Dark Souls 3 PC performance thread

Core i7 3770K @ 4.4 GHz
16 GB DDR3 Ram
2x GTX 670 2GBs

With the SLI profile I have everything set to the highest setting save for Textures. I have that set to High and I'm getting a pretty consistent 60fps so far. I'm only at the High Wall of Lothric though.

Man, I have to say this game is beyond beautiful. Screenshots and videos just don't do this game justice. The geometry, the art direction, the lighting...beautiful! My jaw dropped when I first walked through the doors at the High Wall bonfire. Also, having the game run at 60fps takes the experience from awesome to breathtaking.

Edit: I do get some temporary framerate judder/lower fps when I arise from teleporting to a different bonfire. I also get slight slowdown when moving right after reading a message. These slowdowns are minor and for the most part temporary. I assume the bonfire teleport slowdown is due to textures loading in.

We have nearly the same setup minus the CPU (i5 2500K @ 4.2 GHz) and the RAM (8 GB DDR3 RAM), but I can't maintain a constant 60 FPS at all. I'm getting constant framerate dips (from 60 to 58 or 56, for example) with the in-game settings you use in, as well as with any other combination of game settings. I've tried running the game without a DS4 controller and turning off Afterburner to see if those might have causing some problems. I'm also at the High Wall of Lothric.

What driver version are you using? Have you made any other tweaks outside of the game settings?
 
Had about five display driver has stopped working crashes tonight. I haven't seen one of those in years now.

First was right after kneeling to level up the first time. Then randomly after that at or near the Firelink bonfire (again right after leveling) and near the tower bonfire. I had three in the span of about 4 minutes just now before I quit out of frustration.

Still on the 361.91 drivers since I haven't heard anything but bad things about the past few Nvidia releases, esp for dual-monitor setups.

Driver crashes could be due to unstable OC. Is your video card OC, whether by user or from the manufacturer? If yes, downclock to its stock core / memory speed for that GPU.
 
Driver crashes could be due to unstable OC. Is your video card OC, whether by user or from the manufacturer? If yes, downclock to its stock core / memory speed for that GPU.

It's not OC'ed factory or otherwise. Also, this is the first game in years that has done this and it seems as though I'm not alone in this.

See "EDIT 3" and/or search for "display driver" on that page: https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/4edfpm/pc_tech_support_megathread/

See "EDIT 4" and/or search for "display driver" on that page: https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/4ed7hq/crash_reports/

Seems a fix (that doesn't even work for everyone) is to put the lighting down to the lowest setting. Unreal.
 
Core i7 6700k
980 Ti SLI
16GB DDR4 ram 2100mhz
3840x2160 (4k)

I'm able to run the game at everything on max settings and 4k resolution at a solid 60fps. This game looks so gorgeous in 4k.
 
i5-2500k oc'd to...3.7 i think? i forget, it was a while ago.
970GTX
16gb ram

max it just fine at 1080p, perfectly smooth, but can't stream it or else it starts micro-freezing all over the place and the stream quality is shit (at 2500kbs.) 2500k finally showing it's age, I think.
 
I haven't actually played the game; I just pre-ordered it for the soundtrack (I don't have faith in Scamco to offer it separately as DLC) and pre-loaded it to make this thread as I enjoy doing PC performance threads. I wouldn't exactly say that Dark Souls isn't my cup of tea as I did spend several hours with the PC version of the original a few years ago, but, yeah, sinking my teeth into 3 definitely isn't within my purview at this juncture.

Ahh okay, thanks for the quick response I'm seeing others report stutter when it saves so I guess its not just me.
 
2500K@5Ghz + 980ti@1500Mhz and getting stable 60Fps all settings maxed at 1440p.

Just one thing, i can't get the stable framepacing i usually get when locking the framerate at 60(playng on a tv whith a refresh of 60Hz). It's by no means unplayable but just wanted to know if you guys can get a flat line under "frametime" on afterburner.
 
Just wanted to give an update on my constant crashing that I reported earlier in the thread.

I updated to the latest AMD drivers for Windows 8.1 and all of my crash-related problems magically disappeared. Such a simple fix. I don't even have "Lighting" set to low. It's on medium and everything is running fine. I was only one or two driver updates behind, so I was shocked to see that was all I needed.

i5-3570K oc'd to 4.5 GHZ
Radeon 7950 3GB
8GB RAM

Getting a near constant 55-60 FPS with a mix of High and Medium settings, SSAO and Motion Blur turned off.

I've put 5 hours into the game and I'm loving it. Three bosses down, haha.
 
Just wanted to give an update on my constant crashing that I reported earlier in the thread.

I updated to the latest AMD drivers for Windows 8.1 and all of my crash-related problems magically disappeared. Such a simple fix. I don't even have "Lighting" set to low. It's on medium and everything is running fine. I was only one or two driver updates behind, so I was shocked to see that was all I needed.

i5-3570K oc'd to 4.5 GHZ
Radeon 7950 3GB
8GB RAM

Getting a near constant 55-60 FPS with a mix of High and Medium settings, SSAO and Motion Blur turned off.

I've put 5 hours into the game and I'm loving it. Three bosses down, haha.

No such luck for me on the Nvidia side of things. Setting lighting to low helped for a while, but I'm getting pretty frequent crashes in the third area. I've tried just about everything I could think of including rolling back to older drivers, but nothing seems to help. Playing offline miiight have fixed it though. I played for about 30 minutes before logging off and the only thing I changed was switching to offline mode. I guess I'll find out for sure tomorrow. This is the most trouble I've had with a PC game in a very long time.

Another annoying thing is that my advanced graphic settings don't seem to be saving between sessions.

On a positive note, after rolling back to older drivers that don't have an SLI profile for DS3 I discovered that the game runs surprisingly well on a single GTX680. I had a solid 60 FPS in the third area at 1080p with almost everything maxed (lighting low obviously).
 
Has anyone managed to fix controllers that don't work in Dark Souls 3? My Steam, wireless X1 and wired 360 controllers all don't work in the game. I can look around with the Steam controller but nothing else works.
 
i5 2500k at stock 3.3
2x4g ddr3 1600
R9 390 @ 1080mhz 1600memory

game defaulted to high, mostly 60fps but hardly stable. ive seen as low as 44
 
FX-8350
R9 290
8 GB ram

Only played the first hour, but so far the game runs buttery smooth apart from occasional hitching (every 5 minutes or so).

No crashes

Couldn't get my controller to work at first (DS4), worked after a quick unplug.

Very happy so far.
 
Has anyone managed to fix controllers that don't work in Dark Souls 3? My Steam, wireless X1 and wired 360 controllers all don't work in the game. I can look around with the Steam controller but nothing else works.

This usually happens if the game thinks there's a controller already. Go to Devices and Printers and see if there's a rogue controller popping up, or any accessories you have that are being considered controllers.
 
I'm getting a weird hitch/lag everytime the game autosaves. anyone else experiencing this?

nm, seems like it's a known issue :/
 
Some hitching when reading notes but otherwise smooth as silk. No crashing, everything max'd

1440p
3770k @ 4.7ghz
Titan X on some ancient drivers
 
1080p

Gtx 970m
6700hq
16 gb ddr4

Settings on high gives me 40-50 fps, drop a few options down to medium give me full 60 fps


Looks and runs fine, and 3 profiles by from for the steam controller!
 
I have an i7 2600 and 970 and my temps are in the 50's while playing at a mix of high and max 1080p.

Try restarting your computer, that's one thing I had to do to get steam overlay to work and it runs smoother. Though that could have been because I just updated drivers as well.

Hey, updating at least lowered temp by 10°c, so thanks for reminding me. But I still get ~40 fps looking at some angles if I try a few max settings. Oh, well.
 
Well, apparently my computer shutting down problem was due to me overclocking my 4690k to 4.5GHz without changing the voltage.
Now the game is just fine without the overclock, but the fps dips down below 60 a lot more, up to like 12fps drops from before. Oh well, still a ton better than my computer dying.
 
Thankfully no problems on my end. 980ti downsampling from 1440 at max settings. Game looks good and runs at a consistent 60 fps. Pretty happy with the port.

Also, unlearning Bloodborne skills in order to play Dark Souls after spending this time last year unlearning Dark Souls skills in order to play Bloodborne feels weird.
 
Well, apparently my computer shutting down problem was due to me overclocking my 4690k to 4.5GHz without changing the voltage.
Now the game is just fine without the overclock, but the fps dips down below 60 a lot more, up to like 12fps drops from before. Oh well, still a ton better than my computer dying.

You can still over clock without going that high
 
i7-3770
GTX 780
16GB RAM
(not installed to an SSD)

Having a mostly smooth experience at 60 with all settings maxed at 1080p (except shadow quality, which I kept on High). Pretty great so far except I'm getting hitches in the following scenarios:

-Picking up items
-Autosaving
-Spawning at bonfires (and if I run too far too fast it crashes)

I'm having frame drops in these scenarios:

-Lots of dynamic lights (at least, I think that's what they are) like the candles in the Shrine cause big drops
-Lots of particle effects
-Area transitions

Overall I'm pretty happy with performance, crashes aside.
 
Just wanted to follow up and say that I'm officially in the camp of those who changing the lighting setting to "Low" seems to have resolved the CTD / hard video driver crashes when approaching or leaving bonfires. Have progressed to the third area, three bosses down, and haven't had the crash issue since I made that change. Super weird - why wasn't this fixed? From knew about it weeks ago when the PC streamers started during the JPN version launch.

Otherwise really enjoying the game! Such a big difference running it at a locked 60FPS coming off playing Bloodborne on PS4.
 
i5 6600k
Gigabyte R9 390
32 gigs of ram
SSD

All stock.

I get silky smooth 60fps on max settings at 1080p and 44-55fps at 1440p

Anybody know what I would need to turn down to hit 60 at 1440p?

Game is fantastic even at 1080 though.

EDIT: Oh, no crashes at all so far. Knock on wood.
 
I played for about 45 minutes with no crashes. Had some random stutter when picking up souls in the very first area, but not at the first boss after the camp. Game has been running pretty great with max settings @1080p. The game is installed on my 3TB 7200RPM HDD, not on my OS SSD. I'm also on older NV drivers because of the recent Netflix crash bug.

4770K @3.4
16GB DDR3
GTX980 Reference (Stock)
 
I could live with the hitch if the game didn't keep crashing. Anyone figure out what is causing the bonfire crashing?

So disappointed with having to wait 3 weeks to finally play it and then this :(

Change your graphics settings to low lighting instead of high, might fix the crashes.

If you're still having issues, try starting a Knight instead.
 
Couldn't get my DS4 or steam controller to work earlier but finally got the DS4 going and now the voices in the intro movie are so low I can't hear it even though my surround sound is working fine for everything else and all the other sounds and music are working.
 
Played until I killed the first boss and the game runs pretty well on my rig (1080p@60FPS on max settings) :

i5 6600k
16Go DDR4
GTX 970 4G Gaming
 
Just wanted to give an update on my constant crashing that I reported earlier in the thread.

I updated to the latest AMD drivers for Windows 8.1 and all of my crash-related problems magically disappeared. Such a simple fix. I don't even have "Lighting" set to low. It's on medium and everything is running fine. I was only one or two driver updates behind, so I was shocked to see that was all I needed.

i5-3570K oc'd to 4.5 GHZ
Radeon 7950 3GB
8GB RAM

Getting a near constant 55-60 FPS with a mix of High and Medium settings, SSAO and Motion Blur turned off.

I've put 5 hours into the game and I'm loving it. Three bosses down, haha.

Cheers for this that's my spec too and I was thinking solid 60fps at medium would be ideal. 7950 3GB is one of the best value for money cards I have ever bought, it's still plugging away hitting mostly 60fps and high settings in games close to 4 years after I bought it.

I played on my laptop last night spec as follows:

i5-6300HQ
8GB RAM
Nvidia 960M
Installed on HDD.

Getting almost constant 50fps at 1080p by using the LOW graphics preset, honestly I must have crap eyes but switching from high to low I noticed almost no visual difference in the game apart from the fps increasing by about 20.
 
Top Bottom