DSfix 1.0

This version fixes the following issues:

  • Crashing when alt-tabbing back into fullscreen mode
  • Correctly restore the render pipeline after the SMAA step (this may fix the sporadic issues with SMAA)

It introduces these features:

  • All the hotkeys are now configurable in DSfixKeys.ini
  • Integrated SSAO. Note that there are still some artifacts caused by the effect. The adventurous can enable the “reloadSSAOEffect” keybinding and try to tweak the VSSAO.fx effect file.

I’m not happy with the current state of the SSAO, but I wanted to get the release out because of the bugfixes and configurable keybindings that people asked for.

As always, consider donating if you like the mod.

DSfix version 1.0 download

Please please remember to read the README.txt!

190 thoughts on “DSfix 1.0

  1. Author, Please, change default screenshoot button to another key, like an Insert or PrtScn. Page Up & Page Down – this two – menu navigation buttons and when I press Page Up – it’s ok, but when – Page Down game stacks 1-2 secs, at first I think my comp lags, but in game folder has appeared so much screenshoots, which I not to do. I test this key and it’s proved to be true.

  2. SSAO is enabled by default for me, but as foresty areas tend to cause my computer to crawl (all the AO on the leaves I guess) I turn it off everytime I boot.

    Would be nice if we could set it to disable as default.
    Also i have mouse capture set to 0, but the game boots with mouse capture on..

    I have changed all keybindings to my liking, so maybe the keybinding code is causing an error where it overlooks the dsfix.ini? idk.

    Anywho, great fix, thanks for the keybindings!
    (I was able to get a HUD toggle going on my own using Cheat Engine to edit the hex memory… the pointer for HUD toggle is 013DEAF0 [+21F6D] (Single byte) 1 = HUD on; 0 = HUD off… I don’t know if this memory stuff will help you implement such a feature, but I thought I’d let you know)

  3. I get a crash immediately when starting the game with v1.0 before it enters fullscreen. The settings I have changed so far are:

    renderWidth 1920
    renderHeight 1080
    dofOverrideResolution 1080
    disableCursor 1
    enableBackups 1
    backupInterval 600
    skipIntro 1

    The rest of the settings are at default. This problem did not happen with previous versions of your DLL.

    Problem signature:
    Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
    Application Name: DATA.exe
    Application Version: 1.0.0.1
    Application Timestamp: 50090197
    Fault Module Name: DINPUT8.dll
    Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
    Fault Module Timestamp: 504a01a0
    Exception Code: c0000005
    Exception Offset: 00018153
    OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
    Locale ID: 3081
    Additional Information 1: 0a9e
    Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
    Additional Information 3: 0a9e
    Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

    • I cehcked the Readme in case there were any new dependencies as well as tried setting a Log Level of 11 (And 12) and the log does not appear to report any problems either.

  4. you know ? some time i think what the real game developer doing now 1. they study their mistake and making a real official patch for us or…2. they just throw their sh*t on your shoulder and turn back to develop their next game for console ?!

  5. sorry,i want to change the interal resolutin lower than 1024×720 to increase performance but game has crashed. plz help :(

    • If you reduce the resolution below the default 1024×720, you also need to rename or delete the videos in “movWW” folder.
      That’s what people said in a previous thread anyway.
      The videos are probably in 720p and will fail badly when your resolution is lower then that.

  6. Unfortunately the game is crashing for me now. I’m getting the following error:

    Problem signature:
    Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
    Application Name: DATA.exe
    Application Version: 1.0.0.1
    Application Timestamp: 50090197
    Fault Module Name: DINPUT8.dll
    Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
    Fault Module Timestamp: 504a01a0
    Exception Code: c0000005
    Exception Offset: 00018153
    OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
    Locale ID: 1033
    Additional Information 1: 0a9e
    Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
    Additional Information 3: 0a9e
    Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

    • Never mind, I was lacking the ‘dsfix’ directory, having only extracted the dll and ini files from the archive. Please ignore my previous comment. Hopefully it can help someone who overlooked this as I did.

  7. Is there a way to copy my existing offline profile to my online profile? It says the profile is corrupted.

    • There is already a fix. Set your sound card to 5.1 mode then disable all speakers except for front right and front left.

        • Durante explicitly said he will never fix that sound problem because it’s not his range of competence, please stop whining about that.

          • I’m not whining, I’m asking for him or another skilled individual to fix the broken mess of a game that is the Dark Souls PC port.

      • That does not work with VIA audio cards and is not a fix, it’s a work-around. The audio levels are still incorrect (ambient sound is 5x too loud).

  8. Are you going to fix the mouse sensitivity thing so that the mouse moves as you move it and not FAST when you move it slow and vice versa ?

    Thanks so much for your hard work. One more stupied question to anyone out there does these fixes work for the real game if you wanna play online whit other people ?

  9. Hi I’m here to say THANK YOU so much for this awesome fix, i’ve been trying all the fixes and all of them worked perfectly for me.

  10. still can’t get past the start menu, rebooted, turned off anything that seemed like it could mess with Dark Souls besides gwfl. removed the x360ce stuff to see if it changed anything, still didn’t do anything. w7 64-bit

  11. Regarding if I want to add another “dinput8.dll” wrapper, what should I write to enable it? “dinput8dllWrapper true” ? “dinput8dllWrapper yes” ?

  12. Guys a dude on steam forums released a camera fix for KB+M users, really smooths the camera, not so jerky anymore. The new version applies the fix by default but if you want to see the difference, press f7 to turn it off while ingame, move the mouse around, then f7 again to turn it on.

    Here’s the link to the fix

    http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~petska/

    Also he said he’s workin on the target locking too to be more “sticky” so you shout really keep this one on look.

    • Forgot to mention it works perfectly with peters DSFix, just rename the mouse fix dll and put the newly named dll in peters ini under the correct option (input dll changing i think it was)

      • Oh my God!!! Super smooth! This totally fixed mouse camera control. No jerky camera movements anymore that were still noticeable with PPJoy.

        Works flawlessly with DSFix DLL chainer!! No the game looks feels and works like it is played with a gamepad, but on a MOUSE!!

    • It says extract it to the data directory, but do I put the folder containing the dll and ini in there, or do I put the two files inside the folder into there (as in, remove them from the folder)?

      • Nevermind I figured it out.

        Step 1 – Extract the folder from the zip.

        Step 2 – Open the folder and rename the dll to something like dsmfix.dll (which is what I used)

        Step 3 – Put the renamed dll file, as well as the dsmfix.ini file, into the Dark Souls DATA folder (same place you put the Durante’s dsfix – where the DARKSOULS.exe is located)

        Step 4 – Open Durante’s dsfix.ini, under “Wundow & Mouse Cursor Options” you will see a line that says “#Dinput dll changing”. Below that you will see “dinput8dllWrapper None”. Replace “None” with the renamed dll file from the mouse fix (for example, since I renamed mine to “dsmfix.dll”, it would say: dinput8dllWrapper dsmfix.dll).

        Step 5 – Save the ini and play the game – the mouse works BEAUTIFULLY now. I changed my camera sensitivity in game to 7 and it’s absolutely perfect. No negative acceleration, no jumpy lock on – it’s perfect.

  13. Can someone tell me what files should be in the DS directory? I think I removed 1 to many files when I was removing an old version of this mod, and now the game won’t start up. Thanks!

  14. The problems from v 9.1 goten worse in this release.I could launch the game after disabling the SMAA in the previous fix,but it still crashed after alt-tab command.Now it doesnt even launch most probably because of integrated SSAO.Radeon 6870 latest drivers,2500k CPU

    • Most probably because you didn’t read the README and put the dsfix folder in the correct location.

      • Youre wrong there peter.I read the readme file and did as it said.Will try to reinstal drivers and disable the programs that interfere with the 3d procesing maybe it will help.Will write about it if it will end in succes

  15. Whatever happened to the missing lens flare effect? Was that deemed not possible or too complicated to fix?

  16. Just wanna drop by to say ty for ur awsome work on this dark souls fix, made me enjoy the game 10 times more so far.

    1 thing i would like to know is the same issue as Valanthyr, my native resolution is 1920 x 1200.
    Going into fullscreen windowed mode gives me better perfomance over Fullscreen, if only it would be possible to get 1920 x 1200 windowed mode. Since now it stretches 1080p to fit 1200.

  17. An idea: You could prevent people from being confused about DSfix decreasing performance by setting the default for dofOverrideResolution to 0.

    • But then I should also set the default resolution to 1024×720, and then people would complain that it isn’t working.

      • That’s true. Just an idea. I find the resolution to be a more obvious change to make than dofOverrideResolution, which most gamers won’t be likely to understand, even after reading the readme.

        You’ll get complaints either way, of course. I’m personally quite happy. =)

  18. Thank you for the awesome mod!
    The latest update is downloading at 500 bytes per second for me :(

  19. My native resolution is 1920×1200, and I have a dual screen set up, so I was really pleased when you implemented the borderless fullscreen mode. Unfortunately when I select windowed mode, for some reason the game forces 19020×1080 and 1920×1200 is not available anymore. F8 then stretches the 1080 to fit in 1200 which is just plain wrong.

    Any workaround for this?

  20. Since you’ve gone ahead and included SMAA with the injector and have the ability to place it within the rendering pipeline, is it possible to apply a pass to each individual DOF level? Or would that be too hardware intensive?

  21. hey i was wondering, have you heard anything from From with regards to the work you’ve been doing? I would be highly surprised if they weren’t aware of it by now…

  22. Keyboard input is lagging. Did you leave debug mode on while compiling DINPUT8.DLL?

    Automatically lot of, around 40 screenshots are again created, 4-8 per minute.

    • I had the idea that maybe by deleting VSSAO.fx would fix the lag. The game won’t start without VSSAO.fx however. :)

    • It’s probably “lagging” because of the screenshots, but I have no idea why it would be taking them if you don’t press the key.

      • v0.91 also creates screenshots, but the ingame menu doesn’t lag, its new in v1.0 I’m using v0.91 as fallback.

        On WinXP SP3, Dualcore 3.17Ghz, NVIDIA GTX280

  23. Did you try any other OBGE shaders before settling on volumetric SSAO? Wouldn’t it have been better to use a shader with better image quality, like CrysisAO or HDAO?

    • No, it was the first one I tried. I’ll do more experimentation with it later (or someone else could!)

  24. I am almost ashamed to ask this but… Here it goes… I love the original blurry mess that is the resolution lock of the original game (it may be related to the fact I play on a 720p display). Well, I like the blurry look, but not the visible pixelization due to the low internal resolution. Is there any chance you’ll fix the built-in AA filter someday so I can play at high resolution and the AA filter? Or is it something that has to be broken in order for everything else to work? External AA just doesn’t look the same, at least to me. If there is an external shader that emulates that look I’d take that too, but I don’t know what to look for since I don’t know how the game does AA natively apart from blurrying everything.

    Thanks for all you hard work!

    • me 2, But I settled for a lower res + Driver AA and I love it
      People are mad and ruin immersion with their stupid detailed graphics

  25. I can’t launch the game in this version (0.9 works fine).
    I’m using an Radeon HD 6870 graphics card and win 7 if that helps any.

    • The game has been behaving oddly lately even without the mod, so take this with a grain of salt, might just be how the game behaves on my system. (just got a new computer)

    • 6970 Win 7
      Same here.

      Turns out the dsfix folder did not unzip for some reason(?). I was probably just careless. Working now!

    • This has been reported a lot, and happens in various areas – it happens during the fight with Manus, it happens in Darkroot Garden when looking at the sky from certain angles, and now this. It’s been around since SMAA was first integrated.

      Good thing you posted a screen of it.

  26. Cannot go ingame, freeze after havok logo on start game screen…Nvidia gtx 460 amd x4 Phenom…

  27. This there perhaps any way to change something in the .ini files to have SSAO turn on automatically? I really love the effect it adds to the game and I was just wondering. If there is a way I can probably tweak the .ini files my self.

  28. Insane work! You must have a lot of fun improving your fix day for day or you’re receiving a lot donations. Either way it’s impressive.
    I suppose neither FROM nor Bamco has contacted you about this so far. How about YOU contacting THEM? People are very curious to find out what they think about this. They have to thank you officially.

  29. Do you think there’s any chance of 3rd party improvement of performance with AMD cards, or is that something for the developers? (Whether you personally plan to do it or not.)

  30. after installation of a fix there was a problem in gamepad management, use of x360ce doesn’t give result, buttons get off in a heap, I am sure that it from for the file dinput8.dll, as after return previous, all apprx. thanks for the enormous done work the genius:)

    • I’m having problems with my controller too now, everything worked in all previous versions.
      Using a PS3 controller and emulating it as a 360 controller – O/B, Triangle/Y, both analog sticks, Start, and Select/Back all don’t work in Dark Souls. Perhaps it has something to do with the the new keybindings?

  31. thank you so much for this, even though i’ve platinumed the game on ps3 long ago i’m having a blast with it on pc too thanks to your mod, keep up the good work :)

  32. Hi!

    I’d like to translate the game to my language.

    Would it be possible to override the language settings and point it to an external file? Or maybe with some other solution? Any ideas?

    (Problem is, that I’d need an editor to edit the game files, but such an editor does not exists. Also, I’m not sure if edited game files would work with Steam.)

    Thx.

      • Thanks for clarifying that!

        Also if i may ask, could you please integrate Gamma option into your fix?
        I play Dark souls at maximum brightness available in the game options, but the game is still too damn dark :(
        I cant seem to change it even through nvidia control panel.
        Its like the contrast is way too high.

        • Sounds like a poorly calibrated monitor to me. Game’s supposed to be dark, but it’s plenty visible around the default. And of course jacking up the gamma ruins the contrast.

          • Yeah that has gotta be a monitor issue as I am playing at 50 brightness and it looks fine for me, but I am using a high quality matte 1080p monitor so if you are using something of a lower quality then that may be your problem.

    • SSAO is enabled by default for me, but as foresty areas tend to cause my computer to crawl (all the AO on the leaves I guess) I turn it off everytime I boot.

      Would be nice if we could set it to disable as default.
      Also i have mouse capture set to 0, but the game boots with mouse capture on..

      I have changed all keybindings to my liking, so maybe the keybinding code is causing an error where it overlooks the dsfix.ini? idk.

      Anywho, great fix, thanks for the keybindings!
      (I was able to get a HUD toggle going on my own using Cheat Engine to edit the hex memory… the pointer for HUD toggle is 013DEAF0 [+21F6D] (Single byte) 1 = HUD on; 0 = HUD off… I don’t know if this memory stuff will help you implement such a feature, but I thought I’d let you know)

      • oops, meant to make my own comment…

        but I guess you could use my Cheat Engine method to create a HUD toggle key for the time being. Just make the pointer I stated above, then right click it and create two hot keys to set it to 1 and 0 respectively.

      • If you download Cheat Engine, make sure to custom install and do not install hao123.

        Then attach it to DATA.exe and not DARKSOULS.exe

        then paste this code into the main box at the bottom, check the disable xlive checkbox, and then you are good to go, press X to disable HUD press Z to enable HUD.
        (also note: disable xlive does NOT disable online, it merely disables the memory editing protection)

        10
        “DISABLE Xlive (by Geri)”

        80000008
        Auto Assembler Script
        //A script to disable Xlive’s memory check protection
        //Made by Geri with Cheat Engine 6.0
        //18th May, 2011
        [ENABLE]
        //code from here to ‘[DISABLE]‘ will be used to enable the cheat
        label(xlivekiller)
        registersymbol(xlivekiller)
        aobscan(aobxlive,74 14 FF 75 14 8B CE FF 75 10 53 E8 * * * * 8B F8 85 FF)

        aobxlive:
        xlivekiller:
        db EB 14

        [DISABLE]
        //code from here till the end of the code will be used to disable the cheat
        xlivekiller:
        db 74 14
        unregistersymbol(xlivekiller)

        213
        “HUD toggle”
        80000008
        Byte
        013DEAF0

        21F6D

        Set Value

        90

        1
        Turn ON HUD
        0

        Set Value

        88

        0
        Turn OFF HUD
        1

  33. Wow! So fast!

    Noob question>
    Is there posibility to turn off all graphic features of dsfix?
    Fix is great, but after i install it, game works slower (it looks better anyway). I have tried turn off everything in ini file, unfortuneatly this doesnt work well. Its playable but without fix it have few fps more, and game experience is better.
    I want to keep all the other precious scrypts.

    • I think you would have remove the files that you placed into the folder to completely remove all trace of the DSFIX, it has no affect on the other files in the data folder so there will be no issues.

    • No, this isn’t possible. Your framerate is better without DSfix because the fix itself is centered around increasing the rendering resolution. That’s what’s slowing down your computer.

    • Not possible yet. However, did you change dofOverrideResolution to 0? That will help a lot.

    • Download DSFix version 1.0

      renderWidth 1024
      renderHeight 720
      dofOverrideResolution = 0
      smaaQuality 0

      These settings should make the game graphically be the same as running without DSFix .

      Note: Is SSAO enabled by default?

      • Thank you! its much better now.
        When I turn on the borderless fullscreen mode its work like it should.
        Now i can enjoy all other features.
        :)

        BTW.
        Still particles is killing me, literally – in game :D Probably the worst enemy in whole game.

  34. I noticed when I’m standing in/leaving the building where Alvina is in if I turn my camera between certain angles I’ll get this strange lighting effect that is immediately fixed upon turning the camera again.

    I guess the best way to describe it is similar to the way flashbangs look when your character looks directly at them in a FPS. It’s a white blotch with a blue outline that slowly envelops the whole screen. I guess you could even say it’s similar to burning a hole in a piece of paper.

    It’s not game breaking and the game draws correctly immediately after turning my camera away or leaving that area.

    • Double post:

      It’s been doing this since 0.9 but other than that no issues! Thank you for your work!

        • I think you should make this project Open Source.
          Because you come from your main work (office) at evening, hungry and tired. You take bath, you eat, your children want to play with daddy, after your wife calls you to bed. I’m wondering how do you find time for DSfix? :D

          • Nope. From Software would steal his source code and make a patch claiming THEY fixed the problems :)

          • So? It’d get done, and if they decided to be dicks and not credit him, he could have them tear open the codes in court to say “Hey look, identical lines of code, and mines several months older”

            Honestly i dont think they would bother, i doubt the devs even KNOW about this. They gave us a product because we wanted to throw money at them, support is unlikely. We’ll be lucky to get the official patches likely coming to the console versions.

          • Peter said earlier that he wanted to squash more of the bugs and get it to a more complete state before he went open source (correct me if I’m wrong) I must admit I am super happy at hearing you are developing SSAO! I love the games art (The environments really are incredible, the art direction remains one of my favorites of all time.)

    • I’m pretty sure it’s an issue with Pharis; once you kill her the weird lightning/trippy effect disappears.

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