Dark Souls - Prepare to Die Edition - Review @ PC Gamer

Where are you guys finding the mods for this?
 
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Any had troubles with PS equivalent controller(lot of games support only 360 equivalent)?Is this playable on keyboard or should buy 360 controller in case my PS controller isn't supported(which I plan do do sooner or later)?
 
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Long FPS Explanation, 60 vs 30 with Proof

I've never seen a game look "very choppy" at 30 fps. Are you sure you're even getting 30 fps?

I was getting a constant 30 FPS running with 2560x1440 internal res, FYI. You may find my following explanation informative.

60 FPS is a bit overrated. it is hardly different than 30 FPS in terms of visual leisure.

Read the following to see why 60 FPS is not overrated. Warning, long FPS explanation incoming - thinking caps on!

What do I mean by DS “feeling” its 30 FPS? Well, the 30 FPS cap is much more noticeable in DS because it is a melee action game requiring precise timing and reflexes. As most of us know, the faster the action, the higher the FPS needs to be. This is an immutable principle. A turn-based game feels ok at 30 FPS because the game never requires split-second actions. A shooter like Quake feels really bad at 30 FPS because everything is moving so fast. If you wish to prove this, go to http://frames-per-second.appspot.com/ and set both spheres to zero motion blur, 1000 movement speed, and one to 60 FPS and one to 30 FPS. Follow each sphere closely! Then change the speed to 2000. As you increase speed, higher FPS becomes essential for smooth motion. If you have a 120Hz monitor like me, change one sphere to 120 FPS and witness the true power of a fully optimal FPS!

If you still aren’t convinced, take a DS example. At 30 FPS, when a skeleton starts to swing his sword at you, you have about 15 frames of visual input (half a second) to respond. So you react quickly, roll to the left, and get hit. At 60 FPS, you get 30 frames of visual input (still half a second) to respond. Now your brain now has twice the data to form an action. And now you realize he’s doing the attack that is easily parried if you block right as his sword crosses his shoulder plane. And again, at 60 FPS you have 10 or 20 frames of visual input in order to get the timing right. At 30 FPS, you only have 5 to 10 frames, which your brain perceives as choppy, no pun intended.

In real life sword fighting, you get an infinite number of frames to study as a combatant swings his sword at you. Those who have studied fencing or any martial arts know how absolutely critical it is to give 100% focus to studying your opponents movements.

To conclude, for melee action games, 60 FPS is a very, very big advantage because it makes all movements twice as fine. There will always be those who say this doesn’t matter. Some say this because they aren’t twitch gamers (which is to say they don’t have as fast sensory response times). Others claim the nonsense about people being unable to see above 30 FPS (lies, your eyes take the data and your brain processes it, see http://boallen.com/fps-compare.html).

The truth is some games “feel” their 30 FPS more than others based on how fast-paced the game is. DS really feels its 30 FPS.

PS: I do question whether some DS animations and effects are not actually keyframed for 30 frames per second. Maybe they are keyframed for 15 FPS and then the engine interpolates the remaining frames. And in Dark Souls case, the engine does a poor job of interpolation (maybe only on the PC?). I could be wrong.

PSS: By the way, one reason console games get away with lower FPS is because controllers have higher latency than keyboard/mouse plus nearly all LCD TVs have massive latency even in “gaming mode”. Hence, all console games already feel sluggish compared to well-made PC titles, so it is possible DS’s sluggish feel was not noticeable until ported to the very precise platform know as the PC. Also, part of the reason Dark Souls feels sluggish is also because the actual camera movement is sluggish, just like the movement.
 
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TLDR.

It boils down to personal opinion in the end. What is acceptable to some people is unacceptable to others.
 
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I am guessing my experiences that this game is clunky, unresponsive and awkward have to do with the framerate lock. I read that the animation is linked closely to the framerate and that there's really nothing that can be done about it. Oh well! Another wasted opportunity.

Also: lol at the people acting like gamerbros in response to my loathing of this horrible horrible game. I beat ADOM when you babies were crying over Aeris and ushering in the age of cinematic RPG's.
 
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That's because you obviously didn't play the game very much before giving your verdict it's not ultra-linear at all.
 
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As most of us know, the faster the action, the higher the FPS needs to be.

I wouldnt mind 60 FPS in DS, not at all, but i've never felt that the FPS hinders the combat in this particular game. It's very "mechanical" in its structure compared to many other games (shooters for example). E.g if you swing your sword you'll have to wait for the animation to finish before you can swing again (or do anything else for that matter). 60 FPS wouldnt change that and it wouldnt feel that different except looking a bit smoother.
 
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Darkling, it's not about being "gamebros" (whatever that's supposed to mean). The problem here is how you clearly have no clue of what you're talking about.

Anyway, I've been mostly a PC gamer for something like 25 years now (yeah, I'm "old"), I have always preferred mouse & keyboard interfaces for certain genres, and yet I strongly suggest to use a controller for this game.

Can you adapt to mouse & keyboard? Sure, I guess, but it's so blatantly inferior to the originally intended and native control system for this game to make the choice a no-brainer.

Don't be too stubborn. PC gaming isn't about using M&kb no matter what, it's about having the choice to use whatever fits best.
Could you play Tie Fighter with a mouse? Sure, but the experience just pales if confronted with playing it with a flightstick.
It's the same for this game. And if for whatever reason you don't already have one, controllers are incredibly cheap these days.
 
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What is the difference between FPS and Screen Refresh Rate, actually ?
I have an SRR of 60 Hertz, I don't know how this translates into FPS ?
(Sorry for being so naive, but I really don't know much about graphis.)
 
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What is the difference between FPS and Screen Refresh Rate, actually ?
I have an SRR of 60 Hertz, I don't know how this translates into FPS ?
(Sorry for being so naive, but I really don't know much about graphis.)
Refresh rate is about the screen (monitor or TV) updating the image output, framerate is about how often the game engine re-renders the graphics.
 
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What is the difference between FPS and Screen Refresh Rate, actually ?
I have an SRR of 60 Hertz, I don't know how this translates into FPS ?
(Sorry for being so naive, but I really don't know much about graphis.)

In simple terms it's how many FPS your screen can show, if you have 60Hz your screen can show 60 FPS at maximum, that's why 120Hz screens are gaining popularity (especially for people playing fast FPS games). In the old days of CRT TV's and monitors, 60Hz or lower would make your screen flicker a lot, but usually you could run them in 85Hz or higher which made the picture more "still".
 
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Yes, thank you, I remember that 60 Hertz flicker thing from old monitors. I believe that the more sensitive people are, the more likely they are experience flickering, even at 70 Hertz. But that's just a theory of mine.
My "ye olde monitore" had I think even 80 Hertz available, and that was quite a lot when I had bought it. It served me almost 10 years, a good monitor it was (iiyama).
But several Linux distributions had great problems properly detecting it. I had a lot of issues with that, each time I installed a new Linux distribution … no matter which one.

Edit : So if a game was able to produce 60 FPS for an 60 SRR flat screen, that would be perfect, no ?
 
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yes you should always try to match FPS with Hz (though 30 FPS works great with 60Hz or 90 or 120.. you get the idea ;) ).. in movies it makes a big difference too, i force my TV or my projector to use the same FPS as the movie i'm watching, the difference is quite big especially in scenes where the camera is panning.
 
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TLDR.

It boils down to personal opinion in the end. What is acceptable to some people is unacceptable to others.
LOL at TLDR. If you can't read a few paragraphs, I question whether your opinion bears much weight…am I expecting too much from you? If you had read what I wrote, you'd know there's actual science behind FPS, meaning certain technology and FPS is demonstrably superior to others.

Modern PC games run at 60 FPS or higher, so Dark Souls deserves massive criticism for its 30 FPS limit. Even if the game is the greatest thing ever, any fair assessment must knock the PC version for delivering a year 2000 experience. Saying it is all opinion strikes me as disingenuous or a grasping defense.

I wouldnt mind 60 FPS in DS, not at all, but i've never felt that the FPS hinders the combat in this particular game. It's very "mechanical" in its structure compared to many other games (shooters for example). E.g if you swing your sword you'll have to wait for the animation to finish before you can swing again (or do anything else for that matter). 60 FPS wouldnt change that and it wouldnt feel that different except looking a bit smoother.
Yes, your actions are mechanical since you cannot interrupt animations. This is all the more reason (IMO) you want smooth 60 FPS so you can react more appropriately since once you act you're committed to long animations.

But you bring up another key reason why some people hate Dark Souls (even if they can't put it in words). Non-interruptable animations make gameplay a lot more annoying and cumbersome than need-be. Again…in real fighting, changing moves mid-attack is critical. The best combat systems are about the ebb and flow of action and reaction. I think we can agree on that. Hence why about 95% of all games build in animation-blending systems and interrupt animations.

In my hour playing Dark Souls it became obvious that a large part of the challenge in the game comes from needlessly forced long attack animations. It reminded me of Monster Hunter Tri, which was absolutely excessive with its non-interruptable animations. (And also locked to 30 FPS!)

If Dark Souls let us interrupt animations, the game would become so much more playable and less difficult in a good way. I don't mind smart enemies killing me. I do mind a new enemy appearing on screen and killing me because I'm still finishing my really long mace attack animation.
 
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LOL at TLDR. If you can't read a few paragraphs, I question whether your opinion bears much weight…am I expecting too much from you? If you had read what I wrote, you'd know there's actual science behind FPS, meaning certain technology and FPS is demonstrably superior to others.

Modern PC games run at 60 FPS or higher, so Dark Souls deserves massive criticism for its 30 FPS limit. Even if the game is the greatest thing ever, any fair assessment must knock the PC version for delivering a year 2000 experience. Saying it is all opinion strikes me as disingenuous or a grasping defense.

I'm glad it means that much to you. :)
 
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If Dark Souls let us interrupt animations, the game would become so much more playable and less difficult in a good way. I don't mind smart enemies killing me. I do mind a new enemy appearing on screen and killing me because I'm still finishing my really long mace attack animation.

The animations makes the game far less of a button mashing / click feast experience and a much more tactical experience where you need to carefully plan and think. I know this is very unusual thinking for fans of action games, but i, and many, many others finds this refreshing. I think it's one of the keys to the huge success of this game. I must have spent over 100h with DS on Xbox and PC now and i still think the combat is really entertaining. I got tired of Skyrim's combat in 5 minutes - it's not challenging and it's not fun, in fact most action RPG's has shitty combat which bores me to tears.

And you're still wrong about the FPS, in fast action games it's needed that i can agree with, but again, DS isnt a fast action game where you jump around and shoot / swing like crazy (because you can't). The reason 60 FPS wouldnt make much of a difference here.
 
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The animations makes the game far less of a button mashing / click feast experience and a much more tactical experience where you need to carefully plan and think. I know this is very unusual thinking for fans of action games, but i, and many, many others finds this refreshing. I think it's one of the keys to the huge success of this game.
Makes sense. I’m no fan of button mashing nonsense. I really liked Bushido Blade for the PSX way back when because it was also rewarded intelligent attacks. I also liked Die by the Sword, even though it was very wonky. We do need more games like these. Hence, I very well may come to enjoy Dark Souls, despite its inaccessibility and uninterruptable animations.

And you're still wrong about the FPS, in fast action games it's needed that i can agree with, but again, DS isnt a fast action game where you jump around and shoot / swing like crazy (because you can't). The reason 60 FPS wouldnt make much of a difference here.
Well…I was arguing 60 FPS makes things smoother. We both agree on that point, and we both agree faster action games require faster FPS. At the risk of seemingly agreeing with JDR13, tolerance for low FPS is highly personalized so neither of us can be wrong. It’s not like I can say you are wrong to tolerate 30 FPS - if you enjoy the game, this is a good thing.

I have a very low tolerance for low FPS it appears. I did keep using an 85Hz CRT until 2011 precisely so I could run at higher FPS. I also watch films (24 FPS) and notice the strobing and such. I suppose you’re the lucky one really, but hopefully soon nothing will be lower than 48 FPS for film (thanks to the Hobbit I hope) and 60 FPS in gaming in the near future (thanks to the current gen consoles going away).
 
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