Dark Souls On PC Gets Resolution Fix, But Other Issues Could Spell Disaster

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Have you been sitting on the fence about Dark Souls for PC? Wondering how the title would fair with all the bad news surrounding it? Well for some this may be good news and for others bad. A member of the NeoGAF forums, Durante, has created an internal rendering resolution fix for the game. For those whom don’t know, Dark Souls runs at a resolution of 1024×720 and when the resolution is set in the game’s menu options it simply stretches to fit. This creates a blurry image with muddy textures and that’s putting it kindly. Durante, on the other hand, within a week of preparation building an interception dll framework managed to fix the internal resolution issue in just 23 minutes after all prep work was completed. The fix works by intercepting the game’s DirectX 9 API calls and changes them as needed to render at the proper resolution. With that said, it comes to mind did From Software really shove out an incomplete port, or are they really just so inexperienced when it comes to the PC platform they made some serious mistakes? It’s hard to tell for certain, but regardless take a look at the images below to see the difference in graphics quality the fix brings to the table. While further testing is required to see if it is stable long term, the fact it can be done leads to the question will From Software issue their own official fix or not.

Before DSfix

Dark Souls PC Before DSfix


After DSfix

Dark Souls PC After DSfix

Click each image for a larger version.

Another issue appears to be hacks, with rumors circulating that the game is easily hackable with hex editors or an easier method known as Cheat Engine. How far this will go and just what can be done with it remains to be seen, but it seems that it’s possible to hack item quantities, stats and more. Some rumors floating around various forums seem to insinuate that within a week or so it will be possible for hackers to invade both living and dead players at will. Hopefully this is just rumors, but if it turns out to be true Dark Souls multiplayer fans may be in for a real rough ride. It doesn’t help that AMD/ATi graphics cards users also appear to be having performance issues with the title either.

Dark Souls Cheat Engine


Considering the game is one of a select few with a truly entertaining co-op mode, hopefully From Software will take the time to properly patch Dark Souls on the PC platform. So what are our reader’s thoughts, is Dark Souls a case of developer inexperience or laziness, will hackers and cheaters be an issue? Let us know below.

I did not do the entire work for this in 23 minutes. I developed an interception dll framework during this week to prepare for the job. I did the actual work to make the game render at higher res in that amount of time though — based on the framework — and spent a few more hours testing and adding the config file.

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