Dark Souls On the PC

[yamy]

To all the people saying that a controller is absolutely necessary: it's not. I have both the Xbox 360 and PC versions (bought the PC version for the DLC coz it was on sale) and with DsFix and Dsmfix I actually find the keyboard+mouse control better - especially when aiming with a bow. I also find certain commands (like forward+attack for Kick) easier to do as well. The keyboard+mouse control has a bit of a learning curve learning all the mappings but it's usable once you get used to it.

I think it's a testament to how innately bad controllers are for aiming that I find aiming with a mouse in such a terrible port still better than with a controller.

 

[Bravo Company]

To all the people saying that a controller is absolutely necessary: it's not. I have both the Xbox 360 and PC versions (bought the PC version for the DLC coz it was on sale) and with DsFix and Dsmfix I actually find the keyboard+mouse control better - especially when aiming with a bow. I also find certain commands (like forward+attack for Kick) easier to do as well. The keyboard+mouse control has a bit of a learning curve learning all the mappings but it's usable once you get used to it.

I think it's a testament to how innately bad controllers are for aiming that I find aiming with a mouse in such a terrible port still better than with a controller.

That is rather interesting. I greatly prefer KB+M over controllers, but controllers do have their advantages (racing games, and whatnot) Its not uncommon for me to play a 3rd person game with my controller then use my keyboard and mouse whenever I have to shoot. For some reason I prefer to use a controller in 3rd person games until anything precise needs to happen.


With all this talk about the game, I've grown more interested in buying it, may do that tonight......

 

[Rutabaga_swe]

To all the people saying that a controller is absolutely necessary: it's not. I have both the Xbox 360 and PC versions (bought the PC version for the DLC coz it was on sale) and with DsFix and Dsmfix I actually find the keyboard+mouse control better - especially when aiming with a bow. I also find certain commands (like forward+attack for Kick) easier to do as well. The keyboard+mouse control has a bit of a learning curve learning all the mappings but it's usable once you get used to it.

I think it's a testament to how innately bad controllers are for aiming that I find aiming with a mouse in such a terrible port still better than with a controller.

Not gonna lie, questioning this quite a lot. Better for aiming a bow? It's not like that's something you have to do fast and constantly, as bows aren't really viable as a main weapon, and mostly good for pulling or the occasional sniping. I get favoring KBM in some genres, but i also fully get favoring controllers in some and third person action/adventure games sure is one of those genres. Not to mention, one in how many posts suggests that KBM is a good thing for this game?

 

[MrDumpkins]

basically; the port is atrocious. It's a slap in the face to consumers. It's also completely unplayable without a pad. UNPLAYABLE. But the game itself is good enough to make me look past that and play it anyway. The fan-made patches fixes the worst issues and even on my 3 year old laptop it still ran a little better than the PS3 version. Just a little. Blight town still killed the framerate though

It was pretty bad, but it's not like From Software didn't warn everyone. They never planned a PC port and only got it because of fan support. They said the entire time they didn't know what they were doing and were going to focus on the artorias DLC over optimizing.

 

[Rutabaga_swe]

Well warned or not, the port is still crap. Are we supposed to say differently because Fromsoft were open about it? Crap port is crap, there is no other way of looking at it.

 

[Fireaxe]

The port is a joke, a fan mod fixes it supposedly, but honestly paying for something that's completely shit and only redeemed by a fan mod would just leave a sour taste.

 

[Shraggler]

I didn't think the PC port was that bad. It's certainly not unplayable. I've had no lock-ups, no crashes, nada. Save games work fine, interface is nicely difficult to get used to.

I've never heard of DSfix until now, but I suppose I'll try it out just to see what happens.

I use an Xbox controller with the game. I probably wouldn't have bought it had I not had one. I just find that a lot of PC-ported games tend to work better with a controller as they were initially & specifically designed for it.

Your computer will run it fine. I'm still running a Q6600 and, while I may not be able to get BF4 past a barely interactive slideshow, Dark Souls runs fine.

 

[yamy]

To all the people saying that a controller is absolutely necessary: it's not. I have both the Xbox 360 and PC versions (bought the PC version for the DLC coz it was on sale) and with DsFix and Dsmfix I actually find the keyboard+mouse control better - especially when aiming with a bow. I also find certain commands (like forward+attack for Kick) easier to do as well. The keyboard+mouse control has a bit of a learning curve learning all the mappings but it's usable once you get used to it.

I think it's a testament to how innately bad controllers are for aiming that I find aiming with a mouse in such a terrible port still better than with a controller.

Not gonna lie, questioning this quite a lot. Better for aiming a bow? It's not like that's something you have to do fast and constantly, as bows aren't really viable as a main weapon, and mostly good for pulling or the occasional sniping. I get favoring KBM in some genres, but i also fully get favoring controllers in some and third person action/adventure games sure is one of those genres. Not to mention, one in how many posts suggests that KBM is a good thing for this game?

I'm not saying controllers are never good for anything, just that I think KB+M is usually better when precision (such as when aiming) is required.

Also I'm not saying that the KB+M is better for this game over controllers. I must have forgotten to add it but I actually meant that in some instances I prefer it over controllers. I find both equally usable.

 

[Warlokk]

Once you patch it up with the previously mentioned mods, it runs just fine... and I play it with KB/M without any issues at all. I also have the PS3 version, but I prefer to play it on my PC.

Besides, it's like $10 right now... can't go wrong for that much.

 

[Alma Mare]

So much bullshit and exaggeration on this thread.

The game is perfectly playable with KB+M and runs perfectly without the mod. I've beaten it up to NG++++ with no problems whatsoever. It did what it set out to do, which it was to deliver Dark Souls to PC. If the game was made for PC from the scratch I'd have issues with it, but considering it was done to satisfy fan demand by a company who had no intention or expertise to do it in the first place, it delivers in spades.

If you can get a controller, it works MUCH better with it. If you can install the mod, it will look and perform better. But if you can't it'll still be totally worth the 7 bucks you'll pay for it in the sale.

I understand you should call a spade a spade and a bad port a bad port. But a slap in the face of consumers? They did what the consumers asked of them to the best of their ability. Considering the amount of bullshit I have to put up to play the average, poorly optimized $60 ports from EA or Ubisoft, this one still comes out ahead in my book.

 

[Aeonknight]

I love all these "shitty ports are unacceptable" posts. That's cool, it's not like they could've ignored your petitions for the port and just let you go without. And hell, you had a fix in 24 hours. Kind of ironic that PC gamers are bitching about having to mod the game to fix it, when the ability to mod in the first place is heralded as one of the advantages of the "master race".

 

[Ushiromiya Battler]

The port is a joke, a fan mod fixes it supposedly, but honestly paying for something that's completely shit and only redeemed by a fan mod would just leave a sour taste.

I hope you don't play Bethesda games then, if not you're one hell of a hypocrite.

OT:
DsFix and a controller makes it, as others have said, superior over the console version.
Give it a go, it's worth it.

 

[JonB]

I've not had any problems with the fixes mentioned above - they're fairly easy if you're familiar with how to use your PC.

However, you absolutely must own a gamepad for your PC. Most sale pages for the game tell you this. It's essentially impossible without one.

Hi, I have more than 12 playthroughs under my belt and I've never used a controller.

M+kb is fine after you get used to it.

Wow, really?

That is a level of talent which I do not possess. Do you use any kind of custom mapping?

 

[Solo-Wing]

I've not had any problems with the fixes mentioned above - they're fairly easy if you're familiar with how to use your PC.

However, you absolutely must own a gamepad for your PC. Most sale pages for the game tell you this. It's essentially impossible without one.

Hi, I have more than 12 playthroughs under my belt and I've never used a controller.

M+kb is fine after you get used to it.

Wow, really?

That is a level of talent which I do not possess. Do you use any kind of custom mapping?

Yeah that is like Plying Super Meat Boy with Keyboard. Extremely difficult but I have seen it done.

And Yes the mod is necessary. Also the game is honestly not that hard on PC requirements. I got a 6670 GPU and I can play it on high with a good framerate.

 

[dyre]

Keyboard/mouse is honestly perfectly fine. I haven't played it on a gamepad so I don't know if that's even better, but not once have I felt that the controls are inadequate. With KB/M, I beat about half the bosses on my first or second try (without looking at a walkthrough or anything), and I'm not really even that good a gamer. Though, I did get my ass kicked hard by the other half of the bosses.

That said, I installed DSFix and DSMFix before even trying the game (I have a weird habit of modding games before I play them), so I guess maybe vanilla has bad controls?

Not sure what all the anger about the port is about. It's a mediocre port, but not offensively bad. To my knowledge the devs didn't even want to port the game, but did so due to overwhelming demand. The only thing that bothered me is that they didn't bother changing the controller prompts to keyboard prompts (so it still says shit like "press R1 to attack")...that's a little lazy.

In terms of optimization, I feel that it isn't perfectly optimized; areas with a lot of fire effects slow my game down a bit (I'm guessing around 25 fps, so still playable, but a bit laggy). There's a zone called Blighttown which was annoying (and not just because of the lag, lol) However otherwise a decent gaming rig should handle it no problem.

 

[lacktheknack]

It's not actually impossible without a gamepad... you just need a mouse mod and a good mouse.

Once you get it set up properly, it's fantastic. It's the journey to that point that can be a bit arduous.

 

[not_you]

wow... a 4670K paired with a 5770?

Talk about a GPU bottleneck....

OT: Well, there are only two things I used to play Dark Souls on PC...
DSfix and DSMfix...

And I played through the entire game (quite a few times) with mouse and keyboard...

It is NOT that bad... I seriously don't know how people can complain about the kb/mouse controls not working properly when I was able to defeat every single boss with them!

Maybe I'm better at the game than other people, but still... it is not unplayable...

But yeah, DSfix and DSMfix are all you need... if you want to retexture it, Dark Souls nexus has come texture packs that make it look pretty...
But it still looks fine... "fine" by comparison to any other PC port of a game the devs really didn't know how to do properly...