DSfix FAQ v2

Do I need the previous versions?
No, every release is self-contained, you just need the most recent version.

The game crashes, help!
Make sure that you are not running any other applications that interact with Direct3D, such as various overlays. Copy everything from the .zip to the game folder, and keep the “dsfix” directory intact.
If you use a resolution lower than the original (for performance reasons) move or rename the “movWW” directory.

The game only shows up in a small part in the upper left corner!
Turn off the in-game AA option. And read the readme.

Can you improve the performance of the game?
Beyond reducing the main/dof resolution (which likely isn’t the issue on most low-end systems anyway) there is not much I can do, sorry.

Will you release the source code?
Yes, as soon as it is at least remotely presentable and I no longer make large changes daily. I hope it will help people attempt similar things for other games and/or implement the 100s of features people are asking for in Dark Souls that I will never get to. I guess it should be ready some time next weekend.

Feature x doesn’t work on my pirated version of the game!
I don’t support pirated versions. Buy the game.

SSAO causes some problems with water / distant silhouettes / flickering!
I’m still working on this. You can also try tweaking the shader on your own.

SMAA and SSAO are not working for me!
You are one of the rare cases where the mod doesn’t identify the correct place in the rendering pipeline to inject the modifications. I currently don’t know why this happens and can’t reproduce it.

Why don’t the toggle keys work anymore? How can I change the keybindings?
Look at DSfixKeys.ini. Note that lines starting with “#” are ignored.

Why does the DoF blur blur my menus?
Don’t set your DoF resolution to the same as your internal rendering resolution. Set it lower than that.

56 thoughts on “DSfix FAQ v2

  1. I upgraded to the retail version after previously pirating this game. As a disclaimer, I already owned it on PS3 and I wanted to experience the resolution fix first-hand before spending my money. Anyway, moving on. The fix won’t work on my Steam version of the game, even though it worked on my pirated version. The pirated version is uninstalled and I manually updated every registry entry to match the new install path (Steam). Any idea why none of the features work?

  2. agh… forgot to mention that when i put dof resolution override to 0 the game doesn’t crash but the screen is completely dark,and i can hear my character moving or attacking.

  3. “The game crashes, help!”
    im not running other application with direct3d.
    i copyed everything from the .zip to the game folder.
    i tried moving or renaming the movWW directory.
    it keeps crashing when im trying to load my save,even when im starting a new game it crashes.

  4. When installing a new version, do we need to delete the old files or can they be overwritten? Can we just rip the zip into the data folder?

    What about the DSfix text file that creates itself afterwards, does that need to be deleted when installing a new version or just leave it?

    Are the default settings good for everyone or should we install this expecting to have to change all/some/one of the settings? I’ll admit I’m not entirely sure what the internal rendering resolution is but my game’s resolution is 1176×664, so should I change it to that or leave it at 1920×1080? Are all the rest of the settings just guess and go or they set recommended?

    • By the way I did read the readme before that’s mentioned. I guess it says to delete the previous stuff for new installs and now that I see there are different files in the dsfix folder I can understand that. I thought it was the same files each update. But it just says to adjust the dsfix and dsfixkeys as desired but I don’t know what I”m supposed to desire the settings to be.

    • You can normally just overwrite the previous version, but deleting it before is safer.
      The .ini file has explanations for all the settings. All the features of DSfix are off by default, except for the resolution override.

  5. Hello!
    Why do you put DSFix settings in two separate ini’s? One file is more convenient, isnt it?

    • Because one is for settings and one is for keybindindings. They are parsed differently. Also, the former was getting a bit long.

  6. So I really love this mod but I am having a problem with it.

    I will turn off all graphical options and set resolutions to 1024×768 just to be simple but when I go in game everything lags as if all the settings are maxed out.
    The laptop I have is pretty terrible but when I use version 0.3 just to hide the cursor it works just fine, but when I install any of the later version the game just lags up pretty badly.

    Is there any reason it would be doing this and any way to fix it?

    Thanks :) Great mod

  7. Hopefully i dont look retarded now but where can i download it? Is it an automatic download or do i have to click anywhere? I have not a single word with “download” on this page out of my point of view :D

  8. I also don’t support piracy, especially in cases like this where the developer needs to see that the pc community values their work.

    BUT, because of GFWL i CANNOT buy the game in my country. Simply cannot. So, i ask you, what’s my choice?

        • I you pass me your SteamID I would like to buy DS for you. Give me the money I need and I send it as gift. I promise. You got my ID as well, so you no scamming, cause you can track me.

    • I had no idea there were country wide bans in this service, sounds very extreme. Is that even legal for Microsoft to do?

      Possible solution: you could buy a cheap VPN service in a EU country, like say the Netherlands or Sweden, and use that as a proxy. GFWL traffic is very low and latency isn’t really an issue.

      Where are you from if you dont mind me asking?

      • This. A cheap VPN is your best bet outside of trying to disable windows live itself (at this point I’m pretty sure you already fall under the “piracy” category anyways).

  9. This mod rocks! Thank you, dude, u are the best!
    The high resolution and SMAA is really great and SSAO a nice cherry on top of the pie.
    Can anyone explain – in very simple words – what does changing the dof do?

  10. That’s a really good work that you do! Thank you very much guy!
    I’ve just a question, not about DSfix but DSMfix ^^ I don’t understand how does it work. I have intalled it correctly (i guess^^) and in the DSfix.ini i made from :

    dinput8dllWrapper none

    to

    dinput8dllWrapper dsmfix.dll as you say here http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~petska/

    but ingame, I hit the F7 key but nothing happens, just the cursor which disabled/enabled even if i replaced toggleCursorVisibility VK_F9 in DSfixkey.ini.
    I don’t understand so i post a comment here for some help ^^ Ty for all you do for DS players!

      • If you have a recent version of DSMfix (at least .5), it’ll be connected by default (as specified in dsmfix.ini). Hitting F7 should therefore be unnecessary. If you notice that it’s still not working, ensure you don’t have any physical/virtual controllers plugged in/configured.

  11. To make something clear.

    Resolution: 1920×1080
    and dof has to be little lower 1068 or has to be 720?

  12. Just curious to know what driver version you are using with your nVidia card and what settings you are forcing via Inspector if any.

    TIA & Cheers!

  13. Hi, I wanted to ask if there is a possibility to use your fix WITHOUT graphical changes to the game.
    My game has some FPS issues with the enhanced graphics and also my screen only is able to do 1366×768.
    I tried to:
    - put # in front of the resolution and other graphic settings
    - change the resolution to 1024×720

    In both cases I get the early issue with message box textes being out of scale and not readable (like if I open the menu in the upper right corner, there is no text, or if i look at messages from other players)

    Any chance to do that? I’d really like to use the Language override, Intro Skip and Save Backup.

      • Ah, I know why this is happening (probably). Try setting the resolution just slightly differently from 1024, like 1026×720.

        • Awesome thanks for the info. Will try that out next time I play and let you know if it still doesn’t work.

        • Yup, it works. Thanks.
          Now the only thing is that the title screen is slightly shifted, but that isn’t an issue

  14. Hey Durante! I have an update about the missing sun/moon and lens flare. I have a ati, used 1280×720 internal resolution + 702 dof, smaa 4, blur 1. At least with these settings the sun/moon bug seems to never happen. But when I tried to set internal to 1280×1024 -bingo- here is the bug another user talked about. After that, I reverted internal res to 1280×720 and the bug vanished again. yep, after other testings, I can confirm the internal resolution choice is what triggers the bug: resolutions like 1024×720, 1280×720 or 1024×768 seems to be immune to this bug, at least on my machine, I tried and tried many times…
    Just to be more precise: you have the sun even with “bugged” resolutions, but sometimes with camera movements, the sun, the sun rays and the lens flare simply disappear and come back randomly. And yes, using my usual resolution (1280×720) I always have sun and all its effects, at the first bonefire in the undead burg too.

    • Yes, I’m aware of this. The sun bug only happens with vertical resolutions higher than 720p. Interesting that 1024×768 also works according to your testing.

  15. For that last question, do you mean that if I set my internal resolution to 1920×1080, I should not set DoF to 1080? Or not to 1920? (Assuming some people mistake it for the width attribute instead of height)

    I’ve been playing with it set to 1080 without any problems that I believe are caused by it, though I did notice in one particular instance that enemies at a certain distance would turn purple)

    • I use 1280×720 (internal res). As Dof, I put a number a little smaller than 720 (702). If you put same number as internal res, the dof blur does not work as it supposed to be. bye

    • IF you are using additional DoF blur you should not use the same DoF and rendering resolution. If not you can do whatever you want ;).

  16. That’s the thing about the internet:
    1. Came to the party 5 seconds ago, doesn’t ask any questions or read any rules.
    2. Get’s super pissed when kicked out of said party for getting naked and running around.
    3. Yells at party holder as to why they got kicked out?
    4. Party holder points to sign at entrance with big letters “README!” on it saying “please keep your clothes on”

  17. The bug where it does not correctly reset the previous system locale upon quitting Dark Souls is still in effect for me. I set DSFix to run DS in en-GB and every time after i ran DS, i’ll have to manually reset the date settings from English (Great Britain) to its original.

    I tried deleting the PreviousLocale string in the registry, as i have read here somewhere. It makes no difference. But the registry thing leads me to believe that maybe it’s a permission problem. I’m playing on Win 7 x64 with normal User rights, no Admin rights.

    Aside from that, DSFix is great work.

    • If it can change it to en-gb it should also be able to change it back. Can you run with loglevel 2 and post the relevant lines from the log?

      • A day late, but here you go. I had to delete the PreviousLocale string again before doing this, because otherwise the game would just start up in my native language instead of accepting the override.

        I just started the game, chose a Live profile, then quit the game afterwards. The language change worked, but the locale was not reset after quitting the game.

        pastebin.com/BHgNRsVR

        This is log level 2, but i don’t even see anthing to do with the langauge. Maybe you need a higher log level?

  18. I appreciate your effort, but unfortunately I’m one of those poor sods that get horrible performance no matter what. Slideshow, to be precise.
    I’ve read somewhere it may be connected to AMD processor or graphic card, or something other, but..bleh. My system is not really low-end.

    As many other have stated, it’s time for an official patch or a refund. But I don’t have much faith in the former.

  19. Would it be possible to somehow enable the black bars when running window fullscreen on an 8:5 or otherwise non 16:9 monitor? As it is now this stretches the game for a truly uncanny result.

    Thanks for this fix either way, I don’t think I would’ve played or even bought the game without it. N/B should be paying you.

  20. “You are one of the rare cases where the mod doesn’t identify the correct place in the rendering pipeline to inject the modifications”
    ;_;

    In addition to SMAA and SSAO, DoF additional blur also causes crash at start up for me.

  21. Feature x doesn’t work on my pirated version of the game!
    I don’t support pirated versions. Buy the game.

    You are the best.

    • “Feature x doesn’t work on my pirated version of the game!
      I don’t support pirated versions. Buy the game.”

      Completely in agreement with this.

      Too bad, I still see jerks around who say “I don’t like to buy this game, but I want to xxxxxx it because developers FROM didn’t put proper support for this game”

      I’d say for those people to jerk off from any discussions related to Dark Souls, shameless morons those pirates are.

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