Hey all,

I was just wandering if the graphics issues with this game were resolved since it's launch? I believe there was draw distance/tearing/resolution issues at launch.

Thanks.

There is a mod called ''dsfix'' which removes most or all of the graphics issues in the game.

@johnlocke: They have been addressed. Dsfix makes it the best version of Dark Souls out there. It's fantastic.

@truthtellah: @dreamtheateropeth:

Is the mod the only solution or have the developers worked on something? Does the dsfix mod affect anything else?

Also, I forgot to add this in the original post, does the PC version come with any content not seen in the original console release?

@johnlocke: The developers did make it run fine, as well, but dsfix does the rest. Good for higher resolutions, etc. There aren't really any issues with the game that weren't there on the console. Though, I'd say it runs even better on PC.

The Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition on PC does have additional content, with a few extra areas, weapons, and bosses.

There has been no official support. The mod is pretty robust and the original modder, Durante, includes a readme about which settings to what. It's as simple as dragging and dropping into the game folder.

Also, I play the vanilla version often, there's no tearing or draw distance issues. Its just limited to 720p resolution. The mod fixes that.

@colorbrandon:

So is the vanilla version fine to use?

Thanks to all who have replied to this, I appreciate the help.

The vanilla version is fine to use on lower resolutions, at least in my experience. If you go 1080p or more, you'll get more issues. Adding dsfix is the easiest thing ever though; so, it should just be a given at this point. With it, the game is simply the best version of Dark Souls available. If you don't have it and want to play DS on your PC, Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition is great.

@johnlocke: It's limited to 30fps and 720p. I honestly never got dsfix to work all that well on my computer so I've always played it vanilla. I've beaten it about 3 times now, twice on the PC and once on the PS3 and even though there's massive amounts of frame lag at certain points, the PC version is way better. The 360 version was pretty much garbage when I tried to play it on that, lag spikes every other step.

As for extra content, the extra content is the DLC from the 360 and PS3 version. It's packaged in with all 'Prepare to Die' versions (the only version that's available on PC) and was later released as DLC on XBL and PSN.

TLDR version: As long as your PC is up to par, this is the best version you can play.

The mod makes it a bit buggy but it runs fine either way. It's not optimized well (e.g. really bad multithreading), but as long as you have a good PC it'll be OK. Most of the issues is because of engine limitations. The console versions have the same limitations, so the PC port is still the best version around.

@johnlocke: It's fine. I actually prefer it at 30 fps capped because I'm used to it like that. Using DSfix makes it look a lot nicer though. There are comparison shots online.

@audiobusting: Just out of curiosity, what bugs occur due to the mod?

Also, does the mod cause issues with Xbox Live (or Windows Live, whatever its called on PC) as would it count as a mod which could lead to having a banned account or is this fine to have on the game?

I have played almost 50 hours with no bugs whatsoever on PC, it doesn't mess with any online features or authentication, so you don't need to worry about getting banned.

Also , BACK UP YOUR SAVE. Because I had one bad experience where I thought I lost my save, and I freaked out. It turned out that it wasn't a bug so much as me trying to transfer saves between computers and goofing up. That's something you don't want to happen to you. I just copy and paste the save into a google docs folder on my computer to keep it safe.

@johnlocke said:

Some people have said DSfix's 60fps option introduces a chance of the game's collision detection between your character and world geometry to bug out occasionally, especially when sliding down ladders, but I have never experienced it in over 300 hours of playing on PC nor have I seen it happen to anyone else, so it seems safe to assume that such new glitches are extremely rare if you ever even encounter them at all. Note that if you use DSfix without turning on 60fps (leaving the framerate capped at 30 by default), there are no rumors of new bugs whatsoever.

As for GFWL, I've again never experienced nor seen a reliable account of anyone being banned or having any repercussions for using mods like DSfix or DSCfix in Dark Souls for PC. It seems Microsoft doesn't actually do any policing of GFWL, so the upside is that mods work great, but the downside is cheaters get away without punishment. Considering that the mods benefit all players all the time, whereas the cheaters only spoil the fun for a few people a small amount of the time, I think players overall are gaining more than they're losing with the current state of freedom.

@johnlocke said:

It depends on your hardware, really. DSfix messed up the font on my old PC, but it works flawlessly on my new one. Durante also wrote some comments about the sun being dislocated but I don't really know what that means. And like mentioned above, some things in the game may be frame-dependent (which I think is why they disallow online play when your framerate drops too much).

As long as you back your save up, you should be able to try it safely. Don't worry about getting banned, I haven't heard about anyone getting banned in Dark Souls.

I haven't had any problems with DSFix, personally. Go crazy. Upscale. PLAY THE GAME.

@mikemcn: @savage: @audiobusting: @rorie: Ok thanks all, I appreciate the help. Just installed the game to find it does not run (on Windows 8) but I have read some potential fixes (such as Games for Windows Live being an old version on the disk causing the game to not load thus I need to install the latest version from the GFL website and then it should run so hopefully that fixes it).

@johnlocke: Yeah, I think you need an updated Game for Windows Live. I'm running it on Windows 8, and with the latest, it runs fine.

@johnlocke: Here are the tried and true methods for getting it to work on Windows 8 in case you're still having issues: http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Dark_Souls#Windows_8

@truthtellah:

Thanks, as soon as I get chance to have a mess around with it after Steam has downloaded the game I will give that a look and give an update here on status. I am surprised that the game installed without Steam from the retail disk as it says you need Steam to run the game yet it did not do the usual Steam installer, however putting the key into Steam then had it download that way so I guess this means you can run it with or without Steam?

Didn't have any problems with the dsfix myself. Didn't try the 60fps though ,only the higher resolution.

Woot, it is working. I will have to mess around with the DSFix file I think as the frame rate was a little choppy (but this is likely down to me putting it at the highest setting, but I need to play before I can truly tell as I just span the camera around to make sure the game was working).

Thank you to everybody who has helped with the issues I had, the solution I found to getting it to run on Windows 8 was here:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/205350/discussions/0/846943514174506118/

I must say, the PC version of this is astonishingly sharp looking with DSfix. Glad I waited to finish the game on here instead of my Xbox.