Dark Souls Review/News

[Beriallord]

I love Dark Souls and Demon's Souls. I enjoy very few games anymore legitimately, and From Soflware didn't disappoint me with Dark Souls. Now that the game is being released on PC through Steam, it looks like the online multiplayer is going to be improved. I'm not a huge fan of steam but I'd much prefer steam to PSN, and be able to play the game on my PC.

 

And 30 FPS isn't that bad if the game was designed to be played at 30FPS. On games like skyrim, I honestly can't tell a difference between 30 and 60fps, unless I got Fraps running. FPS consistency is more important. If I can get solid 30FPS, no dips on my PC, I wouldn't be complaining. Dark Souls does lag a little on PS3 in certain spots, but your average PC is considerably more powerful than a PS3.

 

some people cant notice the differences between 30 and 60. i can, easily. so its kinda important to me.

 

I thought its been scientifically proven that the human eye can't tell the difference between 24 FPS or higher? If its a consistent amount, but dips in FPS can be seen, for example a drop from 60 down to 24 would produce stutter. This is why FPS consistency is more important. If its locked at 30 and never drops, its impossible for you to tell the difference. The ones that say they see a difference are either when it dips enough to stutter, or if they got a FPS consistently showing, then of course you can tell the difference. I got a high end PC and I still don't care about FPS, I care about the game running smoothly.

 

Most games are designed to run at 30fps, which means anything higher less substantial. Higher FPS is only better, if the game has a tendency to dip frequently (many do) and as long as it doesn't drop too much too fast, you will get smooth game play. A consistent 60FPS isn't needed. You can be getting 60 FPS most of the time, with varying dips and low points down to 45 FPS, and still have perfectly smooth gameplay. If a game is locked at 30FPS, and you have a powerful PC, you will likely see no dips, or very few due to the PC having more than enough power to feed the game at the more demanding points, while the PS3 doesn't have the power to do that. So either way Dark Souls is going to run smoother on PC regardless of if its got a 30fps cap.

 

LOLOLOLOL please give me the link that shows humans cant see above 24 fps. most games ran at 30 fps because thats all consoles can handle.

 

24fps is what motion pictures are recorded at because that is what the human eye perceives as fluid motion. Or do you want to tell me that movies are running too slow as well? And from my experience the same applies to games. But there are other factors involved with gaming like FPS inconsistencies, which don't happen in motion pictures. For someone who can say they can tell a difference between a fluid 60fps and a fluid 120fps, are probably not being honest. I just played Witcher 2 with Uber sampling enabled + max settings, and I got 30-40fps, then turned it off and got 50-60. I couldn't tell a difference between the 2, both seemed like fluid motion to me.

 

You are knit picking something that has 0 impact on the game at all. If the game was designed to be playable with fluid motion at 30fps, then you aren't gonna tell a difference between a fluid 30 and a fluid 60.

Edited June 19, 2012 by Beriallord

[hector530]

yes i can. easily. http://boallen.com/fps-compare.html. some dont notice any different between 30 and 60. like i said i can, i never use fraps but i know what 60 fps looks like.

 

also movies are filmed at 24 fps because thats people are used to. it also makes it easier to hide "movie magic" i.e. the 15 min the hobbit showing was in 40 fps and everyone cried about how it easy to tell it was fake.

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117754-From-Software-is-Having-Trouble-Porting-Dark-Souls : fromsoft pretty much saying "yeah its not gonna be a good port because namco doesnt care"

 

there's no such thing as a "fluid 30" that looks better then 60.

[Iv000]

I thought its been scientifically proven that the human eye can't tell the difference between 24 FPS or higher? If its a consistent amount, but dips in FPS can be seen, for example a drop from 60 down to 24 would produce stutter. This is why FPS consistency is more important. If its locked at 30 and never drops, its impossible for you to tell the difference. The ones that say they see a difference are either when it dips enough to stutter, or if they got a FPS consistently showing, then of course you can tell the difference. I got a high end PC and I still don't care about FPS, I care about the game running smoothly.

 

Most games are designed to run at 30fps, which means anything higher less substantial. Higher FPS is only better, if the game has a tendency to dip frequently (many do) and as long as it doesn't drop too much too fast, you will get smooth game play. A consistent 60FPS isn't needed. You can be getting 60 FPS most of the time, with varying dips and low points down to 45 FPS, and still have perfectly smooth gameplay. If a game is locked at 30FPS, and you have a powerful PC, you will likely see no dips, or very few due to the PC having more than enough power to feed the game at the more demanding points, while the PS3 doesn't have the power to do that. So either way Dark Souls is going to run smoother on PC regardless of if its got a 30fps cap.

 

Umm, no.

I can tell the difference when Skyrim drops from 60 Fps to 45 and it's definitely irritating. Let me just post this thing again: http://boallen.com/fps-compare.html

I think I actually read somewhere that some people can't actually see the difference between 30 and 60 Fps and some can far more easily?

Well either way, it doesn't matter if the game is made to be played on 30 FPS, the game would still be smoother at 60 FPS no matter what.

[Rennn]

I thought its been scientifically proven that the human eye can't tell the difference between 24 FPS or higher? If its a consistent amount, but dips in FPS can be seen, for example a drop from 60 down to 24 would produce stutter. This is why FPS consistency is more important. If its locked at 30 and never drops, its impossible for you to tell the difference. The ones that say they see a difference are either when it dips enough to stutter, or if they got a FPS consistently showing, then of course you can tell the difference. I got a high end PC and I still don't care about FPS, I care about the game running smoothly.

 

Most games are designed to run at 30fps, which means anything higher less substantial. Higher FPS is only better, if the game has a tendency to dip frequently (many do) and as long as it doesn't drop too much too fast, you will get smooth game play. A consistent 60FPS isn't needed. You can be getting 60 FPS most of the time, with varying dips and low points down to 45 FPS, and still have perfectly smooth gameplay. If a game is locked at 30FPS, and you have a powerful PC, you will likely see no dips, or very few due to the PC having more than enough power to feed the game at the more demanding points, while the PS3 doesn't have the power to do that. So either way Dark Souls is going to run smoother on PC regardless of if its got a 30fps cap.

 

Umm, no.

I can tell the difference when Skyrim drops from 60 Fps to 45 and it's definitely irritating. Let me just post this thing again: http://boallen.com/fps-compare.html

I think I actually read somewhere that some people can't actually see the difference between 30 and 60 Fps and some can far more easily?

Well either way, it doesn't matter if the game is made to be played on 30 FPS, the game would still be smoother at 60 FPS no matter what.

 

Whoever said that 24 fps is fluid motion misunderstood. They're half right: 24 fps is the minimum the human eye perceives as fluid. That's why in-game cinematics all take place at 24 fps. However, humans can discern a difference up to 100-120 fps. The threshold of fluidity is not the point beyond which we can't see a difference. Some people's brains don't "refresh" their visual input as often, but most of us can see a difference from ~100 to ~120, even if it's a small difference at that point.

 

However, the human brain is capable of adapting to lower framerates, as long as they're stable. An unstable 60fps looks worse by far than a smooth 45, as I'm sure most people have noticed. Play a game at 60fps for a long time, and anything less will cause disorientation, although temporarily. Play all your games at a smooth 30, and in a matter of days you won't notice.

 

I don't mind 30fps, because most of my games are capped at 30fps to keep them stable on my rig.

 

Of course Dark Souls is going to be a bad port. The fans knew this from the beginning. We were never expecting anything better with our 90k petition. We knew it was a gift port, we knew FROM had never made a serious pc game, and we knew we were essentially just getting a console game. That was enough to make 90,000 fans sign a petition, and it's just annoying to see people complaining about it now. To the fans who have followed FROM since King's Field, 30fps at 1080p is perfect. Hell, half of us still play KF4 on a PS2. They're amazing atmospheric games, and I'm going to buy Dark Souls regardless, because even a shitty port of DS is worth about 10x any other game on the market today.

 

Are we going to berate FROM for giving us a bad port? Or are we going to praise them for taking a massive risk, for being the first game company in history to listen to a fan petition, and for doing all of this in a medium which they have never programmed for? FROM's devotion to their fans is getting pretty legendary these days.

Edited June 19, 2012 by Rennn

[Beriallord]

Even if we do get a crappy port that is extremely poorly optimized for PC (like vanilla skyrim is) then people will likely make some mods or optimizations for it. If so maybe nexus can host them?

[hector530]

Even if we do get a crappy port that is extremely poorly optimized for PC (like vanilla skyrim is)

 

maybe for the first 3 weeks, but with the right drivers and optimization patches skyrim runs smooth its gotta like +100% fps boost since release. plus i wouldnt call skyrim a crappy port aka optimization patches, proper video settings and mod support. want to see a crappy port go see dead island. it actually WAS the debugged 360 version when it was released. i feel dark souls will be like that with the reports were hearing. telling you to press right trigger or use the analog stick to move when you dont have a gamepad connected.

 

i was really excited for dark souls but now with resent reports. i wont get my hopes up.

[Iv000]

@Renn

 

Yes, what you say is true. After some time you really do adapt.

Also no, I didn't complain about it, honestly, I don't mind at all. I was playing Fallout 3 on 14 FPS 2-3 years ago and finished the whole game + all side quests. 30 FPS is more then fine, we all knew it was going to be a direct port. I'll be happy to just play the game on my PC.

[hoofhearted4]

gotta honestly say, it doesnt bother me, as i wont buy it for my PC since ive already played and beaten and platinumed it on my Ps3.

 

besides, i dont see this game being all that great to play with a keyboard and mouse (though maybe im biased as im not too great with those lol) but i feel like it would be hard. unless of course you just hook up a controller to your PC, which idk, i feel like that defeats some of the purpose of it lol

 

i am glad at least the new features are coming as DLC to the consoles. and i am excited for the new stuff as well. i think on top of the two bosses they are adding new equipment too.

Edited June 21, 2012 by hoofhearted4

[Rennn]

To me it wasn't a matter of getting Dark Souls for the PC 'or else'. I already bought it for my PS3, but of course if there's an option to play it at a stable framerate I'll buy it twice. That's why I signed the petition.

 

Anyway, I edited my comment.

Edited June 23, 2012 by Rennn

[hector530]

System Requirements

OS: Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, or newer

Processor: 2.6 GHz Dual-Core

Memory: 1 GB (XP), 2GB (Vista/7)

Hard Disk Space: 4 GB

Video Card: 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 4850 or higher, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT or higher

DirectX®: 9.0c

Sound: Direct Sound Compatible

Additional: Multiplayer requires microphone headset support

 

taken from the steam page