Dark Souls II - PC Overview @ Polygon

Polygon has posted a new video with a look at the improvements of the PC version.

Griffin explores the various performance improvements of the PC version.

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More information.

Hmm not watching the video of course (spoilers and so on) but it sounds like a competent port out of the box this time around.

Better textures, slightly better shaders and effects, steady 60 fps in modest hardware, minute loading times (should be near instantaneous in my ssds) etc etc. M+K pretty much confirmed to be decently working and completely playable! Will have to do I guess.

Pity that the resolution seems to be capped at 1440p I'd really like to downsample from 1620p, makes the original (and well, any game) look very sharp and really brings out the great art direction (some scenes look like an effing painting!)

Also pity that they did not put some effort in tweaking the visuals a bit on the better platform and do their original vision a bit more justice. Some textures and geometry here and there would have been enough really to remove some of the worst compromises… I feel they are selling themselves a bit short here

Oh, well. Now to see how the game stacks up to the original

There are no spoilers in the video at all JonNik.

They just show combat, and compare the graphics to the consoles. You may see a brief scene of certain areas, but I don't consider it a spoiler.

I also found a Reddit about the graphics.

Link- http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/22j3oi/dark_souls_2_graphics_comparison_pcps3/

It's a shame the console versions are inferior, and I doubt they will ever fix it.

Couchpotato said:

There are no spoilers in the video at all JonNik.

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Thou shalt not tempt me

Obviously my definition of spoiler is much broader than most people

Seriously though, for an Art driven project like this (going from #1 at least) seeing the Monster and area design for the first time ingame myself is pretty important to me. I can be patient for a couple of weeks more

Edit: Hmm seems that more than 1440p may be possible!
Awesome if true, gotta put that gtx780 to work sometime

Ugh. You get to see more than just combat - there's a give away for at least one boss location and way too much bonfire warping/spoilers for visuals on other locations as well. Thus, I would consider that as entering spoiler territory.

Admittedly I lost my patience and took a peek - but it's going to be an extended amount of time before I can sufficiently commit to playing, which will hopefully mean the memory will be somewhat faded by that time.

Well as JonNik said I to have a different definition for spoilers.

Anyway I still have to finish the first game, and I don't see that happening any time soon. I have moved on to other games to finish, and re-play.

P.S.

For the impatient among us: People are saying that the GiantBomb video is more comprehensive and illustrative on the PC version differences (the neogafers seemed to be somewhat mollified ) and supposedly stays on the early areas...

Thanks JonNik but the video seems to be broken. I did find another video for the PC version on Gamespot, but be warned it may contain spoilers for some of you.

Link- http://www.gamespot.com/videos/dark-souls-ii-pc-preview/2300-6418189/

I'm playing it on the xbox. Its a blast. At first I was a bit torn, because it felt a bit too similar to the first one in some ways, and a bit too different in others - the new thing where your health decreases at every death for example. The opening sections aren't that strong either and I thought it was going to be too linear. But I'm now 30hrs in (I'm slow - it took me over 80 to beat DS, and I think there's a long way still to go in DSII), and I'm totally hooked, totally lost, and totally getting killed a lot by loads of interesting beasties. Its great and getting more interesting the more I play it.

I suck at PvP though. Every time I get invaded I'm basically dead.

The biggest problem with DS (on pc) were the controls; are the controls any better with DS2 ?

The controls worked perfectly with dsfix for me but they did say they were going to have working K&M right out of the box this time.

I don't care about the graphics as long as the atmosphere and exploration are still there. I may have to unplug my internet though. I can't stand the invasions.

80 hrs for DS 1 is slow, then what is the 135 it took me?:lol:

sakichop said:

80 hrs for DS 1 is slow, then what is the 135 it took me?:lol:

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Thorough, I suspect! I read a guide afterwards, and it looks like I missed a tonne of content.

Some things for those who don't want to watch the vid (NO spoilers):

In the Gamespot vid they play it on 1920x1080, which is perfect. Better textures, very good framerate that makes combat faster and more fluid. All around awesomeness. Everything looks sparper, but still falls behind the HD texture mod looks for DrS a little bit (I'm sure it'll be modded in a few weeks).

The dynamic lighting is missing, just like in the console version, flat lighting is present, looks much better than on PS. The pitch dark areas from the Network test beta build are gone, just like on consoles. It's partly a resource problem (had to tone it down to save performance), and partly a lesson from the beta: people shunned two-handed builds completely for the lack of lighting, and FROM did not want that. So, dynamic lighting and torch-heavy areas had to go. You can still do it, but it's not that neccessary. There's two areas where it's still quite important though, mirroring the Tomb of Giants area in DrS.

There's something I'm really pissed about: apparently button prompts are Xbox prompts still. I hope they change it quickly (with a release patch or something). Can't believe it's such a big thing considering how you can map anything anywhere out of the box…

Still sounds kind of promising

It looks good and the combat is very fluid.

I don't care too much about the graphics for a game like this as long as the keyboard and mouse controls are responsive and customisable, which seems to be the case with DSII.

Looking forward to exploring this new world!

It took me about 70 hours to thoroughly explore and win DkS2, always hanging around for a bit of co-op after every boss, and I kept PvPing ranking up the Dragon covenant until after around 92 hours I decided it was time for NG+ or a new roll.

I went pure melee and was planning on using the Shortsword all game but then I found the excellent Claymore and lost all interest in my trusty Shortsword. It seems like a good melee build has STR and DEX. I did keep my Shortbow equipped for the whole game. Shortbow is awesome!

At this point I put the game down because I want to save things to do on PC!

It took me about as long to finish DkS1, but in 2 I never found myself "stuck" or feeling lost or confused like I did in 1 on several occasions. In 2 you always progress smoothly. Plenty of secrets and reasons to backtrack, however. Careful you don't miss things because you use Warp too much!

Also, I put it down because it became diablo3 time! 727k damage Crusader in the house!

Indeed! How could you be lost when you are always probably just a short trek away from the next Bonfire that will warp you anywhere you like. Definitely one of the things bumming me out on this.

Need to play to see how much it changes the feel of the game and the quality of the exploration of course…

(Edit: Although I have to say I never felt particularly lost or confused in #1. Just explored, feeling that there is an unforgiving and obscure world out there where I really had to fight, every inch of the way, to reach my objective… Even after gaining warp the actual points were few and far in between)