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Modder "Fixes" Dark Souls PC Resolution Issues

Unclear if Namco Bandai and FromSoftware approve, but it's impressive.

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UPDATE: On his blog, Durante claims he was working on a DLL intercept, which is what allowed him to deliver this fix, ahead of the game's release. Thus, he was able to release the fix in such a timely fashion.

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Dark Souls on PC no longer has a fixed resolution, all thanks to a skilled fan on NeoGAF.

NeoGAF user “Durante” managed to release the fix in less than 30 minutes, though it comes with come caveats.

“People really shouldn't order the game and expect to play the whole thing at high res just yet,” he warned players. “Again: No one knows yet how well (or if at all) this works for the entire game!”

The difference is impressive, though. Check it out:

The celebration around FromSoftware’s decision to bring Dark Souls to PC was followed by grumbling over limitations of the port that From Software outlined as development continued.

"To be completely honest, we're having a tough time doing it due to our lack of experience and knowledge in terms of porting to PC,” said producer Daisuke Uchiyama to Eurogamer earlier this year. “First we thought it would be a breeze, but it's turned out not to be the case. We're still developing right now--we're crunching right now.”

Namco Bandai hasn’t responded to my request for comment yet. Specifically, whether Namco Bandai and FromSoftware intends to patch out Durante’s resolution workaround in a future update for Dark Souls on PC.

Patrick Klepek on Google+

175 Comments

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AhmadMetallic

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Edited By AhmadMetallic

@MrKlorox said:

Guys, the game is NOT 720p by default. 720p is 1280x720 in progressive scan. The game's default framebuffer is 1024x720. It is 25% smaller in width than 720p. You don't just take the vertical resolution and add a p next to it.

I would kill to understand what you just said. All that 720 and 1080 noise is confusing. Aspect ratios and resolutions and framebuffer, confusiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing

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Karkarov

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Edited By Karkarov

@TheChaos said:

Buttmad consolebabies starting shit because they don't get increased res on their version.

Believe it or not the console versions actually look better than the PC version does if you don't use this fix. For some reason default pc on this game gives you some really muddied blurry graphics.

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TiE23

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Edited By TiE23

I've played from the start to Smough and Ornstein with Durante's mod and I've had no issues with a GTX570 @2560x1440 resolution.

Other than hey, Blighttown still has FPS issues (without trying without the hack, I believe stems from a framerate lock where if the game can't make a consistent 30fps, then it locks down to 15fps, even if your computer is able to perform say, 28fps) this has been going great!

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Chumm

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Edited By Chumm

@RollingZeppelin said:

Whatever man, the guy was posting like an asshole so I called him out for it, if that makes me the bad guy then, fuck it, I'll be the bad guy. I'm glad other people are calling him out for it too.

Just for your own edification, the point being made was that you were using the term "trolling" wrong, not that you were calling dude out. If someone's being an asshole, you say they're being an asshole. To "troll" is to intentionally say things you don't believe in order to get a rise out of people. The people who respond to trolling are feeding the troll. An example:

"You bitchass PC players can't handle playing on hardcore resolution so you had to make it easier by upping the res."

Then, if the troll manages to get an argument going about whether or not higher resolution makes games easier to play, he is satisfied and masturbates over each reply, even though he never actually meant, or cared about, his original post.

I love you and I want you to succeed on internets, godspeed.

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zellar

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Edited By zellar

Wow this thread has become a GiantBomb shitshow!! Everyone ....please chill out...the "FIX" has made it a better game for me!! This is a very hard but very good game.....if you're into HARD RPG's...it is why it is called prepare to die!! As far as console VS PC...who cares....lets talk more about the game...then comparing "Penis size!! LOL!! Game On!!

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ripelivejam

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Edited By ripelivejam

i personally find it funny when people say "oh it's not that hard," then go on to list the reasons why it's excruciatingly hard.

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Bourbon_Warrior

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Edited By Bourbon_Warrior

So why don't the developers give him 1000 dollars and put it in the game?

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mdnthrvst

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Edited By mdnthrvst

@ripelivejam: It's not excruciating if you're good at it, and some players are definitely better than others. Maybe the game absolutely sucks to someone with mediocre reflexes, poor group management, or inadequate risk-assesment; I wouldn't know, because I beat Ornstein and Smough on my first try.

That's the single determining factor that sets Souls games apart - no difficulty settings, shortcuts, or outs. Most games are so singularly focused on getting everyone to their credits screen that they relegate true challenge to bonus content or other side stuff; that Dark Souls places it front and center in a fun, deep, 100-hour adventure is the reason it's so widely revered among people who DO relish a challenge. But if you're bad at the game, you won't beat it. Refreshingly sensible logic in an industry where the bar gets lower year by year.

Name another action-RPG of the past decade that demanded and rewarded so much as Demon's or Dark Souls.

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Revolver

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Edited By Revolver

Wow! The texture work from software made looks great

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LarryDavis

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Edited By LarryDavis

@Humanity:

Right, I think overall the biggest flaw in Dark Souls is the open world. It's a good concept, but without any method of fast-travel until late in the game, which in order to get certain endings you have to give up anyway, it's just far more of an annoyance than a way to provide an immersive experience. You don't need to be able to go to any bonfire anywhere, but just being able to travel to the beginnings of certain areas would be fine. It's also not like the areas really flow that naturally. Sure, swamp -> cave -> LAVA EVERYWHERE! The hubworld of Demon's Souls worked fine, having every area as an isolated level let them play around with the architecture more and it, oddly, didn't feel as disconnected. There were times in Dark Souls where I couldn't remember how to get to certain areas because it didn't seem to make much sense.

When this port is discounted on the steams and maybe has some mods that fix some crazy crap in the game, I might give it another shot. I dunno. It was Disappointment Of The Year for me. Actually, no, Uncharted 3 was. At least Dark Souls was good for a little while.

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Terramagi

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Edited By Terramagi

@LarryDavis said:

@Humanity:

Right, I think overall the biggest flaw in Dark Souls is the open world. It's a good concept, but without any method of fast-travel until late in the game, which in order to get certain endings you have to give up anyway, it's just far more of an annoyance than a way to provide an immersive experience. You don't need to be able to go to any bonfire anywhere, but just being able to travel to the beginnings of certain areas would be fine. It's also not like the areas really flow that naturally. Sure, swamp -> cave -> LAVA EVERYWHERE! The hubworld of Demon's Souls worked fine, having every area as an isolated level let them play around with the architecture more and it, oddly, didn't feel as disconnected. There were times in Dark Souls where I couldn't remember how to get to certain areas because it didn't seem to make much sense.

When this port is discounted on the steams and maybe has some mods that fix some crazy crap in the game, I might give it another shot. I dunno. It was Disappointment Of The Year for me. Actually, no, Uncharted 3 was. At least Dark Souls was good for a little while.

What are you talking about, you never lose the ability to warp once you get it. The only thing you lose out on is the ability to sell items... which is ultimately not worth much, because 50 souls per item isn't exactly a ton by the time you can actually use it.

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mdnthrvst

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Edited By mdnthrvst

@LarryDavis: The swamp/cave/lava thing was because Queelag built her nest into an arch tree and tunneled up from Izalith inside of it. The poor and sick who inhabited Blighttown just had the unlucky coincidence of living 100 feet above Hell.

Actually I'd counter your argument about getting lost and traveling being tedious by saying Demon's Souls setup was far worse - the Nexus was a place of safety, and the World Tendency system and Soul Form health debuff meant that merely entering a real level was a source of stress and tension. You had to truck it to the boss, and if you lost, there were neither checkpoints like in Dark Souls AND you just made the level harder for yourself. If you died, there were material consequences, whereas with Dark Souls merely inhabiting the world is far more bearable with periodic bonfires.

And also, you never lose teleporation even IF you side with the Darkwraiths like an idiot. Also, the DLC adds bonfire teleporting to FAR more bonfires, so your point about having to hoof it everywhere is moot with a patch. Before ringing the Bells, of course, you're don't have many Bonfires to go to and warping between them would break the game.

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kishinfoulux

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Edited By kishinfoulux

I have a 580. What kind of settings should I be using for the fix? I'm clueless about this sort of thing.

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Humanity

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Edited By Humanity

@LarryDavis: I certainly agree about the discontinuity. The hub world of the Nexus worked great whereas it's not really a matter of finding the places for me, as with time that becomes clear, but rather just the act of having to traverse needless amounts of ground when every area could be potentially very perilous. When I need to go through a couple of tough spots just to get to my next, equally tough new location, that becomes exhausting. Like oh shit I gotta go through those archers, then those spear guys, then that tiny ledge, and THEN get into the archives..shit. In Demons Souls I enjoyed the fact that every area was it's own adventure that you braced yourself for. In the Souls games you can die very easily, and not because the game is super hard or anything, but because it's often cheap with enemy placement and rife with control issues - needing to backtrack through these sort of conditions all the time is just another layer of needless difficulty.

That said, Dark Souls did manage to create a more "living breathing" world by not having a Nexus which was neat.

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ShaggE

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Edited By ShaggE

@Humanity said:

Like oh shit I gotta go through those archers, then those spear guys, then that tiny ledge, and THEN get into the archives..shit.

I'm actually torn about that. It's definitely frustrating, but it's a good way of actually seeing yourself improve at the game. First time through an area is a struggle for every inch of progress, then the second time goes just a bit smoother, and so on until you find yourself just tearing through. It's extremely satisfying.

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Humanity

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Edited By Humanity

@ShaggE: It's a double edged sword for sure just like Quick Travel in RPG's to a degree.

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ShaggE

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Edited By ShaggE

@Humanity said:

@ShaggE: It's a double edged sword for sure just like Quick Travel in RPG's to a degree.

Funnily enough, I'm starting to think differently as I fight through Darkroot Garden right now, haha.

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Humanity

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Edited By Humanity

@ShaggE said:

@Humanity said:

@ShaggE: It's a double edged sword for sure just like Quick Travel in RPG's to a degree.

Funnily enough, I'm starting to think differently as I fight through Darkroot Garden right now, haha.

All this talk is getting me in the mood to finish it. I've finished Demons Souls twice, but at one point in Dark Souls I had to choose from two shitty places to go to and I didn't want to go to either one. I waged through the ghost town by getting temporarily cursed, that sucked, killed the boss. Then came Tomb of the Giants and I just backed off at one point not feeling like dealing with that place. At that point my patience was starting to wear a bit thin and I decided to go to the archives and kill Seath and then I saw a booby trapped chest. I kicked it and got it down to a sliver of health, and I got a little impatient and it grabbed me and killed me with one munching attack and I had full health. That kind of annoyed me and I put the game down for a long time - then other stuff came out and I never went back to it. So I have like 3 bosses left I think.

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ShaggE

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Edited By ShaggE

@Humanity: Haha, that's the true evil of this game: that internal battle between "I can't do this anymore" and "Fuck you, game, I'm not going to fold". Especially for somebody like me, who's kind of terrible at games like this.

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golguin

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Edited By golguin

@ShaggE said:

@Humanity said:

Like oh shit I gotta go through those archers, then those spear guys, then that tiny ledge, and THEN get into the archives..shit.

I'm actually torn about that. It's definitely frustrating, but it's a good way of actually seeing yourself improve at the game. First time through an area is a struggle for every inch of progress, then the second time goes just a bit smoother, and so on until you find yourself just tearing through. It's extremely satisfying.

I remember inching my way across every area since any enemy had the potential to kill me. Now I just run everywhere as I go from one PVP spot to another. If anything gets in my way I'll just BS it and keep on going.

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Hunkulese

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Edited By Hunkulese
@AhmadMetallic

Still runs like total shit, but it looks prettier that's for sure!

@neverdeed said:

editing an ini file and slapping on a d3d9 processing dll is not "modding" and it wasnt 23 minutes, he had the pirated version and clearly was using an illegal copy for atleast a day

And what he should have done is......shell out 40 bucks for a broken game? How else do you propose he tests the game and FIXES IT for the masses, (which by the way doubled if not tripled From's profit)?

Only an absolute moron pays money for a broken item.

you should probably figure out what broken means before you start throwing it around so liberally.
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KlUMZeE

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Edited By KlUMZeE

"it comes with come caveats" sounds really gross.

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EndlessLotus

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Edited By EndlessLotus

I'm surprised they were so honest about it.

How refreshing....

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JackG100

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Edited By JackG100

@ripelivejam: It really aint all that hard, you just need some patience and timing. And death does not have that much consequence, unless you are horribly bad and die all the friggin time and cannot find your way back to human form so you can summon aide in bossbattles, then it might be a tad rough.