Dark Souls internal rendering resolution fix (DSfix)

While this is still active, does anybody having severe screen-tearing issues when unlocking the framerate? I love 60fps, but the tearing is really, really bad.
 
Durante already explained much better than I could, but I wasn't implying that From should incorporate the mod on the game, just to QA every patch with it installed and/or work close hand with modders so they could have more immediate access to the change logs and react more quickly if future patches broke the mod. Durante has always showed a heap of respect towards From Software. His work doesn't demean Dark Souls or From it enhances it and I think that everyone acknowledges that Dark Souls releasing on PC was a feat in and of itself even in its vanilla state. I'm not trying to shit on From just wished that they took the extra step of checking if such an important mod would be broken by their patch or not and if it was just publish a more detailed change log to help expedite the process of updating the mod. They don't owe us, or Durante or any other modder nothing (in terms of supporting mods or any unofficial patches). It's their game after all. But it would be really cool to see them treat post-release support of this game so openly.
 
Yeah, the problem is not From.

The problem is Steam not allowing users to disable automatic updates.
Uh, they actually allow that.

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While this is still active, does anybody having severe screen-tearing issues when unlocking the framerate? I love 60fps, but the tearing is really, really bad.
This is normal, unlocking the framerate disables V-sync. You can counter this by using windowed mode (or borderless windowed fullscreen mode with DSfix), or by using D3DOverrider to force triple buffered V-sync.

Uh, they actually allow that.
Steam allows you to disable automatic updates, but it will still update when you want to launch the game.
 
Uh, they actually allow that.

The way I understand it, that setting only prevents the game from updating on its own. If the game is launched while Steam is online, it'll update to the latest version regardless of your setting.

Maybe I'm mistaken but I've never had much luck with keeping a game from patching.
 
Durante already explained much better than I could, but I wasn't implying that From should incorporate the mod on the game, just to QA every patch with it installed and/or work close hand with modders so they could have more immediate access to the change logs and react more quickly if future patches broke the mod. Durante has always showed a heap of respect towards From Software. His work doesn't demean Dark Souls or From it enhances it and I think that everyone acknowledges that Dark Souls releasing on PC was a feat in and of itself even in its vanilla state. I'm not trying to shit on From just wished that they took the extra step of checking if such an important mod would be broken by their patch or not and if it was just publish a more detailed change log to help expedite the process of updating the mod. They don't owe us, or Durante or any other modder nothing (in terms of supporting mods or any unofficial patches). It's their game after all. But it would be really cool to see them treat post-release support of this game so openly.

I'm kind of with Corto on this to be honest. Dark Souls PC definitely sold more copies because of DSFix, so From should acknowledge that DSFix is needed and test their patches to make sure it works.
 
The way I understand it, that setting only prevents the game from updating on its own. If the game is launched while Steam is online, it'll update to the latest version regardless of your setting.

Maybe I'm mistaken but I've never had much luck with keeping a game from patching.

No you're right and it's annoying in other cases like FEAR requiring you to download the expansions that are bigger than the game itself to play the base game.
 
Maybe I'm mistaken but I've never had much luck with keeping a game from patching.
Well, I never felt the need to do that, to say it all.
I just know the option is there.

From has to acknowledge that this mod exists and improves their game immensely. They should QA their patches with the mod included or at least release it with a detailed log to help people like Durante to release a new version of their mods as quickly as possible. It's in their own interest after all.
Frankly I would prefer if rather than taking care in not breaking the mod's compatibility they would just make it unnecessary and redundant, integrating some of these improvements natively in the game.
 
Well, I never felt the need to do that, to say it all.
I just know the option is there.


Frankly I would prefer if rather than taking care in not breaking the mod's compatibility they would just make it unnecessary and redundant, integrating some of these improvements natively in the game.

Agreed.

Fuck, they just just throw some money at Durante and buy his code and integrate it natively.
 
Unless their willing to address a changelog that details wanted or needed fixes, or are willing to assure the game is getting ready for Steamworks integration (which still wouldn't fix half the issues) than From just needs to stay away from patches on PC altogether. They essentially do more harm than good for their own community there.

Now, if they were to move it over to Steamworks, and add into the options all the fixes and features of the latest DSFix (including mods), fix the mouse/keybinding issues, and add in trading cards. I'd be all for From patching things up. But as it stands all their capable of (again, with no indication of anything done other than breaking something in a changelog) is break DSFix, again.

And we all know From's input and output receptors aren't functioning at highest capacity when it comes to the add-in's I've listed so we know that won't happen. But the least they could do at this point is just leave the damn game alone or go all the way do and integrate DSFix with full mod support.

TL:DR - If you haven't already gotten patched (which I haven't thankfully), then just make sure you sign into Steam in offline mode and disable patches for the game. Then just run as usual.
 
They most likely didn't kill the FPS unlock on purpose. Unlike the rest of the mod, it depends on rewriting the binary of the game directly, so if anything at all changes it breaks. And it's also the one part of the mod I didn't build, so I depend on the original author to fix it.
Can you get in touch with Nwks then? There's obviously some black magic involved -- I'd submit a patch but I really don't know how to inspect memory addresses and such on Windows.
 
Just for the people who think this patch may be preparing a move to Steamworks, I wouldn't get my hopes up. The new .exe has still no dependency on steam_api.dll -- it may still be some preparatory work, but there's no real indication of that.
 
Any mod that works by modifying a game's variables in RAM will break if the EXE is recompiled. There's absolutely nothing From can do to keep that part of the mod working by themselves, short of never updating the game again.
 
Steam will not let you play the game without updating, so that option is usually pointless.

"Sure, you don't have to update. Just don't play the game."

The only use of that option is saving hard drive space by not updating games you don't want to play anyway.

You're correct, of course, but you did say -- quite specifically -- that Steam does not allow the disabling of automatic updates. ;)
 
Any mod that works by modifying a game's variables in RAM will break if the EXE is recompiled. There's absolutely nothing From can do to keep that part of the mod working by themselves, short of never updating the game again.

I honestly don't see the huge deal. The mod still works. You just have to turn one feature off (a feature that was already janky and needed to be turned off sometimes anyway) until the modder who made it can fix it.
 
Have you ever heard of this thing called "PC gaming" because it doesn't seem like you have.

Name one PC game where the developer has said "oops, the community made our game better than we did, we're just going to let the community do all the dev work from now on and let them be our lead QA for us".
 
Just for the people who think this patch may be preparing a move to Steamworks, I wouldn't get my hopes up. The new .exe has still no dependency on steam_api.dll -- it may still be some preparatory work, but there's no real indication of that.

They haven't changed anything on the registry side to corroborate a change to Steamworks either.

Name one PC game where the developer has said "oops, the community made our game better than we did, we're just going to let the community do all the dev work from now on and let them be our lead QA for us".

Skyrim

Gamebyro wouldn't even let us use over 2GB of ram at release.
 
Skyrim

Gamebyro wouldn't even let us use over 2GB of ram at release.

I'm not fully familiar with what happened with Skyrim, but a quick search leads me to believe that what happened was 1) fixes for the memory issue were patched officially, with no mention of the unofficial patch to do so, 2) development tools were released by the publisher for public use. Neither of these are really the same as Namco coming out and saying Durante did DS better than From, which is what people seem to want.
 
I'm not fully familiar with what happened with Skyrim, but a quick search leads me to believe that what happened was 1) fixes for the memory issue were patched officially, with no mention of the unofficial patch to do so, 2) development tools were released by the publisher for public use. Neither of these are really the same as Namco coming out and saying Durante did DS better than From, which is what people seem to want.

Oh, you meant that statement literally, I misunderstood you.

Companies almost never admit they have made a mistake, unless backed into a corner. Most of the time they blame consumers publicly, instead of themselves.

Namco will probably never make an official statement on the matter. I wish gaming publications would start asking the hard questions of the Dark Souls producers and see what they can dig up.
 
So this still hasnt been fixed yet then? Not that im complaining as I have no idea how to do something like this. Jus twondering is all.
 
Neither of these are really the same as Namco coming out and saying Durante did DS better than From, which is what people seem to want.
No one said they wanted this. The discussion started because Corto said they should provide some (patch) documentation to make keeping up the mod compatibility easier. Which has in fact happened with multiple PC games, i.e. in the case of Volition which I pointed out earlier.

So this still hasnt been fixed yet then? Not that im complaining as I have no idea how to do something like this. Jus twondering is all.
As I said earlier, it's the part of the mod I didn't make. For me to fix it would require a significant effort I don't currently have the time for. The only way it will get fixed any time soon is if Nwks does it.
 
No one said they wanted this. The discussion started because Corto said they should provide some (patch) documentation to make keeping up the mod compatibility easier. Which has in fact happened with multiple PC games, i.e. in the case of Volition which I pointed out earlier.

As I said earlier, it's the part of the mod I didn't make. For me to fix it would require a significant effort I don't currently have the time for. The only way it will get fixed any time soon is if Nwks does it.

Sorry, didnt see that. Either way, the mod was fantastic and really made the game better to play. Thanks for doing it.
 
Just for the people who think this patch may be preparing a move to Steamworks, I wouldn't get my hopes up. The new .exe has still no dependency on steam_api.dll -- it may still be some preparatory work, but there's no real indication of that.

So in realistic terms, zero chance of this being a patch that has anything to do with a move to Steamworks. Shame, you'd think they'd be applying what they learned while doing the DS2 PC game to DS at least for Steam integration.

Who cares about this useless stuff? All they need to do is:
1. fix resolution issue so that 1080p = 1080p and not some lame upscale
2. do something about lagfest
All the rest will do, kb/mouse controls are managable.

I think the art on the cards and text could be amazing. As well as wanting both badges fully leveled. Kb/mouse controls aren't manageable for most, they need the fix, plus make the controls 100% better for K/M. And just fully integrate the DSFix features, so people can downsample, borderless window, skip intro, mods, etc.
 
Just for the people who think this patch may be preparing a move to Steamworks, I wouldn't get my hopes up. The new .exe has still no dependency on steam_api.dll -- it may still be some preparatory work, but there's no real indication of that.
If that's the case then could someone release a downgrader patch so people can run a stable version of Dark Souls outside of the Steam directory?
 
Spent half an hour trying to get the game to boot, turns out I was deleting and reapplying the old mod instead since their file names are similar.

Works fine now, thanks for the update.
 
Is there ANY way to fix this bonfire bug/getting stuck issue whilst using an unlocked framerate, short of becoming human and warping to another bonfire/homeward boning back? (30fps isn't an option)

I run in a window for what it's worth. Even using the temporary 30fps bind doesn't work. It literally happens every time I host PVP at The Township, go human, then try to leave the bonfire. Interesting that it NEVER happens whilst leaving a bonfire whilst hollow...
 
The FPS unlock is fixed now:
http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?p=343

Some other features don't seem entirely right with the new patch (e.g. SSAO), but I won't have time for a more detailed investigation before Thursday next week at the earliest.

Since you seem to be the only one doing all this hard work for the community, first of all I just want to thank you. Second of all, if you need some help I know a lot of hackers/modders from the let's say "get through other means" release groups' scene. And I know one in particular that is a expert at digging through code and implementing stuff. He's a Serb, but a really nice guy. I'll contact him today and see if he wants to lend you any assistance on fixing up the mod perfectly. I know he talked about being able to create the equivalent of Skyrim ENB's with a couple hours in Dark Souls' code. The screen he showed me, the grass in Firelink looked like the grass in Ryse lol.

Anyway, if you feel like you need a hand, or just somebody to help you polish out a couple things I'll let him know how to contact you.
 
Fine, I'll be the one to say it:



I'm going to assume you didn't mean it like that.

No, it was a scene-inside joke actually. :P "Serb" was a user with a really bad reputation, lets just leave it at that. Serbians are as nice a people as any I guess, and this particular guy is very nice and his English is also very good.
 
Unlocked framerate causing instant crash on startup.

The kicker is it used to work fine. But I haven't touched it in a couple months and something I did in the interim must have borked it :(

Edit: oh, it was updated! My bad.
 
Btw, seems like there's also a way to fuck around with the animations and hitbox windows. This comes straight from a guy tearing apart the PC release code pre-patched. So in addition to giving the lighting/re-textures/additional assets (basically the equivalent of a Skyrim ENB). You can now mess with animations and hitbox windows.

I'd love to see a option that swaps the gestures from Demon's into Dark, as well as the backstab, riposte animations from Demon's. If the hitbox windows could be perfected it would eliminate the "being sucked into a backstab" and could make backstabs a lot harder and more technical to pull off with certain weapons. Minus any lag of course. :P

Anyway, food for thought. Hope some of this see's the light of day. If your a member of F*C, or F*N, go to the gaming forums and check out what he's accomplished.
 
Btw, seems like there's also a way to fuck around with the animations and hitbox windows. This comes straight from a guy tearing apart the PC release code pre-patched. So in addition to giving the lighting/re-textures/additional assets (basically the equivalent of a Skyrim ENB). You can now mess with animations and hitbox windows.

I'd love to see a option that swaps the gestures from Demon's into Dark, as well as the backstab, riposte animations from Demon's. If the hitbox windows could be perfected it would eliminate the "being sucked into a backstab" and could make backstabs a lot harder and more technical to pull off with certain weapons. Minus any lag of course. :P

Anyway, food for thought. Hope some of this see's the light of day. If your a member of F*C, or F*N, go to the gaming forums and check out what he's accomplished.

Can you link please? Is it against the rules?
 
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