DSfix 1.7

And one more for the road.

Changes:

  • Re-implemented the FPS limiter. It’s quite exact now and also performed at a better point in time (before presenting the frame)
  • Made frame period calculation (for animation) slightly more exact
  • Added FPS thresholding for SMAA. What this means is that you can supply a value – say 45 FPS – and if the game is in danger of dropping below that, SMAA will be disabled. It will be re-enabled once the framerate is safely above the threshold again.

As always, consider donating if you like the mod.

Get DSfix 1.7 at the Dark Souls nexus.
(alternative download location)

122 thoughts on “DSfix 1.7

  1. Thanks Durante, you really are amazing and so are your mods.  Previously my game used to lag as hell, but after applying this patch, the game is running fine without any lags. God bless you for all your hard work.

        • Thats the thing, they should ban all these hackers asap, destroying the online experience has to be punished.

          • Don’t lay any hope on multi-player of this PC version. It’s only suitable for an offline play imo. I’d rather wait for the PC version of the sequel to it, well, if there will ever be a PC version again when sequel comes…

    • there will be no more sequel for pc. judge from how good of from software’s responsibility for pc version. there will be no another port to this platform. if you want to play its sequel (or even their next game), you better start saving your money for the next gen console by now. at least that what i heard about their next game will be.

      *i hope this time they should improve their engine’s code a lot. it is one hell of a game’s engine that over use hardware (i not want to meet another random FPS drop on next gen console any more). or they just switch to use a very easy to use like unreal engine 3. that engine look really great in directx 11 feature.

  2. Hello Durante,

    Just wanted to leave my thanks for the project and the time you spent on this. I donated, but not sure if it is truly enough for the work you’ve done with this. (5 Euros or so)

    I’m currently uploading a performance test on the minimalist end of the spectrum to showcase the progress of this mod. Keep it up!

    ~LoneSyndal ; http://youtu.be/bDtVG3er8Gk

  3. I posted this same question above but got no response, but I’m wondering if the log file isn’t being generated for anyone else or it’s just me? I always have a 0 byte file, regardless of what “logLevel” value I have set in dsfix.ini. Can someone confirm the 0 byte issue?

  4. holy crapppp !!!
    why some one still not read what others wrote up there ?
    if you set fps to 60 what will happen to you for sure is your jump/roll will shorter and yes, you will be ban from online.

    enable fps unlock but just set your fps at 30. your game will run fine with out stutter except you put another mod in.

    • NO! you will not “for sure” have shorter jumps\rolls. I have never encountered one, as I just posted above. Also game runs much smoother with FPS at 59.

        • what about it? not sliding to the end is nothing that causes harm or hampers battle, just an annoyance for 30 secs or so.

    • Only rolling off a ledge is shorter, like when you roll of the ledge in Firelink to get to a pillar in order to get back to the asylum. All other rolls are normal. The only person that I know who claimed to have gotten banned was a gamefaqs poster. I believe he was either lying or he had gotten banned for reasons unrelated to dsfix.

      • rolling off a ledge can cause terrible death if it go shorter such as the way to go down in catacombs (i found i can’t reach the platform that i should and fall to death). and in some boss fight (like that duo knights) i found my rolling not long enough to dodge their attack. more than that in some pc i found the rag doll physic go wild. the body floating like a paper doll.

  5. Has this mod actually banned anyone fropm online play using the 60 FPS tweak yet?? Would like to know just in case. Cheers

  6. people doubting the worth after reading all the negative comments:
    running with FPS unlocker set to 59 and it works great. only glitch i’ve encountered through the last 1/2 of the game(when started using this) is not being able to slide all the way down the “slides” in the game automatically. just slide for 10-15 feet then stop and have to move character or cursor over and over again to continue slide to the bottoms. jumping and rolling work perfect and i’ve gotten no stretched graphics. not a manufacturer driver based problem like many have tried to claim either: AMD board, cpu, and gpu.
    renderWidth 1920
    renderHeight 1080
    smaaQuality 3
    ssaoStrength 3
    unlockFPS 1
    FPSlimit 59
    FPSthreshold 30
    dofOverrideResolution 810
    disableDofScaling 0
    dofBlurAmount 2

  7. Pontemterra on 2012-10-03 at 13:41 said:

    “Also when I have the FPS unlocker on the ragdolls get flung around whenever it stutters and for some reason the armor/clothes on the enemies stretch to ridicules proportions in all different directions.”

      • I over clocked the crap out of all my stuff and that never happens. But I have a really good fan so…

      • but that will reduce or even gone if you set you FPS to 30 (but still enable FPS unlock). in my case, what only left (after set FPS to 30) is the first reload from save data will cause weird object pop up but that happen only less than a second. and after that every thing go fine.

        it seem this game only made for run at 30 more that that it will cause some error.

        *HUD mod or even mix another mod in this game can also cause some error too. so…keep aware about that.

        • I thought it was caused by overheating or voltage problems but then I did a test for artifacts and my card is working correctly. Sometimes like tofusage said the objects (usually dead enemies and clothes material, sometimes the Frampt “moustache” like in the previous screenshot), popup and/or stretch to absurdly lenghts. Using unlocked framerate, limit 30, this is happening (rarely) when I return to game after using alt-tab (probably).

  8. Some weird behaviors sometimes with ragdolls, clothes and similar things using unlocked framerate.

  9. Ran through the whole game with this release. Only on some bosses and blight town did I experience anything below 50 FPS.
    Running
    i3 2120
    8GB DDR3 1333
    EVGA 550 ti
    Have the SMAA maxed and the SSAO maxed, blur is off.
    I’ve only ran into the bonfire issue with never getting up only 8 times. It’s happened more often when I tend to be too fast with going in and exiting the bonfire.

    • Also this release has improved my performance to such an extent that areas I used to get heavy drops in FPS at are now at a decent 45-55 FPS. It’s really nice to look at now and enjoy so much more. Thank you and keep up the good work!

    • still lucky that you still not got ban while playing online because you have FPS over 30. whatever, play with FPS 60 don’t it cause shorter roll or jump on you ?

      • I don’t notice anything faster or slower with the fix on my setup. Gameplay is still pretty much the same for me here.

  10. Can someone help me I have no idea what is going on. When I have the FPS unlocker off my game runs like complete garbage, and when I have it on it plays fine but it stutters every time I round a corner or go up stairs. Also when I have the FPS unlocker on the ragdolls get flung around whenever it stutters and for some reason the armor/clothes on the enemies stretch to ridicules proportions in all different directions.

  11. I bow to you Durante, you are the best.

    I have a request/question, though:
    -Although the fps 60 unlock worked wonderfully, there is a modification in the physics of the game and the collision system that causes jumps to be shortened and some other problems – as stated before by other people.
    The thing is: when I unlock the fps, the game becomes much more stable, the fps are higher overall, in every situation. They never go under 30 fps, unlike before.

    So, my request/question is: what should I do in order to have this increase in fps (i don’t mind staying always at 30 fps as long as it doesn’t go lower) but avoiding the change in physics.
    Is it already possible? And if not, do you plan to make it possible to lock fps at 30 but using the improvement on the engine that your fix provides?

    (I tried to lock fps at 30 using the 1.7 patch but it didn’t work as intended, actually the game becomes unstable)

    Sorry for the long dragged out message.
    Thank you again!

    • so simple….
      just enable FPS unlock as usual but set FPS at 30 instead of 60. all bug will gone and frame rate still stable (at 30 FPS) not drop like hell when particle effect show up.

      *this remind me about the games from Capcom such as SF4 that game will stutter if you enable vsync and face a lot of animation bugs if you enable unlimited FPS. but all problem fixed after you enable frame fix (with out enable vsync).

      • nope,you will see animation is slower as hell when fps drop below 24.set fpsmax =60 seem best option for now

        • i still not found that place yet. i test it by fighting that red dragon (some time a hydra) countless times but my FPS still not drop to the point that cause stutter like when disable FPS unlock.

          however, set FPS at 60 is totally suicide in boss fight because my roll is shorter and many time it not enough to dodge most of attack types. and that include many traps that require rolling for dodge them too.

  12. New londo ruines have a problem,sometime game stops in one second.other places still run ok

  13. Any chance to see proper vsync (ala D3doverrider) added to the dsfix code?
    Outstanding work nonetheless.

  14. Please, could some one here answer this question ?

    1. if set FPS unlock enable at 30, is game still run smoothly with out FPS drop to 15 (or below) or not ?
    2. roll and jump shorter bug still remain or not if set FPS unlock enable at 30 ?

    Thanks.

  15. Since 1.6 I’ve been getting a crash on start up with unlockfps set to 1. Nothing is written to the log.

    E8600 @4ghz
    HD6950 on 12.8 drivers
    4gb RAM
    Windows 7 64bit

  16. hello everybody, i have a question, i use the dsfix 1.3 and i play online, but the framerate sometimes drops to 15 fps,im seeing in the comments that the game is running fine at 60fps without drop, if i use this version and change the values to 30 fps, the game will run at this speed without drop too? and i can play online without being banned? i will be glad if someone could answer my question thx.

  17. Any news on being able to fix the broken audio? Sadly my xfi fatality pro, which is a great card, for some stupid reason can not downmix. That or I just can’t figure out how to do it. Still a proper fix would be awesome.

    • Durante’s said he doesn’t have plans to tackle the audio stuff, but I too am hoping someone will. In my case the bug is easily worked around on my PC’s built-in Realtek audio BUT NOT on my Radeon 5850′s HDMI audio. I’ve switched from playing on a nice big HDTV to my ho-hum desk monitor just because the HDMI-connected HDTV can’t get the full audio, which sucks.

      • you can still use video from HDTV via HDMI and audio from wherever else you want at the same time. change Default Device for Windows’ sound from HDMI to whatever other audio-out device you have plugged in and want to use.

        • Thanks, but the computer (and its speakers) are in one room and the HDTV is in the bedroom, connected via a 25-foot HDMI cable that goes through a wall. Were you assuming that the PC/realtek speakers were near the HDTV?

  18. 60 FPS feature works better than others versions now, still I don’t get solid 60 FPS. Earlier versions I always got 30 FPS. Now I get a constant 42-48 FPS, but still I can’t seem to get 60 FPS. Maybe is my PC?

    8 GB RAM
    AMD FX-4100 Quad Core 3.6 GHz Black Edition
    AMD HD 5770

    Is it good enough?

    I’m using 1080p as internal resolution and 1080p too as the game resolution. No SMAA or SSAO, Blur 540, and Blur Amount to 1

    Nothing else.

    • What internal resolution are you playing on? I can get 60fps on 1280×720 internal resolution 33% of the time when I last used it.

      My system is an A8-3870K CPU, 8GB RAM and a 6670 GPU on 1600×900 resolution. Runs way better than I would play on a PS3 on my internal resolution settings.

      Also a question: Is it possible to enable fps unlock and set it to 30 fps to disable the forced v-sync in-game?

  19. Hi Peter,

    Is there any chance you could add a means of signaling your module to hide/show the cursor? My options at the moment are to use SendInput to generate a fake F7 request or to determine your tid and do an AttachThreadInput (as calling ::ShowCursor from my thread won’t otherwise accomplish anything), but neither of these solutions seems ideal.

    Thanks again.

  20. So what known bug is still there with HUD mod?
    I see the boss health bar is still there, but have you fixed all others?

    Also, since I upgraded from 1.5 I now have smooth framerate in Blighttown.
    You are a god Durante.

  21. now a bug animation (that cause roll and jump shorter by half) from FPS unlock seem go worse for me. even it fix low fps during particle effect but shorter roll make me really hard to dodge from many type of attacks, especially boss’s attack.

    i really hope this can be fix in future. love your work very much, thanks.

  22. V-Sync doesn’t work any more, any solution ?

    p.s: Now the game runs perfectly on my very bad PC and don’t have 15fps drop any more, i can’t belive that only two persons make something like this in such a short time. Amazing

    • i guess to turn on 60fps also mod mean disable v-sync. however it fix low fps during particle effects. so…i think gain better fps by exchange with v-sync still reasonable.

    • The FPS unlock disables the game’s forced custom V-Sync.
      You can force it back using usual means (d3doverrider, gpu control panel etc.).

      • Does V-sync work with the latest Nvidia control panel ? Can someone confirm that please? Are really jump and roll animation shorter than before ?
        Thanks to everybody for help

  23. There is also a bug in the animation when the frame unlock is enabled. When rolling from the ledge onto the pillar to get to the nest to go to undead asylum. The character no longer rolls onto the pillar like usual when lined up correctly every attempt seems to fail.

    • I still managed to to perform the above maneuver when FPS is between 30 – 35 but the character ends up a bit off course; not enough to fall off the pillar however…

        • i guess to turn on 60fps also mod mean disable v-sync. however it fix low fps during particle effects. so…i think gain better fps by exchange with v-sync still reasonable.

        • if you wearing heavy armor some thing like this happen a lot even in xbox. what i can do is walk as long as i can then roll. it make me cross to another side easier than just roll from the edge of platform.

          however, i not found this issue if i wearing light armor.

          • This issue has nothing to do with armor. The game engine literally shortens rolling and jumping distance if you’re playing at 60 fps. It doesn’t seem like Peter or Nwks have acknowledged this bug yet even tho quite a few have been mentioning it.

  24. Great progress peter, i will test wen i coming home! I little sugestion. It is posible in the next Dsfix release to make a gui configuration exe with all option? Like: dsseting.exe

    • C:\Users\{user}\Documents\NBGI\DarkSouls\{GFWLAccountName}

      And yes, same folder. They just have a different name. It’s explained in the .ini

    • Kind of related, but my DSfix randomly stopped backing up saves, even after reinstalling and double checking all the settings. Anybody have any idea what the issue might be?

  25. Does the FPS feature still may cause getting banned from GFWL? If yes, how do I play offline? I mean, use my GFWL profile (so I can access my saves), but play offline (without connecting to GFWL)?

  26. This is working great. Running 3840×2160 internal resolution and still generally hitting 60 fps. 2500k @4.6GHz with a xfire 7970s. Only using one though cause xfire doesn’t make a difference. The fully unlocked fps is awesome. Frame drops now are much less jarring. Instead of dropping straight down to 30 your fps may drop down to 40s or 50s.

  27. 1.7 is running at a solid 60fps for me now. I was getting constant 30s before.

    The only error that remains in the game is with the fps fix you don’t jump as far.
    Strange bug. But it is definitely happening. I’ve tested it extensively and also tried jumping into the well in firelink shrine (which is possible without the fix, but not with)

    Awesome work as usual

    • Yep, this issue still exists for me still too. Tested it at the Firelink Shrine well, and with it set to 60 can’t make it onto it no matter how many times I try. Doesn’t matter if the limiter is on or off just so long as the fps doesn’t exceed 30. Then distance of rolling and jumping is fine otherwise… I’ve posted about this twice in the comments but Peter hasn’t noticed yet, or he just didn’t reply to them.

      • So you’re saying that even if the frame limiter is off, if your fps is 30, you don’t get the error?

          • The frame-rate unlock modifies the time-step of the animation and physics engine and therefore will have various effects on gameplay. There is currently no way to fix this.

  28. SMAA isn’t working in this version for me… And it isn’t because the FPSThreshold option, I set it to 1, so SMAA would always be active

    And I also removed the comment mark on the SMAA toggle key in DSfixKeys.ini, so I could switch between SMAA on and off. When I tried toggling it in this 1.7 version of DSfix, there would be no difference (on version 1.5, which was the previous version I was using, I could clearly see the difference when I pressed the toggle key)

    Thanks

    • You may forgot to edit FPSthreshold, it set to 45 by default and if you have locked 30 fps then SMAA will be always disabled.

    • Common bug, it happens in consoles too, it’s not related to DSFix, just a common Dark Souls bug, that devs should already have fixed in the PC edition, but they didn’t.

      • I’ve never seen it happen on the PS3 version ever in 1000 hours of playing, nor did it happen in the PC version prior to this update :(

      • I’ve never had this bug happen to me until DSFix 1.6, and now it happens all the time.

        It’s a problem with DSFix.

  29. Just curious, if I would set the max fps to 30 with the FPS Unlock, would that change any of the ingame animations at all?

    • Yeah, would the collision and other issues with unlocking the frame rate still occur even if the max fps is set to 30 as well?

        • Can you perhaps give an answer to why having higher than 30 FPS would shorten jump and rolling distance? Very odd, I see more people posting about it now though. I think I was the first to say it in a comment here, but nobody noticed the distance issue until now it seems.

          • I unlocked fps and put limit to 30. no framedrops even in blighttown, fps steady at 30. Amazing!

          • If the maneuvers are timed against the FPS then a faster FPS will indeed result in the maneuvers expiring more quickly. For instance rolling might last for 30FPS as an example so if you run the game at 60FPS then rolling duration will be halved!

          • In my above example it shouldn’t occur unless the game speed does not reflect the change in FPS, for example the game running at double speed at 60FPS will result in equal length rolls to the game running at 30FPS/normal speed.

            So if the game runs at 60FPS but the game speed is unaffected then things tied to the FPS will be halved in duration.

  30. man you are awesome! i got a low end machine, before the fps drops to 15 in blighttown. now drops to 27. now the game is runing like it suposed to be. lol.thx

    • i also recently put a pc in the living room to try big picture mode..and of course dark souls on a big tv… to my surprise a q6660 with an old radeon 3870 totally runs it fine

  31. Awesome work! I love the SMAA toggle with FPS drop. Also, DSfix 1.6 doesn’t have the dsfix tag, FYI. :) Anyway, great work!

    …I wonder, how hard would it be to implement an option to slightly speed up the game? You know, to make it so the game actually does run 10-25% faster or so? I really enjoy sped up challenge runs, personally.

    • the main problem still come from the real bad software port. that nearly not compatible with pc hardware. in another word, even it called pc version but it not know how to full use cpu and gpu.

      still long way to go….

    • It’s actually a better idea to set it to 1 if you want to disable it. 0 should also work, but I don’t check for it specifically, so something might go wrong mathematically.

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