• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Dark Souls internal rendering resolution fix (DSfix)

Jimrpg

Member
So I just got a new computer (i5-4690k, GTX 970, 16Gb ram), and I tried playing my old copy of Dark Souls on it. It seems to render the game at its original resolution 1024 x768 or something like that but the HUD elements are at 1920 x 1080. Its pegged to the top left hand corner, and the rest of the area is just a black border at the bottom and right hand side of the screen.

How do I fix this?

I also updated to the latest DSfix but it does the same thing. Also when I unselect Anti Aliasing the screen goes black except for the mouse pointer and stalls.
 

Soodanim

Gold Member
So I just got a new computer (i5-4690k, GTX 970, 16Gb ram), and I tried playing my old copy of Dark Souls on it. It seems to render the game at its original resolution 1024 x768 or something like that but the HUD elements are at 1920 x 1080. Its pegged to the top left hand corner, and the rest of the area is just a black border at the bottom and right hand side of the screen.

How do I fix this?

I also updated to the latest DSfix but it does the same thing. Also when I unselect Anti Aliasing the screen goes black except for the mouse pointer and stalls.

Turning off in-game AA is right, because that's what causes issues, but maybe it's worth removing DSFix until you turn off the in-game AA.
 

Shredderi

Member
JUST finished the game for the first time. What a ride. Of course I employed the mighty DSfix on my virgin voyage through the land or Lordran. It was a pretty glorious experience at 4k (downsampled) and 60fps. The framerate and almost nonexistant loading times contributed in making it an experience I sometimes prefer to Bloodborne even though I like it's combat more. It was just such a smooth experience with good image quality and framerate.
 

Jimrpg

Member
Turning off in-game AA is right, because that's what causes issues, but maybe it's worth removing DSFix until you turn off the in-game AA.

sorry im new at this. How do I remove DS Fix? Just remove the files?

EDIT: Well its working now, im not sure what I did, but I left anti aliasing off and now its fine.

btw - is it restricted to 30fps? I read somewhere the game may not work properly in 60fps - jumps and things... are most people playing in 60 or 30?
 

tauke

Member
sorry im new at this. How do I remove DS Fix? Just remove the files?

Taken from the readme.txt:

Code:
How can I uninstall the mod?
============================
Simply remove or rename DINPUT8.dll
The mod makes *no* permanent changes to *anything*.

You can try my settings which I dump over here: http://pastebin.com/ZMYSkQK9

Edit: My settings is for 60fps so you want to comment out the 1080p res with the higher res of your choice if you planning to play at 30fps. Even at 1080p @ 60fps, it tax my GTX780 around 70-90%.
 

Soodanim

Gold Member
sorry im new at this. How do I remove DS Fix? Just remove the files?

EDIT: Well its working now, im not sure what I did, but I left anti aliasing off and now its fine.

btw - is it restricted to 30fps? I read somewhere the game may not work properly in 60fps - jumps and things... are most people playing in 60 or 30?

I used to just play at 30 to keep things all proper, but I've been playing a lot of DS2:SotFS and I don't think I can go back to 30. Booted up DS1 to try the new version of DSFix and it was painful. You can get used to it, and you'll notice the low framerate a lot less with time (or not at all, as I did when I got back into it a few months back), but 60 is so much smoother, as you might expect.

As I understand it (guessing), it's certain movement animations that are tied to framerate. You can't jump as far with 60fps as you can at 30 (backspace to switch between them if you've turned it on, test for yourself). Ladders can make you go through the ground, although I've never had that happen. What you could do is just switch to 30 for certain jumps, like a lot of people who play at 60.
 

zXe

Member
Does Nvidia's DSR work well with DS1? or is it better to downsample through the DSfix?

The other question I have regarding the fix is in relation to the line

Depth of Field resolution override, possible values:
# 0 = no change from default (DoF pyramid starts at 512x360)
# 540 = DoF pyramid starts at 960x540
# 810 = DoF pyramid starts at 1440x810
# 1080 = DoF pyramid starts at 1920x1080
# 2160 = DoF pyramid starts at 3840x2160
# higher values will decrease performance
# do NOT set this to the same value as your vertical rendering resolution!

So if my vertical rendering res is 1080, what would be the right alternative? 810/540? what if I set this higher than 1080, so 2160?
 

Nabs

Member
sorry im new at this. How do I remove DS Fix? Just remove the files?

EDIT: Well its working now, im not sure what I did, but I left anti aliasing off and now its fine.

btw - is it restricted to 30fps? I read somewhere the game may not work properly in 60fps - jumps and things... are most people playing in 60 or 30?

60 is the way to play. There are certain jumps that are tougher to make at 60, so just hit backspace to toggle back to 30 before attempting it.
 

Nabs

Member
I always read this, what jumps? I played the entire game NG+ using 60fps mode without issue.

Two off the top of my head:
The jump to the nest above Firelink, and the jump to the merchant at the top of Sen's Fortress.
The jumps aren't impossible, they just become much tougher at 60.
 

AU Tiger

Member
I didn't see anything listed in the OP and this may be the wrong thread (Apologies if it is) but has Durante mentioned anything about a DS fix for the new DX11 version of SOTFS?

I didn't see anything on his blog page about it so I figured I would ask.
 
D

Deleted member 22576

Unconfirmed Member
^im sure you can use his generic down sampling tool but outside of that I'm not sure what he'd do..
 

la_briola

Member
I didn't see anything listed in the OP and this may be the wrong thread (Apologies if it is) but has Durante mentioned anything about a DS fix for the new DX11 version of SOTFS?

I didn't see anything on his blog page about it so I figured I would ask.


Durante said:
With the release of Scholar of the First Sin, I also get a lot of renewed interest and questions about DX11 support in GeDoSaTo. The answer to that is still that I’d love to do it (and I also already laid some of the groundwork for it last year), but I simply don’t have the time right now between some increased load at my “real job” and still trying to get some gaming in. I do of course welcome any contributions, as always.
-- http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?p=712
 

DrNeroCF

Member
I only just realized this game has surround sound, but I have no idea how to get it to work. I have speakers hooked up to my PC through the optical port and I have that port set to the default in the control panel.

Edit: I just installed some software from Realtek and even though Dark Souls audio is still 2.0, it sounds very different. I don't know if it's something not working properly, but in both the main menu and Blighttown there's some kind of echo or reverb going on now.


I don't know if there's any software that will transcode surround into DTS like the consoles do, other than Plex. DVD software basically sends an uncompressed 2.0 signal that is actually a compressed 5.1 signal over optical. I looked for awhile trying to get game audio over optical, and eventually just upgraded my stereo to get audio from the HDMI cable, which is probably a ubiquitous feature by now.
 
omg this game is tearing so bad my eyes!!

I have unlocked framrate and everything else is pretty much standard. Any way to fix this?

I also tried borderless window in the .ini as well as in game but its actually a border and doesn't fill the screen so I refuse to play like that.
 

zma1013

Member
omg this game is tearing so bad my eyes!!

I have unlocked framrate and everything else is pretty much standard. Any way to fix this?

I also tried borderless window in the .ini as well as in game but its actually a border and doesn't fill the screen so I refuse to play like that.

Something isn't set up right. There shouldn't be tearing or a border. I'm afraid i can't tell you what is wrong as i can't remember how i set it up, i just know if you don't do it exactly right you'll have problems like that.

Edit: set game to windowed mode and dsfix to borderless fullscreen. Info from last page where i asked about it.
 
Ah it worked, I had to relaunch the game. Soo goodddd!!! :D

Thanks dude.

Also what do you guys recommend for AO strength (does higher look bad?), type of AO and texture filtering options.

I have a 6950 2gb + 2500k.
 

AU Tiger

Member
omg this game is tearing so bad my eyes!!

I have unlocked framrate and everything else is pretty much standard. Any way to fix this?

I also tried borderless window in the .ini as well as in game but its actually a border and doesn't fill the screen so I refuse to play like that.

I was experiencing this also. Aside from setting DS fix ini file to have borderless full screen, also you need to go into nvidia inspector, grab dark souls from the drop down list and manually force on VSync and if available, also turn tear control to standard.

This did the trick.

borderless full screen in the ini file may not be needed but that was the first step I tried and never bothered to set it back.
 

Coreda

Member
Having a few issues with DSFix. Hoping someone can shed some light on it.

- Using renderWidth in combination with presentWidth doesn't appear to be downsampling. I've set it to exactly x2 1080p and the presentWidth at the monitor resolution but it only renders at the presentWidth according to the screenshots. Using a 970. Unless the screenshot output is not meant to be higher than the presentWidth/Height? Doesn't appear to be downsampled (or anti-aliased) though.

- The DSFix AA doesn't appear to be working (quality: 2 / FXAA). In-game AA is disabled.

- Is the togglePaused key meant to pause the game? As uncommenting it (by default set to F9) didn't work.
 

Parsnip

Member
Having a few issues with DSFix. Hoping someone can shed some light on it.

- Using renderWidth in combination with presentWidth doesn't appear to be downsampling. I've set it to exactly x2 1080p and the presentWidth at the monitor resolution but it only renders at the presentWidth according to the screenshots. Using a 970. Unless the screenshot output is not meant to be higher than the presentWidth/Height? Doesn't appear to be downsampled (or anti-aliased) though.

- The DSFix AA doesn't appear to be working (quality: 2 / FXAA). In-game AA is disabled.

- Is the togglePaused key meant to pause the game? As uncommenting it (by default set to F9) didn't work.

It's been a while, but here goes.

What are you using to take the screenshots? If you're using something like fraps or Steam, the screens will come out at monitor resolution. If you are using dsfix to take hudless shots and they still come out at 1080p then there might be an issue with your config.

For AA, try turning the FPSthreshold setting to 0. I had some issues with it before, worth a shot.

You can probably only pause the game while playing offline.
 

Coreda

Member
What are you using to take the screenshots? If you are using dsfix to take hudless shots and they still come out at 1080p then there might be an issue with your config.

Thanks for the help. Using DSFix's hudless screenshots. Wasn't sure if the downsampling here captured the internal resolution when capturing screenshots but apparently not. Also tried Nvidia's DSR but when used with DS it merely upscales the presentation resolution.

Taking a look at GeDoSaTo's details it looks like it uses a similar internal vs presentation resolution settings so I would suppose that wouldn't help.

For AA, try turning the FPSthreshold setting to 0. I had some issues with it before, worth a shot.

You can probably only pause the game while playing offline.

Tried it with the FPSThreshold value at 0, and adjusting to SMAA + 4 value and no change. Also playing offline/online makes no difference with the pause command.
 

Parsnip

Member
Thanks for the help. Using DSFix's hudless screenshots. Wasn't sure if the downsampling here captured the internal resolution when capturing screenshots but apparently not. Also tried Nvidia's DSR but when used with DS it merely upscales the presentation resolution.

Taking a look at GeDoSaTo's details it looks like it uses a similar internal vs presentation resolution settings so I would suppose that wouldn't help.



Tried it with the FPSThreshold value at 0, and adjusting to SMAA + 4 value and no change. Also playing offline/online makes no difference with the pause command.

Well, that is strange.
Afraid I don't really have any other suggestions.
There was a patch a few days ago, but as far as I've tested DSFix still works perfectly here, including the fps unlock, don't know what could be the problem on your end.

Has it worked before or is this your first time trying it? Maybe something else is blocking it, like UAC or something. No clue if that's a thing that could happen.
 

Coreda

Member
Has it worked before or is this your first time trying it? Maybe something else is blocking it, like UAC or something. No clue if that's a thing that could happen.

First time trying DSFix. Wouldn't think it's UAC as I have it essentially disabled and it typically doesn't interfere with such things.

Will do some further searching next week.
 
D

Deleted member 325805

Unconfirmed Member
Is there anything you can do about the dips? I saw a low of 38fps during the gargoyle boss which is really shitty considering how the game looks, plus I have a 970.
 

tauke

Member
Is there anything you can do about the dips? I saw a low of 38fps during the gargoyle boss which is really shitty considering how the game looks, plus I have a 970.

I've a GTX 780 and the game do randomly dip from 60fps. There is nothing you can do about it as far as I know.
 

Coreda

Member
Resolved the resolution issue after last posting. Still couldn't fix the shimmering though. So while it's technically rendering at 4K the image still shimmers when objects and the camera move. Was hoping there's a way to achieve a smooth downsample as it's fairly distracting. Best I could do is alter the presentation resolution values outside of the normal aspect ratio which helped and will do for now.

Using the singleFrameFullCapture command also crashes the game for me, not sure why. Assuming it's a screenshot type.
 
D

Deleted member 325805

Unconfirmed Member
Resolved the resolution issue after last posting. Still couldn't fix the shimmering though. So while it's technically rendering at 4K the image still shimmers when objects and the camera move. Was hoping there's a way to achieve a smooth downsample as it's fairly distracting. Best I could do is alter the presentation resolution values outside of the normal aspect ratio which helped and will do for now.

Using the singleFrameFullCapture command also crashes the game for me, not sure why. Assuming it's a screenshot type.

If by shimmer you mean screen tearing I fixed that by disabling fullscren in game and enabling borderless window mode in the DSFix INI.
 

Coreda

Member
If by shimmer you mean screen tearing I fixed that by disabling fullscren in game and enabling borderless window mode in the DSFix INI.

It's an aliasing type of shimmer, I think coming from the downscaling itself. AA is active in the settings at 4xSMAA, although at full size it doesn't looks much different to no AA.

Example GIF of movement (also appears on the ground and elsewhere when moving):

oMfXRxu.gif

Full size:

 

Durante

Member
That seems like AA is broken. Can you post your settings?

About pausing, that was never an officially supported feature. I have no idea if it still works, but it only ever worked if you unlock the FPS (that's a prerequisite).

Oh, and singleFrameFullCapture isn't a screenshot type at all, it's a debugging tool.
 

Coreda

Member
That seems like AA is broken. Can you post your settings?

Sure, here's a pastebin. Tried various dofOverrideResolution values from the list, so 540 is just tentative.

About pausing, that was never an officially supported feature. I have no idea if it still works, but it only ever worked if you unlock the FPS (that's a prerequisite).

Oh, and singleFrameFullCapture isn't a screenshot type at all, it's a debugging tool.

Ah. I probably also had unlocked FPS disabled at the time.
 

Durante

Member
Hmmm, the settings look fine. Can you try FXAA instead of SMAA for testing? Also, capture a full 4k shot with some edge that should make AA (or the lack of it) obvious.
 

Coreda

Member
I'm looking at this on a laptop with stupid DPI scaling, but FXAA seems to be working fine.

Yeah the AA appears to be working at full res. Maybe the shimmering effect when downsampled is just normal, no idea. Tried the renderWidth/Height at normal res and the effect is pretty much eliminated.
 

Coreda

Member
Downsampling should really reduce shimmering, not increase it. Are you forcing AF?

It's currently 0 in the DSFix config, and application controlled in the Nvidia control panel. Tested filteringOverride 2 and no change. I think I'm okay with it though rendering at regular res if it solves it, and cheers for the help and mod :)
 

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
Yeah, it's pretty busted. Higher resolutions get more aliasing.

I did some testing for it, here are a bunch of examples. I find Andres beard to be the best thing to compare with. Ignore black splotches:


1920x1080 screenshots show that AA is working.

And here is 7680x4320 with using an external program to capture a screenshot, compared to the full sized 7680x4320 version. AA off.

darksouls_2015_06_30_19_01_09_581_by_aloooo81-d8zf5kc.png


Beware: 9Mb image.

It seems like it's a scaling issue, rather than an AA issue.

Setting present and render resolution both to 7680x4320 still has huge aliasing issues. Setting present to 7680x4320 and render to 0 still has huge aliasing issues.

Another bug I noticed while testing, HUD scaling only works if your render resolution matches your present resolution.
 

Durante

Member
Actually, some aliasing when sclaing from resolutions larger than 4x present is to be expected, DSFix isn't GeDoSaTo :p

Still, it does seem like some update broke the scaling quality. I'll look into it if I have time. (I wish someone with soem time on their hands would migrate DSfix to a GeDoSaTo plugin, it has so many nice features that make live easier, and backporting is a pain :p).
 

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
Actually, some aliasing when sclaing from resolutions larger than 4x present is to be expected, DSFix isn't GeDoSaTo :p

Still, it does seem like some update broke the scaling quality. I'll look into it if I have time. (I wish someone with soem time on their hands would migrate DSfix to a GeDoSaTo plugin, it has so many nice features that make live easier, and backporting is a pain :p).

Weird, I sort of just assumed DSFix used something like Bicubic scaling, I'm not sure why I had that impression! But yeah, it has been like this for a while, I think I had just thought it must have always been that way but I didn't notice~
 

Parsnip

Member
Actually, some aliasing when sclaing from resolutions larger than 4x present is to be expected, DSFix isn't GeDoSaTo :p

Still, it does seem like some update broke the scaling quality. I'll look into it if I have time. (I wish someone with soem time on their hands would migrate DSfix to a GeDoSaTo plugin, it has so many nice features that make live easier, and backporting is a pain :p).

This has always interested me, but lacking knowledge is a bigger hurdle than lacking the time. I wouldn't even know where to start.
 
Possible silly question, what's the difference between enabling graphical options/downscaling in DSfix over the same in NV control panel? Will having global overrides such as 16xAF in my NVCP cause problems? Should I disable my 60fps cap in RTSS if DSfix provides its own cap?
 

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
Possible silly question, what's the difference between enabling graphical options/downscaling in DSfix over the same in NV control panel? Will having global overrides such as 16xAF in my NVCP cause problems?

You SHOULD use AF from Nvidia inspector over the dsfix option. Also the game doesn't natively downsample so if you don't use DSFix it'll just be a 720 rendered image stretched up
 
You SHOULD use AF from Nvidia inspector over the dsfix option. Also the game doesn't natively downsample so if you don't use DSFix it'll just be a 720 rendered image stretched up
DSfix lets me downsample though, right? I can set my render resolution and the output resolution in the .ini.
 

~Kinggi~

Banned
You SHOULD use AF from Nvidia inspector over the dsfix option. Also the game doesn't natively downsample so if you don't use DSFix it'll just be a 720 rendered image stretched up

What is the reason for wanting to use NV AF over the AF available in DSFIX?
 

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
DSfix lets me downsample though, right? I can set my render resolution and the output resolution in the .ini.

Yep, DSFix is what lets you downsample.

What is the reason for wanting to use NV AF over the AF available in DSFIX?

From the ini:
Code:
############# Filtering

# texture filtering override
# 0 = no change 
# 1 = enable some bilinear filtering ([B]use only if you need it![/B])
# 2 = full AF override ([B]may degrade performance[/B])
# if in doubt, leave this at 0
filteringOverride 0

And from memory, I remember Durante saying it should be used as a backup if you couldn't just globally force AF through NV Control Panel. My memory may be faulty on this, but thats what I believe to be the case.
 
I'm getting a lot of darkness just ahead of my character (under arches etc.), which brightens as I move into it. Is this some sort of over the top AO or is it just how DS looks?
 
Top Bottom