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Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition |OT| Durante Does In 23 Minutes What From Can't

D

Durante

Member
Yeah, I want to reiterate that this isn't some super-genius level work. All that you need is reasonable familiarity with 3D rendering, the DirectX API, how to intercept .dll calls and some determination.

cpp_is_king said:
Just seeing 1-2 frames of a game running in a high resolution in a single environment with no enemies and nothing else around is nowhere near enough to prove that it works in all areas of the game. Maybe you get to Blighttown and it slows to 1 FPS even with SLIed GTX 700 series cards. Maybe it crashes during boss fights or when lots of particle effects on the screen. It's alot more work than you think to test things like this. A few screen shots is quite literally nothing.
Click to expand...
Of course you are right that everything could happen. But I consider this particular issue (sudden sever framedrops even on high-end hardware) rather unlikely. Rendering performance scales linearly (or better, since triangles occupy more pixels and/or the game may not be ROP/BW limited) with framebuffer size, almost without exception.
 
E

ezekial45

Banned
cpp_is_king said:
Of course they were able to do exactly what he did. All he did was to find the area of code that filled out the back buffer parameters and changed the values of the variables containing the horizontal and vertical resolution. Anybody with an understanding of native code and memory can do this. Not saying it's not a good job on his part, just that it isn't as groundbreaking as you think. They could, but they didn't.

So, it comes down to 2 possibilities:

1) They were really fucking lazy. I have a hard time believing this because it would have taken one engineer probably a day or two to add a menu with a resolution selection screen into the game.

2) Changing the resolution actually causing issues which haven't been discovered yet since Durante's fix is still pretty new and untested is honestly a likely scenario from a technical standpoint.

FWIW, I defended From originally when the whole shitstorm was going on after the announcement, because to be quite honest #2 is pretty likely from a technical standpoint. So for now, I'm stick with #2, but I'll be the first to eat my words if it turns out to be #1.

Just seeing 1-2 frames of a game running in a high resolution in a single environment with no enemies and nothing else around is nowhere near enough to prove that it works in all areas of the game. Maybe you get to Blighttown and it slows to 1 FPS even with SLIed GTX 700 series cards. Maybe it crashes during boss fights or when lots of particle effects on the screen. It's alot more work than you think to test things like this. A few screen shots is quite literally nothing.
Click to expand...

Same here, I really do want to give them the benefit of the doubt. We'll see once we get some real gameplay impressions with this modification running.
 
S

StoppedInTracks

Member
zephervack said:
Dont want to be a party pooper but I cant stop thinking that maybe at some point in the game, it will just blow up or be unplayable at custom resolutions.

I just want to understand how a team of devs that have programmed stuff for complicated multi-threaded consoles is not capable of doing what a hobbiest programmer can do in 23 minutes.

I refuse to believe they are that incompetent.
Click to expand...

It's not that they couldn't. Every single one of their graphics engine programmers can. My bet is FROM didn't want to test the custom resolutions on variety of cards, VRAM amounts, FSAA settings etc. Each change means new test cases and more man hours spent on testing.

FROM didn't even plan a PC release before the 100k petition. They had like 0 time to test custom stuff.

Nonetheless Durante a random NeoGAF poster humiliated FROM in the eyes of the gamers.

Great job, man. I hope this trends on Twitter tomorrow.
 
F

fluffydelusions

Member
StoppedInTracks said:
It's not that they couldn't. Every single one of their graphics engine programmers can. My bet is FROM didn't want to test the custom resolutions on variety of cards, VRAM amounts, FSAA settings etc. Each change means new test cases and more man hours spent on testing.

FROM didn't even plan a PC release before the 100k petition. They had like 0 time to test custom stuff.

Nonetheless Durante a random NeoGAF poster humiliated FROM in the eyes of the gamers.

Great job, man. I hope this trends on Twitter tomorrow.
Click to expand...

#Durante
 
Z

zephervack

Member
StoppedInTracks said:
It's not that they couldn't. Every single one of their graphics engine programmers can. My bet is FROM didn't want to test the custom resolutions on variety of cards, VRAM amounts, FSAA settings etc. Each change means new test cases and more man hours spent on testing.

FROM didn't even plan a PC release before the 100k petition. They had like 0 time to test custom stuff.

Nonetheless Durante a random NeoGAF poster humiliated FROM in the eyes of the gamers.

Great job, man. I hope this trends on Twitter tomorrow.
Click to expand...

True, maybe they knew all along they could do it but just weren't given resources for testing.

Lets blame Namco.
 
S

Somnid

Member
cpp_is_king said:
Of course they were able to do exactly what he did. All he did was to find the area of code that filled out the back buffer parameters and changed the values of the variables containing the horizontal and vertical resolution. Anybody with an understanding of native code and memory can do this. Not saying it's not a good job on his part, just that it isn't as groundbreaking as you think. They could, but they didn't.

So, it comes down to 2 possibilities:

1) They were really fucking lazy. I have a hard time believing this because it would have taken one engineer probably a day or two to add a menu with a resolution selection screen into the game.

2) Changing the resolution actually does cause issues which haven't been discovered yet since Durante's fix is still pretty new and untested.

FWIW, I defended From originally when the whole shitstorm was going on after the announcement, because to be quite honest #2 is pretty likely from a technical standpoint. So for now, I'm stick with #2, but I'll be the first to eat my words if it turns out to be #1.

Just seeing 1-2 frames of a game running in a high resolution in a single environment with no enemies and nothing else around is nowhere near enough to prove that it works in all areas of the game. Maybe you get to Blighttown and it slows to 1 FPS even with SLIed GTX 700 series cards. Maybe it crashes during boss fights or when lots of particle effects on the screen. It's alot more work than you think to test things like this. A few screen shots is quite literally nothing.
Click to expand...

If number 2 is true then number 1 is also true. Durante isn't a wizard just a good guy with some technical know-how. From is fucking incompetent.
 
B

Busta SMurk

Member
The hype around Dark Souls PC version: and I thought I was bipolar...

But for really, the main question I have regarding this game is still unanswered, and tech problems aside, me double dipping on the PC version depends on the answer.

Is the new matchmaking, just an improvement to finding random people to summon, or does it give you the ability to invite specific people to your game?
 
F

Felix Lighter

Member
StoppedInTracks said:
It's not that they couldn't. Every single one of their graphics engine programmers can. My bet is FROM didn't want to test the custom resolutions on variety of cards, VRAM amounts, FSAA settings etc. Each change means new test cases and more man hours spent on testing.

FROM didn't even plan a PC release before the 100k petition. They had like 0 time to test custom stuff.

Nonetheless Durante a random NeoGAF poster humiliated FROM in the eyes of the gamers.

Great job, man. I hope this trends on Twitter tomorrow.
Click to expand...

In a case like that, put the setting in an .ini file. Doesn't have to be an officially supported setting if putting effort into testing multiple resolution is too much to ask.
 
R

RockTurtle

Member
Sethos said:
Hell no.

Tier 300, bottom of barrel tier.
Click to expand...

i know ppl are hating FROM for a bad port, but they sure as hell are not a bad company!

they make good game concepts and take risks! they fumbled once LEAVE FROMTNEY ALONE!
leave-britney-alone-02.jpg
 
L

LiK

Member
Bamco should send Durante a check for doing what From can't or won't do. Sold more copies on PC because of this.
 
T

Teknoman

Member
Busta SMurk said:
The hype around Dark Souls PC version: and I thought I was bipolar...

But for really, the main question I have regarding this game is still unanswered, and tech problems aside, me double dipping on the PC version depends on the answer.

Is the new matchmaking, just an improvement to finding random people to summon, or does it give you the ability to invite specific people to your game?
Click to expand...

I believe the only matchmaking improvement was the new PVP arena? Improved in that you dont have to wait for someone to mess with your message to fight.
 
F

Felix Lighter

Member
mesmerMAN said:
i know ppl are hating FROM for a bad port, but they sure as hell are not a bad company!

they make good game concepts and take risks! they fumbled once LEAVE FROMTNEY ALONE!http://i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/000/016/leave-britney-alone-02.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]

Great game designers and artists but they struggle on all platforms when it comes to the technical side of game development.
Click to expand...
 
E

Eusis

Member
Given the lack of a physical release it really should just be a global unlock. Or at least tied to EDT midnight rather than PDT.
 
C

cpp_is_king

Member
Somnid said:
If number 2 is true then number 1 is also true. Durante isn't a wizard just a good guy with some technical know-how. From is fucking incompetent.
Click to expand...

Umm, no. If #2 ends up being true and the solution requires months and months of additional work to get working, then it's not called being lazy, it's called not being stupid. Time is money, at some point it's financially not worth it based on how much you expect to sell.
 
J

Jaleel

Member
Ghost_Protocol said:
GUYS! I JUST FIGURED IT OUT! You know how not telling you how to do anything is the hook in Demon's/Dark Souls? THE RESOLUTION LOCK WAS ALL PART OF THE PLAN! They've gone completely insane with their desire to not tell us anything about how to play the game that they've extended that mentality to include running the game!!!! That's some next level shit right there!
Click to expand...

shitjustgotreal.gif
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
Durante, if you're still following the thread:

Keep calm and code on. No rush. Make sure it works. Then double-check it. People can wait a day or two or ten as long as it works fine. ^^


edit: also, I didn't know you were playing a German version :eek:

Forkball said:
What?! Dark Souls 64 is evolving!

It evolved into Dark Souls HD!
Click to expand...
That actually made me laugh out loud in real life.
 
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