The purpose of this guide is to get Red Dead Redemption 2 (here after referred to as RDR2),
to run as smoothly and as beautifully as possible on High to mid-range computers in 2019/2020.

These settings reflect what runs best on MY hardware and may or may not run as well on your system.

One problem with the RDR2 benchmark system is that the minimum frame rate rating can fluctuate greatly from one test to another, even without changing any settings or altering anything on the computer.
After watching hundreds of runs of the benchmark I have come to the conclusion that the script is not exact.
I've had runs where the horses don't run in the same direction, sometimes people get run over by the cart, sometimes the animals are in the scene and sometimes not.
Being that each run of the benchmark is slightly different, no 2 benchmarks are going to give the same exact results.

Following that logic, 2 things that do seem pretty even from test to test is fastest
frame rate (hereby listed as fps) and average.

Our goal will be to stay within 60 on the average fps.

Now, if the minimum fps drops too low, I have tested again to make sure it's not a fluke.
I have tried to find settings where the minimum fps never drops below 50 after repeated tests.

The following is my basic specs, and while they can be used as a base line, they should in no way
be used as a goal. If your machine has lesser hardware, do not expect the same results.
In the same token, higher end software doesn't always mean better fps as this game is also CPU bound.

Intel i7 6850k (6 Cores with 12 threads) runs at 3.6 to 3.6 GHz
32 GB DDR RAM
ASUS ROG Rampage V (10th Anniversary Edition) Motherboard
Game installed on SSD drive
Steam installed on SSD drive
ASUS NVIDIA 1080 GTX (Founders Edition) Graphics Card
Dedicated Soundblaster PCI sound-card
LG 24 inch 1080p monitor running 1920x1080 at 60Hz

Software running in background:
Steam Overlay
RockStar Launcher
Soundblaster Control Panel
OneDrive
OBS (When recording)

After 2 weeks and hundreds of tests, the following settings gave me the greatest frame rate with the highest quality.
After the list, I will list some settings you can increase that do not seem to alter frame rate if you choose them individually, but combined may drastically lower your frame rate, so play around with those that are listed as "0 frame rate Loss" to see how far you can push it.

• 1) First thing to do is under ADVANCED settings is to change the locked setting to UNLOCKED and make sure VULKAN is set for the graphics API.
  With DirectX 12 my frames were often cut in half over the Vulkan API.
  
  
• 2) Starting from the top (After restarting game from changing graphics API in step 1)

Resolution: 1920x1080
Refresh Rate: 60
Screen Type: Fullscreen
VSync: ON
Triple Buffering: ON
Pause Game on Lost Focus: OFF (Personal Choice)
Constrain Mouse Pointer: OFF (Personal Choice)

Quality Preset Level: IGNORE as it will show CUSTOM when done
Texture Quality: ULTRA
Anisotropic Filtering: X16
Lighting Quality: ULTRA
Global Illumination Quality: High
Shadow Quality: High
Far Shadow Quality: High
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO): ULTRA
Reflection Quality: High
Mirror Quality: ULTRA
Water Quality: IGNORE as it will show CUSTOM when done
Volumetrics Quality: IGNORE as it will show CUSTOM when done
Particle Quality: ULTRA
Tessellation Quality: ULTRA
TAA: MEDIUM
FXAA: OFF
MSAA: OFF

Advanced Settings: UNLOCKED
Graphics API: Vulkan
Near Volumetric Resolution: Medium *(Greatly drops fps if increased)
Far Volumetric Resolution: Medium
Volumetric Lighting Quality: High
Unlocked Volumetric Raymarch Resolution: ON
Particle Lighting Quality: ULTRA
Soft Shadows: High
Grass Shadows: Medium
Long Shadows: ON
Full Resolution SSAO: Off
Water Refraction Quality: Medium
Water Reflection Quality: High
Water Physics Quality: Middle Slider Setting *(Greatly drops fps if increased)
Resolution Scale: Off *(Greatly drops fps if increased)
TAA Sharpening: FULL on
Motion Blur: OFF (Personal Choice, no comparable fps difference)
Reflection MSAA: X2
Geometry Level of Detail: Middle Slider Setting
Grass Level of Detail: Middle Slider Setting
Tree Quality: High
Parallax Occlusion Mapping Quality: ULTRA
Decal Quality: ULTRA
Fur Quality: High
Tree Tessellation: Off

With the settings I've listed I get a solid 55 min FPS, 60 to 63 highest FPS, and an average FPS of 59.9

I've tried with higher settings and I honestly think most people would be hard pressed to see a difference going with higher settings than what I've listed.

The following settings when changed by themselves from above did not seem to alter fps enough to justify not increasing.
HOWEVER, these were tested one by one from above settings and increasing more than one of these may start to affect overall fps substantially.

Tree Quality High to Ultra: No FPS loss
Grass Detail from Middle to Max: No FPS loss
Full res SSAO OFF to ON: No FPS loss
Grass Shadows Med to High: No FPS loss
Volumetric Lighting High to Ultra: No FPS loss
Far volumetric Med to Ultra: No FPS Loss
Water Refraction Medium to High: No FPS Loss
Grass and Geometry Detail 3/4 way: No FPS Loss


Do note that future patches to the game may or may not alter the outcome of these tests.

Good luck Cowboy!