Dark Souls internal rendering resolution fix (DSfix)

Cannon Goose said:
Aw shit, MSAA totally works with that anti-aliasing bit!

Behold:
ibn0ctHWfJS31n.png


Edit: That's 4xMSAA at 1080p, by the way.
Click to expand...

What settings are you using? Also how are you forcing AA? That shot looks amazing.
 
Finally ran into a section (New Londo Ruins pre-draining) that caused framerate drops on my 2500k@4.5 and GTX 580, although it was very brief. 3840x2160 with 1080DOF. Other than that I've been completely smooth...well, as smooth as 30fps can be. I remember the console version taking a shit in the same area too.
 
Hypron said:
Hey guys, maybe someone can help me with this... The game really runs like dogshit on my computer (Q6700 @ 2.8Ghz, HD6770), whether I use the fix or not... I've got very frequent drops to 15 fps, especially in the new areas (which seem to be running at 15 fps more frequently than 30...). It's hardly a good experience...

I tried turning up all the options in the CCC but that didn't seem to do anything at all, I've still got a very similar framerate. Is there any other known fix for that? Damn whoever thought releasing a badly optimized game with no graphical option whatsoever was a good idea.
Click to expand...

You need a new video card, and OCing your CPU might also help a bit. You should keep the resolution in the MOD the same as the resolution in-game if you want to have playable fps with your current hardware.
 
morningbus said:
The sentiment is absolutely on point for a lot of people though. For me, the port as it was released was a $5-only deal before Durante's patch. Now I'll pick it up at the first ~$25 sale.

Durante saved this game and made Namco a lot more money in the process.
Click to expand...

So you're saying From would get $5 from you without Durante.

How much would Durante get without FROM?

(Not to minimise the great effort that Durante has put into this community and game, and it would absolutely be right for Namco to compensate him.)
 
antitrop said:
That's exactly what I said to myself in 2005. Been happy ever since.
Click to expand...

didamangi said:
.

Man, that looks reallllllly good.
Click to expand...

The 7970 is faster at insane resolutions like 5760 but honestly I miss all the IQ tweaking stuff in nVidia, Dark Souls is the first super sampled game I have ever played thanks to Durante's fix and I cant go back now, I need to SS everything now.

Im done with AMD for sure.

Raytow said:
Why? is not like MSAA is a Nvidia exclusive.
Click to expand...

Is there any way to force SSAO in AMD? Thats what I like about that picture, Im already super sampling so there is little Aliasing for me.
 
Chinner said:
so if you want ssao to work you need to render at native resolution, right? which means you'll have to use msaa(which we now have) and not downsample.

that about right/
Click to expand...

Yes,

For anything in Nvidia Inspector to work, you have to have everything set to your native resolution (ingame & dsfix.ini).
Also, I've been doing a little bit of testing and the Skyrim bit for SSAO is very subtle. If you want SSAO to show up a bit more, with darker shadows, then use the Fallout3 SSAO bit ( 0x00000003 ).
You can STILL downsample/supersample if you want but you have to let Nvidia Inspector downsample for you. Inspector allows you to just supersample and it also allows you to supersample and add msaa on top of that.

Here's a few comparisons for the diff SSAO bits. Everything here is 1080p w/ 16xS (2x2 Supersampling + 4x MSAA):
Pay attention to the misplaced floor bricks, the character's armor around his neck area, the grass blades, and the long dark brown piece of wood to the right
SSAO OFF:
ip3fK8pHnBBeG.bmp


SSAO ON (Skyrim bit):
iblc9XsUbDjtPb.bmp


SSAO ON (Fallout 3 bit):
ieyIkeCZ2p5Zx.bmp
Click to expand...

I personally like the Fallout 3 bit :D

And Supersampling/Downsampling alone will look better in terms of textures but it will still have aliasing. Native Resolution + MSAA wont have the texture sharpness but you can get rid of the nasty aliasing. If you still see aliasing in the background after applying MSAA/SSAA then you need to up your DoF's resolution to the next step because it's causing aliasing in the background blur.
 
LAME! NVIDIA released a new driver today. But it does not include any optimizations for Dark Souls. Will have to wait at least a month before we see any improvements through an updated driver by NVIDIA.
 
mr_nothin said:
Yes,
For anything in Nvidia Inspector to work, you have to have everything set to your native resolution (ingame & dsfix.ini).
Also, I've been doing a little bit of testing and the Skyrim bit for SSAO is very subtle. If you want SSAO to show up a bit more, with darker shadows, then use the Fallout3 SSAO bit ( 0x00000003 ).
You can STILL downsample/supersample if you want but you have to let Nvidia Inspector downsample for you. Inspector allows you to just supersample and it also allows you to supersample and add msaa on top of that.

Here's a few comparisons for the diff SSAO bits. Everything here is 1080p w/ 16xS (2x2 Supersampling + 4x MSAA):
Pay attention to the misplaced floor bricks, the character's armor around his neck area, the grass blades, and the long dark brown piece of wood to the right


I personally like the Fallout 3 bit :D
Click to expand...

I must be blind because I cannot tell the difference between the three different screenshots.
 
BloodyBonzai said:
I must be blind because I cannot tell the difference between the three different screenshots.
Click to expand...

Open the screens in different tabs and go back and forth between the "SSAO OFF" and the "Fallout 3 SSAO". You'll see added shadows/shadowing in the areas I pointed out.
Pay attention to the misplaced floor bricks, the character's armor around his neck area, the grass blades, and the long dark brown piece of wood to the right

EDIT:
Check these areas out -
SSAO ON (Fallout 3 Bit):
iIDM8WreOTUx0.png


SSAO OFF:
ii5Q9RIHAUyIp.png
Click to expand...
 
BloodyBonzai said:
I must be blind because I cannot tell the difference between the three different screenshots.
Click to expand...
The main effect of SSAO is best described as "contact shadows". Look at how the piece of wood lies on the floor. In the first shot, it seems a bit floaty, like it's not really touching it. In the other shots, the floor is darkened around the contact point (in a crude approximation of less diffuse light reaching it). That gives it more depth.

Or look at the point where the character's feet touch the floor.
 
mr_nothin said:
Open the screens in different tabs and go back and forth between the "SSAO OFF" and the "Fallout 3 SSAO". You'll see added shadows/shadowing in the areas I pointed out.
Pay attention to the misplaced floor bricks, the character's armor around his neck area, the grass blades, and the long dark brown piece of wood to the right
Click to expand...

Ah I see now. It makes the surroundings darker. Dunno if I am gonna like that. Will try it out another time.
 
SSAO = contact shadows

Pics don't really do it justice unless you know what you are looking for you have to try it in-game in motion to see for yourself.
 
Backfoggen said:
SSAO = contact shadows

Pics don't really do it justice unless you know what you are looking for you have to try it in-game in motion to see for yourself.
Click to expand...

Ya I never really paid much attention, if it was in a games settings I maxed it but never really looked into what it does. I pay more attention to colors, resolution, supersampling, and consistent playable fps. That is why I have a Dell U3011 with 1.07 billion colors, I just need to buy a new vid card since I have 2x GTX275 1792MB cards. Waiting for high end Kepler cards to be released, then I am going to try and run dark souls with the internal rendering at 10240x6400 with in-game at 2560x1600. Just gotta wait until Q1 2013 : (
 
So who is gonna be kind enough to create some glorious 1080p wallpaper quality images for us to use on our desktop/console backgrounds?
 
Well I am not positive if my AO is working correctly (have yet to go into an area where I could really see the stark difference). BUT!

I have gotten MSAA and a variety of AA modes to work. SGSSAA is hard to get sharp though. I do not know my LOD adjustments obviously

As a result. I will just downsample 1440p and 4XMSAA. Looks sharp as hell

EDIT: Performance is not good downsampled 1440p and 4xMSAA. Overclock GTX470 not cutting it!!! NEED SLI SUPPORT!
 
Dictator93 said:
Well I am not positive if my AO is working correctly (have yet to go into an area where I could really see the stark difference). BUT!

I have gotten MSAA and a variety of AA modes to work. SGSSAA is hard to get sharp though. I do not know my LOD adjustments obviously

As a result. I will just downsample 1440p and 4XMSAA. Looks sharp as hell

EDIT: Performance is not good downsampled 1440p and 4xMSAA. Overclock GTX470 not cutting it!!! NEED SLI SUPPORT!
Click to expand...

You can use SLI by going into the NVIDIA control panel > Manage 3D settings > SLI rendering mode; select Force alternate frame rendering 2. Downside to this is the bloom effect from sun and maybe other lighting is reduced/eliminated. Also keep in mind you are not going to have as much of a performance boost as you would expect due to no driver optimizations for this game which includes SLI optimizations. Will have to wait at least a month before that happens.
 
Hey Durante (and anybody else having problems with getting AO to turn on),

It seems that AO doesnt play well with the higher DoF resolutions. I'm running at 1920x1080 and AO ONLY works if I have it at either 0 or at the highest 540. It doesnt work at 1080 or 2160. It looks like it's turning it off completely...it could be making the effect a lot less apparent at the higher DoF resolutions. I dont know if that means that AO only works when you set your DoF resolution to half your display resolution or if it's just a hard limit at 540.

Might need to check into that ;)
Hopefully you can see why it might not be playing with it correctly, if not then 540 will suffice :D
 
BloodyBonzai said:
You can use SLI by going into the NVIDIA control panel > Manage 3D settings > SLI rendering mode; select Force alternate frame rendering 2. Downside to this is the bloom effect from sun and maybe other lighting is reduced/eliminated. Also keep in mind you are not going to have as much of a performance boost as you would expect due to no driver optimizations for this game which includes SLI optimizations. Will have to wait at least a month before that happens.
Click to expand...

YEAH thanks for the info. Turned on SLI but sadly did not really affect the performance positively. just sits at 30% per GPU not really helping. But thanks anyways.

mr_nothin said:
Hey Durante (and anybody else having problems with getting AO to turn on),

It seems that AO doesnt play well with the higher DoF resolutions. I'm running at 1920x1080 and AO ONLY works if I have it at either 0 or at the highest 540. It doesnt work at 1080 or 2160. It looks like it's turning it off completely...it could be making the effect a lot less apparent at the higher DoF resolutions. I dont know if that means that AO only works when you set your DoF resolution to half your display resolution or if it's just a hard limit at 540.

Might need to check into that ;)
Hopefully you can see why it might not be playing with it correctly, if not then 540 will suffice :D
Click to expand...

Just noticed this too!
 
mr_nothin said:
Hey Durante (and anybody else having problems with getting AO to turn on),

It seems that AO doesnt play well with the higher DoF resolutions. I'm running at 1920x1080 and AO ONLY works if I have it at either 0 or at the highest 540. It doesnt work at 1080 or 2160. It looks like it's turning it off completely...it could be making the effect a lot less apparent at the higher DoF resolutions. I dont know if that means that AO only works when you set your DoF resolution to half your display resolution or if it's just a hard limit at 540.

Might need to check into that ;)
Hopefully you can see why it might not be playing with it correctly, if not then 540 will suffice :D
Click to expand...

That is exactly the reason I will be going the route of not using AO and sticking with a higher res and higher quality AA.
 
BloodyBonzai said:
That is exactly the reason I will be going the route of not using AO and sticking with a higher res and higher quality AA.
Click to expand...

It's not affected by higher amounts of supersampling/ AA though. Only thing that determines whether AO is working correctly, or not, is the resolution of the Depth of Field. Other than that, you can supersample and crank the AA up as high as you want.
 
Just wanted to stop in to give my thanks. I've been high-fiving my monitor all weekend. I would have thrown money at it, but I don't carry cash :). Definitely expect a donation from me later this week, though.

I actually just picked up a 7970, but seeing all these screens with SSAO makes me want to return it for a 680, especially since I've never had a NVidia card. I still have a couple of days left on my 30 day return policy :).

Again, thanks for this amazing work and keep on truckin'. Also, everyone keep these screens coming. They're awesome!

EDIT: BTW, could anyone recommend a more technical resource to read up on what this fix actually does? I know virtually nothing regarding DirectX and graphics work in general, but such a small mod with immense results is intriguing, so I'd like to learn more. Thanks again.
 
mr_nothin said:
It's not affected by higher amounts of supersampling/ AA though. Only thing that determines whether AO is working correctly, or not, is the resolution of the Depth of Field. Other than that, you can supersample and crank the AA up as high as you want.
Click to expand...

Ya I was just sayin that since those are the aspects that are improved on in Durante's fix when going the route of not using AO. I was enjoying the 1080p DoF when I tested it out.
 
whitlaaa said:
Just wanted to stop in to give my thanks. I've been high-fiving my monitor all weekend. I would have thrown money at it, but I don't carry cash :). Definitely expect a donation from me later this week, though.

I actually just picked up a 7970, but seeing all these screens with SSAO makes me want to return it for a 680, especially since I've never had a NVidia card. I still have a couple of days left on my 30 day return policy :).

Again, thanks for this amazing work and keep on truckin'. Also, everyone keep these screens coming. They're awesome!
Click to expand...

Buy a GTX670 4GB card. It is only a couple fps slower than the GTX680 and $100 cheaper. I have seen benches where it was less than 1 fps slower than the GTX680. Getting the 4GB card gives you headroom for grabbin a second later down the road for SLI when they drop below $200.
 
Haunted said:
How much of a performance hit is MSAA+SSAO compared to supersampling?
Click to expand...
MSAA isn't too bad, HQ SSAO hits hard at high resolutions. On My 660 2560x1440 with 4xAA and SSAO is at the limit, or maybe even a bit above that, with sporadic framedrops.

In comparison, 3840x2160 without forced MSAA or SSAO only drops at bonfires.
 
Hey Durante. I know this is picky, but any chance of having HUD on/off with a button?

I know you can disable it in the settings, but I enjoy when I can just press F8 and have the HUD vanish... :D
 
Straight from Something Awful:
ATI users with framerate issues: Try fixing AA or AF in the Catalyst Control Center, your card may be dropping into low power mode. The resolution fix may also sort out your FPS issues with a high enough internal frame buffer. Careful of interactions between CCC and the res fix.
Click to expand...
It definitely worked for me!
 
drizzle said:
Hey Durante. I know this is picky, but any chance of having HUD on/off with a button?

I know you can disable it in the settings, but I enjoy when I can just press F8 and have the HUD vanish... :D
Click to expand...
I'd also like to have this, so it's on my list with all the other HUD stuff.
 
mr_nothin said:
Hey Durante (and anybody else having problems with getting AO to turn on),

It seems that AO doesnt play well with the higher DoF resolutions. I'm running at 1920x1080 and AO ONLY works if I have it at either 0 or at the highest 540. It doesnt work at 1080 or 2160. It looks like it's turning it off completely...it could be making the effect a lot less apparent at the higher DoF resolutions. I dont know if that means that AO only works when you set your DoF resolution to half your display resolution or if it's just a hard limit at 540.

Might need to check into that ;)
Hopefully you can see why it might not be playing with it correctly, if not then 540 will suffice :D
Click to expand...
Seems to be working for me at DOF of 1080.
EDIT: Used your guide, Fallout 3 SSAO, but using 4x MSAA instead of your AA configuration
SSAO Off
ssaooffg0uno.png


SSAO On
ssaoon1080vis9w.png
Click to expand...
Damn forgot to turn off the HUD...
 
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