featured image

Red Dead Online is the multiplayer counterpart of the critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption 2. It is developed and published by Rockstar Games who are known for their current record breaking, Grand Theft Auto 5. Red Dead Online works the same way as GTA Online. There is a wide variety of missions and sandbox Open World activities you can tackle with your friends and other players. However, there are some minor inconveniences, such as the ‘ffff’ error code in Red Dead Online, which prevents you from entering the game completely.

Fortunately, the error isn’t a huge problem to deal with compared to other groundbreaking issues of more well-known multiplayer games like Warzone Crashing or the infamous Weasel Error Code In Destiny 2. Instead, the error ffff has more to do with Red Dead Online does not start properly on your computer.

However, don’t worry too much as we have put together a list of possible solutions that you can implement to fix the error as soon as possible. Some of these are workarounds all discovered thanks to Red Dead Redemption Online’s dedicated community.

Similar to this: Fall Guys Error Can’t Login

What is the FFFF mistake in Red Dead Online

red death online error ffff
The error ffff prompt in Red Dead Online

When it comes to unsolvable mistakes, they usually come from the side of the game. It’s an issue that most users don’t know about and instead assume that their hardware is to blame. Especially nowadays, many recent hit games like Multiversus and Valorant have flaws that players have to deal with almost on a daily basis.

The error FFFF in RDO matches when you try to start the game or are in the middle of a session. It is a random and unknown error that crashes the game and gives no clue as to why it occurred.

Even after all these years of the game, Rockstar is unable to properly address the reasons behind the problem and its cause. Not to mention that the customer support is sorely lacking as there is no communication from the support agents about viable solutions to this annoying problem.

Fortunately, the game’s fanbase on the many Discord and Reddit servers has managed to find a logical explanation behind the FFFF flaw in Red Dead Online. They are believed to be defects resulting from your outdated graphics card drivers, and shader not correctly compiling to the game’s files that are corrupted.

However, these are not serious setbacks from which you cannot recover, as they are virtually harmless. Any hardcore gamer might know how to fix the problem exactly, but for users who are not aware, we are here to help you as we are going to bring along five different solutions to fix the ‘ffff’ error in RDO remove.

More from eXputer: Rocket League Error 68

How to fix the FFFF error in RDO?

Most of the solutions we are going to discuss are self-explanatory to some degree. Preferably most players should follow each of the mentioned solutions in step by step order to hopefully fix the error ffff problem.

Most importantly, it’s worth bearing in mind that these are not guaranteed to work. Ultimately, issues like this are entirely the game’s fault. So don’t feel disappointed if all hope is lost.

We can only hope that using these solutions will help you alleviate the headache of the error in RDO, because while these methods have worked wonderfully for some, for others it hasn’t had the same effect as you might expect.

Restart the game and PC

It goes without saying that the first possible solution that every player should try is to reboot their system. It’s quite easily one of the oldest tricks in the book to quickly fix frozen or frozen games. Often, heavily loaded video games like Red Dead Online will naturally perform irrationally and cause problems like the FFFF error.

To be honest, your first and foremost priority should be to restart your PC from the Windows taskbar. Once this is the case, check if each hardware component is detected accordingly in the Control panel from Windows 10. This is because games like RDO can sometimes cause groundbreaking problems due to an undetected device.

In addition, players can choose to: “Power Cycle” their entire PC. It’s a simple process where you turn off your console completely and remove the power cable from the main outlet. Give it a few minutes and then reboot the system from scratch, it will make the OS have a new boot order.

It’s almost an essential process for games like RDO as they often have a lot of issues as they are completely multiplayer based. This means that these games are known to have various bugs and glitches.

Update GPU drivers

GPU drivers error ffff
Checking and updating GPU drivers in Nvidia and AMD

The drivers in your graphics card play a vital role in maintaining the ecosystem. The various driver updates that companies occasionally release provide the correct stability settings and the required peripherals to fine-tune the performance for any modern video game.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is quite a texture-heavy game to run on most systems. It was Rockstar’s technical excellence at the time of its release a few years ago. Combined with the fact that the multiplayer mode, RDO, is prone to bizarre problems and unsolvable errors, it is mandatory to run it on up-to-date drivers.

Most graphics card companies like Nvidia and AMD periodically provide new firmware releases for the drivers. Users can easily access them and install them relatively easily through each GPU’s main overlays. You can easily search for new driver updates by “Checking for Updates” in the driver menu, which should be easy enough for most users to find.

Check the integrity of files on Steam

Rarely if given a chance, the core files of the video game you are trying to play will be lost or corrupted. It will mess up the stability and proper functioning of the game. It is especially critical that you recover these files, especially for powerful games like Red Dead Online.

This inappropriate misbehavior of the game will lead to various codes appearing without you even knowing that the game files are wrong. Fortunately, Red Dead Online exists on the Steam launcher. It has an excellent and useful feature that allows users to verify games and scan for missing files. You can do this in the following step-by-step procedure:

steam red dead online error ffff
Red Redemption 2 Steam
  • Find the Red Dead Redemption 2 in your library section on Steam.
  • Right click on it to open a small pop-up menu with several options.
  • Click on the last option to get the . to open Properties portion of the game.
Local Files Steam
The Local Files Menu on Steam
  • Navigate here to the “Local Files” tab.
  • You should be able to see the function called “Check the integrity of game files”.
  • Select it, it will perform a status check on the game files; the time to complete depends on the size of the game.
  • Nevertheless, when the verification progress is complete, Steam will notify you of missing files and download them again.
  • Jump back into the game and confirm whether the error code FFFF in Red Dead Online is fixed or not.

Enable Vulkan API

There’s no doubt that when Red Dead Redemption 2 first launched on PC, the port underperformed better on AMD cards compared to Nvidia’s graphics cards. It’s because the game supports Vulkan. It is essentially similar to DX11/12, a shader rendering API that compiles the assets and textures of games.

Vulkan is said to be the preferred API for AMD graphics cards while DX is mainly used for Nvidia. Therefore, we must say that we highly recommend enabling it in Steam so that it can run for the games that support it. In the case of Red Dead Online, it counts as a possible solution which might resolve the error code ‘FFFF’. You can enable the Vulkan API relatively easily in the main settings of the launcher right after you launch it:

steam shader cache
How to enable Vulkan API
  • Just launch Steam as normal.
  • Click in the top left corner Settings
  • You should now see a variety of options to choose from
  • Click on the last one called the “Shader pre-caching” choice.
  • If you haven’t already, check the box to “Allow Vulkan Shaders Background Processing”

Disable additional audio devices

Finally, you can also try to eliminate other glitches in your gameplay in RDO, such as disabling additional audio devices in your OS. It has been said that this might be a weird solution that managed to help a few players play the game smoothly.

Heavy multiplayer games are known to have problems when it comes to working under background overlays or whatever Third Party Applications like antivirus programs, so it’s quite understandable that the PC’s device components can cause problems. You can easily disable these audio devices by following the short and easy steps:

Windows 10 Device Manager
Device Manager
  • First press the Windows key+X
  • This opens the Device Manager menu on your desktop
  • Navigate here to the Sound, video and game controllers choice.
Windows 10 Audio Devices
audio devices
  • Now just right click on the audio device you want to stop and disable.
  • Go back to the game and check if the error still persists or not.

Takeaways

Red Dead Online had the extreme potential to become the next best Open World Multiplayer game. It’s disappointing to know that as of now, Rockstar appears to have given up support for the game for the foreseeable future. Despite the huge admiration and support from the fans, there are no plans for more important content for the game.

It had left fans disgraced as the game was already on its last legs with hardly anything new or innovative. There are a few hiccups to the game, including the error codes and glitches. But hopefully with the fixes we listed you can safely get back to the Wild West of the game in peace,

If all else fails, we highly recommend that you visit the official support forums as the game’s community is quite active there in helping players in every way possible. Let us know if the issue is resolved on your end!

Next one: Fall Guys Error Code 201_003