboy Horses mod collection, and while my initial testing didn't reveal any noticeable impact on peds and wildlife, I have since concluded that it does contribute to reducing the number of trains. The potential solution would be to load in custom horse models and textures using the file replacement method as opposed to streaming them in, but I have no idea how to install them that way. Unfortunately, modded horses are something that I simply can't do without at this point, so I'm still going to use them regardless.

Hey! Sorry to bother you again with this stuff. A new Navy revolver mod released a few days ago and wanted to try it. It replaces the original Cattleman model with the Navy one, among with its respective engravings and the weapon wheel icon. I am guessing, since it is not a catalog modification nor does it introduce any new stuff - it just replaces it - there shouldn't be any problems regarding spawns, right? I'm asking because most of the mods that mess with the spawning system are the ones that add new stuff instead of replacing it, but I don't know if that is 100% correct.

 

I finally managed to get Smoking Complete and Stutter Fix working together with no spawning issues, and I thought I might be adding that new Navy mod but I'm not totally sure about the consequences of installing .ytd files or just how many of them are enough to break the game lmao

 

EDIT: this is the mod I'm talking about

https://www.nexusmods.com/reddeadredemption2/mods/4044?tab=files

Edited May 13 by Sanah

[Byronic 0]

Hi Guys, this topic comes yesterday to my attention during my attempt to pick up some heavy mods for my playthrough. Downloaded the Game again from my Epic Store Account after 1,5 years later since my last time playing the Game. I only played the Game once but wasn´t to be able to finish it 1,5 years ago.

Now by reading in that topic about mods breaking the Core Game I am not ready to overseen that when I mod the Game like I usually would do but with the attention now that I play a half soulless Game. I love mods which are great for immersion and of course Visual enhancement.

So I wanna come to my point now why I post this here. I completly don´t know where to start now? I mod GTA V since the release on PC, do it still, but decided to play RDR 2 finally complete from start to end. I don´t know if it make sense without Texture mods while I am running only a RTX 2070 and a AMD Ryzen 7 5700 G?! I am aware I DLSS and other helper for such an old GPU helps me in most Games to enjoy them also. My question to you Guys which have more experience is: There are some mods which I can apply without forcing the Games core mechanism to break? Forgive my ignorance, I read only Page 1, 2, 7 of this thread. There are so many advices and info to bear in mind that I am a bit lost today where to start? If it is better to play without mods I would try just because I know that the Game is great. But we all love mods for Games, so I would like to have some recommendations.

Don´t get me wrong, I don´t want a complete Mod List from you Guys. I will test some mods of course with your instructions by reading again the threads posts.

 

What I didn´t understand in a wider way is, did the non spawning correctly issue exists from day one of the Game, speaking about before that Rockstar update 2022? Or was it always there? I am asking because with the Steam Version of the Game it should be possible to roll back to a previous Version of the Game. There is a Tool at github which let you download "manifests" from older Game Titles in general. I do this always when I wanna play a.e. FIFA on a lower Title Update. It´s using the Steam DB online for downloading older Title Updates of Games.

Anyway, just a question which comes to my mind. But I guess it doesn´t matter which RDR 2 Game Version I am running?!

 

I am not enough experienced with Game engines and how they work. But I understand the core topic of this thread and why this thread is appeared.

So sorry for this long first post of mine, but I really want both, at least some mods like Visuals and some for immersion if this is possible, but on the other hand i don´t want empty areas and less Game core immersions like the nature/animals despawn etc.

Thanks in Advance for any advice!

[Sanah 17]

54 minutes ago, Byronic said:

Hi Guys, this topic comes yesterday to my attention during my attempt to pick up some heavy mods for my playthrough. Downloaded the Game again from my Epic Store Account after 1,5 years later since my last time playing the Game. I only played the Game once but wasn´t to be able to finish it 1,5 years ago.

Now by reading in that topic about mods breaking the Core Game I am not ready to overseen that when I mod the Game like I usually would do but with the attention now that I play a half soulless Game. I love mods which are great for immersion and of course Visual enhancement.

So I wanna come to my point now why I post this here. I completly don´t know where to start now? I mod GTA V since the release on PC, do it still, but decided to play RDR 2 finally complete from start to end. I don´t know if it make sense without Texture mods while I am running only a RTX 2070 and a AMD Ryzen 7 5700 G?! I am aware I DLSS and other helper for such an old GPU helps me in most Games to enjoy them also. My question to you Guys which have more experience is: There are some mods which I can apply without forcing the Games core mechanism to break? Forgive my ignorance, I read only Page 1, 2, 7 of this thread. There are so many advices and info to bear in mind that I am a bit lost today where to start? If it is better to play without mods I would try just because I know that the Game is great. But we all love mods for Games, so I would like to have some recommendations.

Don´t get me wrong, I don´t want a complete Mod List from you Guys. I will test some mods of course with your instructions by reading again the threads posts.

 

What I didn´t understand in a wider way is, did the non spawning correctly issue exists from day one of the Game, speaking about before that Rockstar update 2022? Or was it always there? I am asking because with the Steam Version of the Game it should be possible to roll back to a previous Version of the Game. There is a Tool at github which let you download "manifests" from older Game Titles in general. I do this always when I wanna play a.e. FIFA on a lower Title Update. It´s using the Steam DB online for downloading older Title Updates of Games.

Anyway, just a question which comes to my mind. But I guess it doesn´t matter which RDR 2 Game Version I am running?!

 

I am not enough experienced with Game engines and how they work. But I understand the core topic of this thread and why this thread is appeared.

So sorry for this long first post of mine, but I really want both, at least some mods like Visuals and some for immersion if this is possible, but on the other hand i don´t want empty areas and less Game core immersions like the nature/animals despawn etc.

Thanks in Advance for any advice!

I've been having problems with spawns (even though I wasn't fully aware of them until later) ever since July 2020, when I first got the game on PC and started modding it. Yeah, you can find up to three different versions of the game online, and the issues will happen in each one. I tried it myself. No, you cannot revert or downgrade the game when using a legit copy. That is not possible.

 

The real question is why. Why there is absolutely no info on this outside from this thread, which is just some months old, except maybe two old Reddit threads and a YouTube video (which has also been posted on here, and which has a lot of misinformation).

 

I'll go even further and say the only person I've seen in the whole internet that has investigated this issue profusely and reported it is the user Dagger323. Not a single modder -not here, not on Nexus, not anywhere- has ever talked nor showed interest in this topic. In fact, they have pushed their mods to the public without telling the many issues they were causing. This shit affects every player on PC, but still no one cares about it. And because of that, we just don't know if the issue is actually fixable or not. There has ben some rambling on Nexus about mod installation methods and how streaming new assets into the game via LML affects the game spawning system negatively, but then again, it's just rambling without actual proof.

 

What has actually been proven is that dropping a bunch of simple .asi files in the game folder will decrease spawns, touching ped pools will decrease spawns, altering LOD settings will decrease spawns, using upscalers/retexture mods will decrease spawns, loading enough .ytd assets will decrease spawns... and so on. 

 

The only possible way to "fix" these issues is troubleshooting them yourself. Try all the mods you like one by one until you inevitably break the game, then go back to where you last had spawns functioning correctly. Beware though that MANY simple mods will break the game even when isolating them. Some people say that texture mods are the one and only culprit but it has been proven false and just placebo in this very thread.

 

So yeah, install some mods and find your personal sweetspot. You'll have to try and find some balance on your end. I highly doubt this will get fixed.

Edited May 13 by Sanah

[Byronic 0]

48 minutes ago, Sanah said:

I've been having problems with spawns (even though I wasn't fully aware of them until later) ever since July 2020, when I first got the game on PC and started modding it. Yeah, you can find up to three different versions of the game online, and the issues will happen in each one. I tried it myself. No, you cannot revert or downgrade the game when using a legit copy. That is not possible.

 

The real question is why. Why there is absolutely no info on this outside from this thread, which is just some months old, except maybe two old Reddit threads and a YouTube video (which has also been posted on here, and which has a lot of misinformation).

 

I'll go even further and say the only person I've seen in the whole internet that has investigated this issue profusely and reported it is the user Dagger323. Not a single modder -not here, not on Nexus, not anywhere- has ever talked nor showed interest in this topic. In fact, they have pushed their mods to the public without telling the many issues they were causing. This shit affects every player on PC, but still no one cares about it. And because of that, we just don't know if the issue is actually fixable or not. There has ben some rambling on Nexus about mod installation methods and how streaming new assets into the game via LML affects the game spawning system negatively, but then again, it's just rambling without actual proof.

 

What has actually been proven is that dropping a bunch of simple .asi files in the game folder will decrease spawns, touching ped pools will decrease spawns, altering LOD settings will decrease spawns, using upscalers/retexture mods will decrease spawns, loading enough .ytd assets will decrease spawns... and so on. 

 

The only possible way to "fix" these issues is troubleshooting them yourself. Try all the mods you like one by one until you inevitably break the game, then go back to where you last had spawns functioning correctly. Beware though that MANY simple mods will break the game even when isolating them. Some people say that texture mods are the one and only culprit but it has been proven false and just placebo in this very thread.

 

So yeah, install some mods and find your personal sweetspot. You'll have to try and find some balance on your end. I highly doubt this will get fixed.

Thanks you for the quick reply. I just thought it would be possible via steam manifests download. I am aware of the other online Versions from previous Title Update of the Game. I took into account to try those if I am honest. But you safe me a long download time without any improvement. Thanks again.

 

I understand now that only a fix would help everyone. I also use the Heap Adjuster.asi and the Packfile Limiter for GTA V which are already mentioned in this thread. I agree it would be essential to have those helper files for RDR 2. But it´s ok for me. Better to know that Problem with the mods mentioned as playing with days of modding  and collecting mods and having a broken Core Game mechanics.

 

I will follow your advice by testing my desired mods one by one and if they are break the Game or not. Related to a possible fix, the hope dies last! We will see.

[someguylarz21 0]

12 hours ago, Dagger323 said:

 

Sorry for the delay in response; I've not been on here in a couple days. I believe the issue causing the fading in and out on your end is likely due to the Increased Level of Detail. That absolutely causes a spawning problem and a texture loading issue, because you're forcing the game to render a much higher number of textures further away from the camera than it was intended to do. I certainly saw a reduction of wildlife and peds when I used it and had far more abnormal texture pop than without it, so I stopped using it. There is actually a way to get a higher LOD by just manually editing values in the gameconfig, system.xml, visualsettings.dat and the timecycle files that alleviates the texture pop in, but unfortunately it still causes the spawning issues due to the greater number of textures it's loading into the distance. I'd stay away from any increases in LOD for now if I were you.

 

 

I tested and still use tons of custom horse models/coats, particularly from the Realistic Cowboy Horses mod collection, and while my initial testing didn't reveal any noticeable impact on peds and wildlife, I have since concluded that it does contribute to reducing the number of trains. The potential solution would be to load in custom horse models and textures using the file replacement method as opposed to streaming them in, but I have no idea how to install them that way. Unfortunately, modded horses are something that I simply can't do without at this point, so I'm still going to use them regardless.

i've switched to increased geometry level of detail and i still have some npcs fading in and other fading in issues. if I zoom out the map quickly I can see that a couple things are loading in a little too late, so either a engine limation but i dont think so i only have like 20 mods and no of these mods are over 50 mb or a particual mod/conflict is causing it. honestly i have no idea im a noob lol. edit: im also pretty sure that these problems occur without increased geometry level of detail.

Edited May 13 by someguylarz21

[Sanah 17]

2 hours ago, someguylarz21 said:

i've switched to increased geometry level of detail and i still have some npcs fading in and other fading in issues. if I zoom out the map quickly I can see that a couple things are loading in a little too late, so either a engine limation but i dont think so i only have like 20 mods and no of these mods are over 50 mb or a particual mod/conflict is causing it. honestly i have no idea im a noob lol. edit: im also pretty sure that these problems occur without increased geometry level of detail.

To reproduce most of those problems you don't even need to install mods. So obviously having 20 mods -no matter which size- is putting more pressure into the engine and making everything worse.

 

Even RampageTrainer introduces problems.

[SerjRozov 0]

17 hours ago, Sanah said:

I've been having problems with spawns (even though I wasn't fully aware of them until later) ever since July 2020, when I first got the game on PC and started modding it. Yeah, you can find up to three different versions of the game online, and the issues will happen in each one. I tried it myself. No, you cannot revert or downgrade the game when using a legit copy. That is not possible.

 

The real question is why. Why there is absolutely no info on this outside from this thread, which is just some months old, except maybe two old Reddit threads and a YouTube video (which has also been posted on here, and which has a lot of misinformation).

 

I'll go even further and say the only person I've seen in the whole internet that has investigated this issue profusely and reported it is the user Dagger323. Not a single modder -not here, not on Nexus, not anywhere- has ever talked nor showed interest in this topic. In fact, they have pushed their mods to the public without telling the many issues they were causing. This shit affects every player on PC, but still no one cares about it. And because of that, we just don't know if the issue is actually fixable or not. There has ben some rambling on Nexus about mod installation methods and how streaming new assets into the game via LML affects the game spawning system negatively, but then again, it's just rambling without actual proof.

 

What has actually been proven is that dropping a bunch of simple .asi files in the game folder will decrease spawns, touching ped pools will decrease spawns, altering LOD settings will decrease spawns, using upscalers/retexture mods will decrease spawns, loading enough .ytd assets will decrease spawns... and so on. 

 

The only possible way to "fix" these issues is troubleshooting them yourself. Try all the mods you like one by one until you inevitably break the game, then go back to where you last had spawns functioning correctly. Beware though that MANY simple mods will break the game even when isolating them. Some people say that texture mods are the one and only culprit but it has been proven false and just placebo in this very thread.

 

So yeah, install some mods and find your personal sweetspot. You'll have to try and find some balance on your end. I highly doubt this will get fixed.

What .asi mods cause spawn issues? In my testings only whyem dlc caused the bug. But only if you wear those clothes. 

[Dagger323 25]

On 5/13/2024 at 4:35 AM, Sanah said:

Hey! Sorry to bother you again with this stuff. A new Navy revolver mod released a few days ago and wanted to try it. It replaces the original Cattleman model with the Navy one, among with its respective engravings and the weapon wheel icon. I am guessing, since it is not a catalog modification nor does it introduce any new stuff - it just replaces it - there shouldn't be any problems regarding spawns, right? I'm asking because most of the mods that mess with the spawning system are the ones that add new stuff instead of replacing it, but I don't know if that is 100% correct.

 

I finally managed to get Smoking Complete and Stutter Fix working together with no spawning issues, and I thought I might be adding that new Navy mod but I'm not totally sure about the consequences of installing .ytd files or just how many of them are enough to break the game lmao

 

EDIT: this is the mod I'm talking about

https://www.nexusmods.com/reddeadredemption2/mods/4044?tab=files

Unfortunately that isn't quite how it works; that Colt Navy revolver mod still uses file streaming as the install method, not file replacement. This can be confirmed by opening the install.xml in the mod folder and seeing the line "<StreamingFiles>Streamer</StreamingFiles>". File replacement is not just a matter of substituting a modded file in place of a vanilla one in the game; if that was the case then most modded horse .ymt/.ytd files would be totally fine (but from my troubleshooting I've found that they can contribute to the train spawn bug). Instead it is how the files are substituted in. They can either be streamed in (known to cause issues) or installed as file replacements (believed to not cause issues, or at least not as many). I would still say to download it and try it for yourself and confirm whether or not you notice any spawning issue with it. But given the confirmed issues with file streaming, I think mod authors need to be moving away from using streaming files at this point.

 

The problem is that far too many people in the community are still under some delusion that only large texture file mods are the culprit and that smaller files don't cause any problem. I just responded to the mod author of the newly released "Blackwater Terrain Textures Overhaul" in the comments section of the (also) newly released "Artwork Inspired Hat" mod (Artwork Inspired Hat at Red Dead Redemption 2 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)). I had requested that the author of the Artwork Inspired Hat mod upload the hat mod using the file replacement method as opposed to using file streaming, considering that streaming files which specifically affect player clothing textures are widely known to be one of the biggest and most immediate direct contributors to the spawning issue — to which the mod author of the "Blackwater Terrain Textures Overhaul" responded and basically said that I was totally misinformed and that only large texture mods needed to use file replacement while smaller mods were fine. As long as we have people in the community, especially mod authors, with this mentality, and with evidently very little or no actual experience troubleshooting this issue themselves, this will continue to be an ongoing problem.

Edited May 14 by Dagger323