Dark Souls internal rendering resolution fix (DSfix)
- Thread starter Durante
- Start date
It fixed some exploits. Sadly, there aren't any indications of a switch away from GFWL or Steamworks integration. (Of course, a lack of such indications does not imply that it won't happen -- but you shouldn't get your hopes up because of the patch)
Yeah, I wanted to do a blog post about that for a while now. The short story is that I failed.
The slightly longer story is that I managed to fully manipulate the camera on the DirectX level, but that doesn't affect the game's object culling (which happens before DirectX), and so it's not feasible to use this method for Rift support, which would require changing the camera direction significantly and increasing the FoV.
I then turned to trying to manipulate the camera by adjusting the game code, and managed to move it in/out in relation to the character (what e.g. the FP mod does), as well as place it arbitrarily in the world, but I couldn't get full control over the FoV/direction. This would still be possible by spending much more time on it, but reverse engineering on this level is very slow work. And of course game patches really don't help, considering that they can shift addresses and functions around a lot.
The pause functionality in recent versions actually fell out of my work on the Rift support. It would have allowed me to render the same frame twice, but with different camera angles (unlike many third party Rift "hacks" which use subsequent frames for the left/right eye perspective, potentially causing nausea).
Thanks for the update, I don't have a Rift but knowing you were working on it, I was interested in where you were at with it. I've been playing through Dark Souls again in 3D with the aggression mod enabled and simply playing in 3D really helps immerse you in the game. Playing in first person with the Rift certainly would have been a whole other level of immersion.
By the way, I just wanted to point this out to you because I figured you might be interested.
Helix who does the 3D fixes implements a HUD resize with his 3D solution for Dark Souls, except his doesn't have the flickering issues that DSFix occasionally does. If that was an issue you wanted to chat with him about and see about fixing, or just check out the mod yourself and see if there was anything you wanted to do about it, I thought the info would be useful.
Here's the link to the 3D fix for Dark Souls by Helix.
Krusenstern
Banned
Just to let people know, I started up the game and GFWL updated it. Game stopped working and I had to upgrade to the recent DSfix version, which means the game just received the same patch that was made availbable days ago on Steam.
Looks like a mandatory update. Only took longer on GFWL to get published.
Looks like a mandatory update. Only took longer on GFWL to get published.
Quick question: does rendering in a borderless window make downsampling unavailable?
I had to go borderless to remove screen tearing (CCC forced v-sync and triple buffering didn't do anything in full-screen), but I think my visual quality has been downgraded. Maybe it is all in my head though
I had to go borderless to remove screen tearing (CCC forced v-sync and triple buffering didn't do anything in full-screen), but I think my visual quality has been downgraded. Maybe it is all in my head though
No, just make sure you set the present resolution to whatever your window size is.
(Downsampling in borderless windowed mode is how I played the whole game, so if anything that's the most well tested configuration
)No, just make sure you set the present resolution to whatever your window size is.
(Downsampling in borderless windowed mode is how I played the whole game, so if anything that's the most well tested configuration
Ok thx for the quick reply! Also, do you know if there is anywhere a comparison of the different types and strengths of AO with pics? A framerate comparison would also be ideal but I doubt anyone would go to such lengths for this thing
No, sorry, I'm not aware of any effort to really document those. But you can make oneOk thx for the quick reply! Also, do you know if there is anywhere a comparison of the different types and strengths of AO with pics? A framerate comparison would also be ideal but I doubt anyone would go to such lengths for this thing
No, sorry, I'm not aware of any effort to really document those. But you can make one
Ok maybe I will sometime!
As far as the downsampling is concerned, I know you made it and all (lol) but I am almost entirely sure that ever since I went borderless the game is rendering at 1680x1050, my desktop resolution.
I remember initially how impressed I was with the downsampling and how crispe everything looked, especially the edges, and how I was happy I didn't need any AA at all. After that I decided to unlock the FPS, because of some weird slowdowns I had. After unlocking the slowdowns were completely gone, but I had screen-tearing. So I tried vsync and triple buffering, that failed, and then I went to borderless. But now I think the image quality is not as crisp. Later in the day I'll try taking some screenshots to see for myself and better compare. If I find anything significant either way I will be sure to post here.
I know I'm kinda nitpicking here, but I want to get that impressive image quality I saw at the beginning. That doesn't mean of course that I am not extremely grateful for your work and everything you have done for this game and our ability to enjoy it.
Edit:
Ok I did this experiment. I couldn't printscreen from no-borderless mode for some reason, but indeed there was no difference in image between borderless and no-borderless.
However. I tried internal rendering in a much higher resolution, and although the framerate was much worse, the image was almost the same. Have a look. What do you think is going on? Do you want me to post my .ini?
Both images are outputting at 1680x1050, one is rendering at 2560x1600, the other at 5120x3200.
do you have am on screen performance monitor running? my game wouldn't start with the monitor running that comes with MSI afterburner.
Nope, game been busted for about a year.
Krusenstern
Banned
Is your Windows Live ID sign-in assistant running? Go under services.msc and look if it's working.
I got it to launch again by reinstalling Dsfix but without the fix the game won't even boot a image? Now I'm trying to find out why the game is not recognizing the controller.
I had a problem with dark souls not picking up my controller last week, i deleted my wii controller from my blue tooth list and it worked after that.
I would imagine you have some other controller it is picking up as the default controller.
Dark Souls ships with an outdated GFWL version.
1. Go to add/remove programs and remove all GFWL Live components.
2. Go find the latest version and install it separately.
I had the same problem and this fixed it for me.
That's just how the game renders and filters shadows, at default resolution it's not as obvious. I once tried to make it possible to increase the shadow rendering resolution but didn't get it to work.
The GFWL version was recently updated, so I believe you should use the latest version of DSfix.
How did you update it? It seems the recent update was now also distributed over GFWL, so 2.2 should be fine.
Thanks! Updated it via GFWL. Seemed like a small update, so I was sort of surprised. Also saw no version number, except in data.exe.cfg (<titleversion>10000282</titleversion>). Btw, special thanks to you, Durante
DS was one of my favourite games this gen, and you've unlocked it to a whole new potential on PC. Special kudos for still keeping tabs on us BRUTALBOWN
Banned
I was getting the exact same thing for months, installed/uninstalled the game and windows live etc, gave up, then out of the blue it suddenly works and I have no clue why.
I figured out my 'game would not execute' error and hopefully it works for you guys too. In my case it was MSI Afterburner or more specifically Rivatuner and on-screen display. If you're running any kind of framerate counters as an overlay (Not sure if fraps applies too) the game will not start. On a hunch, as I had tried everything online previous, I closed Afterburner and the game started up perfectly.
Polioliolio
Member
Got scared when my game wouldn't launch, after not having played for a long while..
Heard there was a new DSfix, patched it, and it worked. Thanks Durante!
Heard there was a new DSfix, patched it, and it worked. Thanks Durante!
It's called readme because you should read itDSfix readme said:
No idea about crossfire scaling though, sorry.
It's called readme because you should read it
No idea about crossfire scaling though, sorry.
In my experience Crossfire offers approximately zero performance improvement over single GPU in this game
and so may others 
ambientmystic
Member
Basic FRAPS plays well with Dark Souls + DSFix. I had to disable the overlay I usually use though (the one that comes with ATI Tray Tools)
fierrotlepou
Member
Finally got this game to run with 60FPS but the screen tearing is kind of annoying. What can I do?
TheThunder
Member
D3DOverrider.
Or borderless windowed mode.
fierrotlepou
Member
Uh, I'm having a weird issue with Dark Souls.
I can't take Steam's screenshots with F12 anymore (until yesterday everything worked fine), just nothing happens when I press it.
I've already tried:
- to change the key in Steam settings;
- to change both resolutions in DSfix (as suggested somewhere);
- to change screenshot folder in DSfix;
- to change some key binding screenshot-related in DSfixKeys.ini;
- to reinstall DSfix;
- to restart Steam;
- turning PC off and on again.
Reading around, I believe the problem may be a regedit change I made yesterday to fix the "Steam is running in compatibility mode bla bla bla" popup that showed when I launched Big Picture.
Basically, I deleted registry keys of steam.exe with "elevatecreateprocess" flag somewhere in regedit, as suggested by a Valve guy in Steam forum.
Then, a couple of minutes ago I discovered that in some cases, if the game has a "higher level" than Steam.exe (and consequently GameOverlayUI.exe) it may happen that Steam isn't able to take screenshots of the game.
I tried a couple of other games and there it works no problem.
Then I tried running Steam as admin: nothing. I even tried to recreate the registry key with "elevatecreateprocess", but still nothing.
Someone knows what's going on?
Considering the beautifulness of DS, it would be a pity playing it without being able to always take pictures.
(Also I'ma social bitch so I like sharing them as soon as I take them )
please excuse me if it has already been solved, but this is a 150 pages thread...
I can't take Steam's screenshots with F12 anymore (until yesterday everything worked fine), just nothing happens when I press it.
I've already tried:
- to change the key in Steam settings;
- to change both resolutions in DSfix (as suggested somewhere);
- to change screenshot folder in DSfix;
- to change some key binding screenshot-related in DSfixKeys.ini;
- to reinstall DSfix;
- to restart Steam;
- turning PC off and on again.
Reading around, I believe the problem may be a regedit change I made yesterday to fix the "Steam is running in compatibility mode bla bla bla" popup that showed when I launched Big Picture.
Basically, I deleted registry keys of steam.exe with "elevatecreateprocess" flag somewhere in regedit, as suggested by a Valve guy in Steam forum.
Then, a couple of minutes ago I discovered that in some cases, if the game has a "higher level" than Steam.exe (and consequently GameOverlayUI.exe) it may happen that Steam isn't able to take screenshots of the game.
I tried a couple of other games and there it works no problem.
Then I tried running Steam as admin: nothing. I even tried to recreate the registry key with "elevatecreateprocess", but still nothing.
Someone knows what's going on?
Considering the beautifulness of DS, it would be a pity playing it without being able to always take pictures.
(Also I'ma social bitch so I like sharing them as soon as I take them
)please excuse me if it has already been solved, but this is a 150 pages thread...
StarCreator
Member
Have you updated DSFix in the last month (that is, redownloaded the newest version when you reinstalled, rather than reinstalling the version you had previously downloaded)? There was a new version of Dark Souls pushed and so far a DSFix update must also be applied each time this happens.
Yup. DSfix updated to version 2.2.
Do you use the latest Steam beta? In that case it would be completely unrelated to Dark Souls and actually a fix for a local privilege escalation in the way Steam used to be able to take screenshot from within other apps.
I'm not really sure if I understand this correctly.
Is it something that is going to be fixed in the next Steam beta (which I use, and keep up to date) update?
Or a fix Valve already released to fix unrelated security vulnerabilities that somehow disallowed me to taking pics of DS?
Saintguine
Member
Stupid question but why shouldn't you set the DOF override value as the same as your vertical rendering resolution?
Wow, that would be a good idea next time haha. Good thing I didn't give up on it.. the reason I didn't check the dsfix readme is that MSIA was crashing the game with or without dsfix.It's called readme because you should read it
No idea about crossfire scaling though, sorry.
Because then the mod thinks your main render target is a DoF render target and blurs it. Yeah, it's that stupid.
What's the relation with internal resolution and render resolution? I think of 'supersampling' when putting it higher, but with DS, it seems to.. well, it might not increase texture resolution, but it sure as hell looks like it. I thought that if you did 1920x1080 internal and render, you'd see textures as sharp as you could?
I get that this might be a bit tricky to explain. But I am wondering something about setting up my game. I figured I should maintain the aspect ratio of my render resolution with the internal resolution, but are there any rules to be followed to have best rescaling of the internal buffer? I figured 2x and 4x render resolution are "safe bets", but is 3x OK? Are there any drawbacks by using, say, 2.5x, or even 2.75123x? I'm just imagining that the down scaling doesn't work as well with non-int multipliers.
I get that this might be a bit tricky to explain. But I am wondering something about setting up my game. I figured I should maintain the aspect ratio of my render resolution with the internal resolution, but are there any rules to be followed to have best rescaling of the internal buffer? I figured 2x and 4x render resolution are "safe bets", but is 3x OK? Are there any drawbacks by using, say, 2.5x, or even 2.75123x? I'm just imagining that the down scaling doesn't work as well with non-int multipliers.
It certainly sounds like the latter. As far as I understand the security issue is due to Steam running games in debug mode to be able to inject code to make taking screenshots possible, and that abuse can be abused. No idea if Valve can find a saner way to make taking screenshots work in all games.
Textures appear slightly sharper by downsampling due to a larger number of effective taps being used by the texture filter.
About render and presentation resolutions: With the current implementation it makes no sense (except for screenshots) to have a render resolution more than 4x the presentation resolution (that is, 2x in each dimension). So for example with a 1080p display (and thus 1920x1080 presentation res) you should never use more than 3840x2160.
thanks!!! This worked for me also!!!! Amazingly, the detail of my Kirk armour improved as well....looks about as close to real as my dark souls has ever looked!!! I dunno how I got is looking so nice as a noob, but really, all I did was pick up on this thread and spent a tonne on hardware....the Korean ISP monitor was a win for $300....but was obviously risky getting it off e-bay with potentially more costs if there was a problem. I will try to figure out how to get a screenshot on here somehow?!?!?