A lot of noise was made when Rockstar announced the recently released PS5 and Nintendo Switch port forRed Dead Redemption,mostly due to its slightly absurd pricing. The anger surrounding the price was down to the fact that very few improvements had been made to the title despite it running on much more powerful hardware, with the game being capped at 30fps a particularly strong sticking point.
Now that the game is in the hands of the public, a YouTuber by the name of Modern Vintage Gamer has managed to get the game running at 60fps on an undocked Nintendo Switch console (thanksKotaku). They do this thanks to a whole bunch of third party tools developed by the hombrewing community, pretty much exclusively from creator Masagrator.
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The first of these tools is called ReverseNX-RT, which allows the user to force games to run in docked or handheld mode without them having to be docked or in handheld, essentially overclocking the Switch and improving performance. The second tool is called FPSLocker, which allows the user to uncap and set custom frame rates for any Nintendo Switch game. Combined with overclocking tools, this lets you attempt to push a game up to 60fps, as Modern Vintage Gamer demonstrates with Red Dead Redemption.
What’s interesting about this tool though is that it actually allows Red Dead Redemption to run at a higher frame rate without any overclocking tools needed. Modern Vintage Gamer shows Red Dead Redemption running with an uncapped frame rate, which ends up peaking at around 45fps. They then use a third tool called CysClock to max out their CPU clocks and GPU by plugging their Switch into an official charging cable.
With these tools combined, Modern Vintage Gamer is able to get Red Dead Redemption running at a pretty consistent 60fps, dipping no lower than 50fps at most. Obviously, it may run lower at more hectic moments in the game, but Modern Vintage Gamer also explains that Switch iterations that come with a Mariko chipset can actually get the game running even more consistently.
Obviously, if you want to do this yourself, you’ll need to do a lot of research or you’re best off not even attempting it if you don’t know what you’re doing. For starters, you need a hacked Nintendo Switch to actually use the tools that Modern Vintage Gamer uses, and even then you can completely wreck your Switch with them if you’re not careful. At least we can see the game running at 60fps and keep wondering why on Earth Rockstar refuses to put this game on PC.
