So after modding RDR2 for about five months (I first started modding it in early August 2023), it has now come to my attention that modding essentially breaks the game engine's ability to properly spawn in NPCs, wildlife, and even trains, in the way the game was intended. Trains rarely if ever spawn in, and if they do, NPCs will be nearly or completely absent from riding as passengers on the train, and the armed guard will be gone who usually stands at the back end of the caboose (only the engineer will be driving the train, but no one else will be present). NPCs will also essentially never be found riding as passengers in stagecoaches or in the back of wagons or riding shotgun next to the driver (only the driver will spawn in). In general, there will be less NPCs seen standing or sitting at train stops like Emerald Station or Wallace Station, or at various locations throughout the world. Further, wildlife is drastically reduced, with only a few birds and deer and whatnot scattered sparsely throughout the surrounding area, perhaps at about a 20 percent (or less) amount of the densely populated wildlife that is typically found in the vanilla game.

 

The only way to fix these issues is seemingly to uninstall most if not all mods to put less strain on the game engine and allow it to render in NPCs, trains, and wildlife correctly. I have had numerous mods installed from both rdr2mods as well as nexusmods, from modded quarter horse breeds/coats, to environment texture overhaul/upscales, to the Arthur Morgan Upscale Project, 4K Story and Side Characters, realistic gun metals and wickedhorseman's Firearm Cosmetics, euphoria ragdoll mods such as C.E.R.R, A.E.M and W.E.R.O, as well as PDO and fixes to decrease ped accuracy, and several others. All the mods I use regularly only require lml, scripthook and dinput8.dll, and none require version.dll or any online content unlocker, but it doesn't seem to make a difference either way - more than just a couple mods being installed at once still breaks the open world's NPCs, trains, and wildlife from spawning properly. I have had to remove almost all my horse mods, gun mods, texture mods, and combat mods like PDO in order to get the open world populated correctly again. Basically I have next to no mods that I downloaded that I can use at this point. This comes as quite a huge letdown for me, as I was really enjoying getting into modding the game how I wanted it to be. But diminishing the open world into a mere shell of what it is supposed to be is simply too immersion breaking for me to be able to ignore.

 

I don't know why more people aren't talking about this, because it is a huge problem in my eyes, but I've basically found no information about this anywhere. Who out there that is into RDR2 modding has noticed these issues? Is there any solution to this that anyone knows of? I really don't want to have to delete all my mods, but at this point, it looks like that's the only way I can get the full intended single player experience of the game without watering down the open world and sacrificing immersion.

Edited April 23, 20251 yr by Dagger323

Made a little video comparison for anyone interested

RDR2 Modding || NPC / Ambience spawning issue

On 5/27/2024 at 6:33 PM, Delesthor said:

how do you use smoking complete without online content unlocker ? and why timescale 1.4 is better than longer days ? thank you

 

I should, of course, have pointed that out, yes.

 

I'm using LML, ScriptHook and the version.dll from this website, not the Nexus. I did then replace the .dll inside script hook with an updated version.dll(not using the dx8.dll coming with ScriptHook), though I can not remember where I've gotten it from. One thing I do however remember, is that I did not use the "updated" version of ScriptHook labeled "2.0"(on the Nexus) or so, because it gave me issues right away.

 

I should also have been more specific about "mods adding new content". By that I primarily pointed at mods that are using the random encounter engine. Those were the major source for FFFFFFF's. Mods that just added probs or "static" peds(like in Harlots etc.) were ok so far, aside from the usual menu interferences. But that's messed up vanilla already, so it's not that of a major impact. I also had a lot of trouble with mods trying to port over specific "online jobs". A couple of them were failing most of the time, some were working ok, but none of them went free of bugs or other trouble that I couldn't cope with.

 

I just installed OpenIV the other day and slow but steadily start to build my own mods, primarily using NP++ to compare files against each other. And while doing so I figured there's a lot of mods that are using outdated table files, with entirely missing content introduced by either any of the game patches, or any of the DLC's&Special versions of the game. There were also mods that just blatantly ignorant used table files build with Offline Mod. They seem to have completely ignored the fact it has some major table edits/additions, that, of course, will mess up the game if Offline Mod isn't present. But they never mentioned that on the description page.

 

Description culture on the Nexus is already bad as it is, even for some of the most decent modders. Then you have comments disabled on a lot of those pages. But comments are vital to allow the community to help themselves. I have no idea who started it, but it is not a good idea at all, specially if some of the mod pages are missing bare bone essential instructions, like installing routine, or prerequsites.

 

Mods I've just added this week:

 

38. Companion System

39. Rampage

40. Injuries

 

And one mod I omitted from last post is "Predator Rework", which makes it so some Predators will flee if you shoot in the air.

Edited June 1, 20242 yr by Cratthorax

21 minutes ago, elias350 said:

Well so that means that i can use any mod without any ped issue

Not necessarily. I guarantee there are still certain mods that will break the spawns that use large enough textures. Your low resolution just enables you to use more of them without noticing it. But it's still not worth the trade off for me in visuals coming from 4K.

4 hours ago, vincemeister55 said:

Yes, CodeX is the main exporter and importer of textures and YTDs in RDR2. Edit the textures in any photo editing software.

 

Alright, cheers mate. Thank You for all your work man, this really made my day. Can't believe I can have WhyEms with no spawning issues now lol. Thank You so much.

 

EDIT: So, looking at almost all the 45 javier_wraps, they look way too dark

 

This is what the poncho mediafire link files look like for me. That's way too dark for that texture. Idk why

 

and this is what it looks like in the original.

Edited October 17, 20242 yr by HelloImCrimson

Okay, here's my take on compressing WhyEm DLC textures. Also, I re-made install.xml with few files that could be replaced instead of streaming them.

UPDATE:

Since I got explicit prohibition to share my edit from WhyEm, I removed download link. It is what it is, I guess.

I attaching to this message two install.xml files with names for obvious variant you use. But other than that I could not help, sorry.

install.xml_rdo install.xml_standard

Edited October 24, 20242 yr by werwolf969

4 hours ago, werwolf969 said:

Well, I guess that now I can only share the install.xml files with you. I attached them to the initial message with an edit. But, since WhyEm prohibits sharing my edits, the download link for the archive is no longer available.

 

Im sorry but, Im a lawyer, WhyEm has no authority to tell you that you can or cannot share something that he has no rights to. His pack contains plenty of stuff made by Rockstar, in fact; after further inspection, every single model in "his" pack was made by Rockstar, he just did some editing and is now claiming rights to stolen property. Thats like stealing someones car, painting it and saying it's yours now. That's not how that works. Did he ask Rockstar if he can edit or share these files? I dont think so.

 

RDR 2 is not like Skyrim where modding is "allowed" by the creator company. Every single mod made for this game can be taken down by Rockstar at any time they wish. WhyEm is the same as any other modder here(except script mods) and "his" files or rather, Rockstars files, are not free game but are shared until someone gets a cease and desist or a lawsuit from Rockstar only.

 

The fact that you edited (compressed) those files is the same as what he did to Rockstars files, in fact; what he did is much much worse. He basically stole from Rockstar, made some edits and is presenting those files as if he created them from 0 and distributing them under false pretenses as if they were made by himself. WhyEM is just a power tripper and you definitely shouldnt listen to someone like that. There are no permissions to be given by someone who doesnt have any rights to those files since they were obtained in bad faith.

Edited October 24, 20242 yr by HelloImCrimson

2 minutes ago, UncleISRED said:

absolute gentleman

Thank you kindly. There’s many people in this community, who are done much more than me, they’re true legends.

3 minutes ago, UncleISRED said:

system.xml in docu, should that be locked

Yes, make it read-only after you finish with the changes. So game not overwrite it when started.

Hey lovely people,

 

I wanted to shill my video on the topic here, hope its OK. I offer up a very good way of measuring the level if ''fuckiness'' your game is at currently with mods.

Please watch it on 1.5 or 1.75 speed if you are interested in the topic because its incredibly BORING! you have been warned.

Next part will be a modding guide for beginners and not-so beginners

 

 

 

On 3/27/2025 at 2:11 AM, TheAlmightyZugs said:

Can confirm that this doesn't work through testing in terms of fixing the spawning issue. 
 

Trains spawn just fine for me and, like I said, I use several mods. Here's me in a train full of passengers and clearly using mods:

Edited April 1, 20251 yr by IWannaBangAnastasia

On 4/26/2025 at 6:54 PM, Armadillon said:

Project New Austin 1907 : https://www.nexusmods.com/reddeadredemption2/mods/979?

Is actively causing this issue.

This isn't true, he got angry after I deleted his rant about this problem in the comments. Just avoid outdated/unoptimized mods and most people will be fine