Dark Souls Review/News

[Rennn]

I did notice that the lag is only when you look in certain directions, but I don't think it ever caused me a death. It's not like Skyrim where the game starts to stutter massively if your framerate drops too low; it's a much more steady decrease in framerate that doesn't leave the game difficult to play, on the PS3 version at least. I'm still glad that the PC version will run better though. :)

[hoofhearted4]

I'm still glad that the PC version will run better though. :)

 

Youre only assuming that. there is no guarantee that this is true. that lag in the game could be caused by something in the Code, like Skyrim and FONVs lag drops, a lot is caused by Code, and not hardware. as such, if the Game is just going to be ported over, that same FPS drop thats basically in the same place for everyone, could still happen on PC. hell for all we know, the game could run worse, since its a console port. depends on how well they port it really. and considering From is a small studio, there is no guarantee hey will be doing an amazing port. considering they are a small studio, and you gotta split it up between Armored Core, Dark Souls maintenance, and undoubtedly Dark Souls 2, that only leaves a small group working on the port. considering its coming out quite fast, and under short notice (as in they haven been working on the port since release, rather months after the release) it truly doesnt speak well for the port. however, i feel like they wouldnt have gotten themselves into the port if they couldnt handle it. though, ive been listening to others opinions and such, and i think it woulda been better if they waited and just put Dark Souls 2 onto it so it could be fully coded for PC and not just a port. if Dark Souls ends up being a bad port, then that pretty much ruins the chance for any future Soul Series game from being on the PC.

[Rennn]

Skyrim and FNV used a terrible modified Gamebryo engine, while as far as I know Dark Souls is coded mostly from scratch with Havok handling the physics. Unproffessional coding can cause lag, but that's mostly a thing with certain engines, whereas Dark Souls and Demon's Souls (which undoubtedly shared a great deal of code), run better than expected on both consoles considering the age of the hardware. The 360 mostly caves from the constant saving, whereas the PS3 version directs that to a specific core, and the game doesn't share the traditional symptoms of shoddy coding such as stutter, freezing, or crashing, but rather has a gradual framerate decrease associated with insufficient system resources. Furthermore, the Sword of Moonlight Creation Kit, a decade old modding tool for the PC by FROM, suffers from a memory leak like Skyrim but with otherwise much cleaner coding. It's very unlikely that poor coding will play into Dark Souls' performance much. Edited July 3, 2012 by Rennn

[hector530]

Well dark souls was made for consoles and ran poorly plus it isn't even close the best looking console games. That and the rumours the PC version is gonna be bad doesn't give me high hopes for pc dark souls

[hoofhearted4]

Well dark souls was made for consoles and ran poorly plus it isn't even close the best looking console games. That and the rumours the PC version is gonna be bad doesn't give me high hopes for pc dark souls

 

this is what makes me think it wasnt a hardware limitation. Demons Souls and Dark Souls, while gorgeous, are not the best looking games on the console. there have been better looking games with more on the screen then dark souls. with no lag drop. i really think it has to do with the code. because the Ps3 has had much better looking games on it, with no issue. but since the game was written for xbox too (which has worse hardware), well, it hurts the game. and i think thats why you see the lag issues. Dark Souls and Demons Souls are very graphically similar, and Demons Souls never had lag drops. because it was coded for PS3, which has better hardware. Dark Souls was coded for both systems, and yous see issues.

 

now of course, if they rewrite the code for PC, none of this will matter. but if they only rewrite some of it (which is what happens in many ports) then its possible this issue will remain. and this ofc brings me back to my "From is a small studio" statement. given the amount of time they are doing this in, and given they dont have even hundreds of people working on this, it just leaves me a little skeptical of the port....as i said, they shoulda taken the petition as people wanting a Souls game on PC, and not Dark Souls. they would have been much better off if they build game from the ground up for the PC (and then separately for consoles) and not port anything at all. cause as i said, if Dark Souls port does end up sucking, well that ruins their market in the PC, and there is a lot of money to be made there, so they really cant afford mistakes.

 

but maybe im being pessimistic, and they will actually port it just fine and nothing will go wrong. its not impossible. its not even unlikely. but ya i see it as ~40% good chance it wrks and ~60% bad chance it doesnt.

[hector530]

I just returned the game I got to the demon wolf with the sword in its mouth with about 16-17 hours. I feel like it's a game I can really enjoy. It feels very deep. I missed a lot secrets never tried the online stuff. Didn't know how to do it. I'll get and pass it for pc.

[Rennn]

Dark Souls and Demon's Souls shared most of their source code; you can tell from certain things like the harsh vertex lighting, and of course from how similar the games were in graphics and gameplay. Dark Souls isn't the best looking game on the consoles, and it's not the best running. However, open world with Dark Soul's hq lod is extremely hard for the consoles to run. I'm not sure how much you know about coding, but it's very unlikely that the poor performance was due to shoddy coding, because as I said, that usually leads to resource overflow and stutter (as in Skyrim) before it leads to slowdown.

 

We'll see for certain in August, I suppose.

Edited July 5, 2012 by Rennn

[hoofhearted4]

haha ill admit i know extremely little about Coding. on the verge of nothing (cept the one basic beginners class i took in college lol) so ya. i admit that.

 

still, i dont see it being a hardware problem. i see it as the game having to be played on the xbox, so the game itself, which would have had no problem on Ps3 only, had to be altered to play on the xbox, and hence it hurt the Ps3 performance.

 

it all depends on how well the port is. i wanna see it be worth it on the PC. and even if they Blighttown lag still is there, its not like the games not worth it anyways.

[Iv000]

Just to inform you people that you can pre-order it now on Steam (In my region, it's 40€)

But I found out that you can get it cheaper over here: http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-DSPDE/dark-souls-prepare-to-die-edition It is 40$ no matter where you live. You get the Steam Key and can activate it on Steam. Same version, lower price :)

[hector530]

US steam is 40 bucks(dollars) too Edited July 15, 2012 by hector530