Dark Souls - Comments from Namco

It's hard to get a good grip on what Dark Souls for the PC will actually play like with the dev team being adamant this is a straight console port with no optimisation for the PC. PC Gamer has some comments from Namco Bandai that suggets the raw power of some PC setups might alleviate the frame-rate issues at least:

Will it be worth putting up with poor performance to access the new areas? Saguchi suggests that the severity of the port problems will vary depending on the power of the player’s machine. “While the game hasn’t been tweaked itself, because it’s very difficult to tweak, but for people who play on the PC, which is arguably a lot more stronger format to work off of, it does improve the framerate issues,” he said.
“I think it’s really inherent on the person’s setup in terms of what kind of power the game can use. So it’s a little bit more difficult to determine, it really kind of shifts along with the processor that you’re selling.”
“It’s definitely going to be better than the console version,” he added later. “It’s just that in terms of what PC gamers are maybe looking at in terms of what they usually play, it may not match up.”

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what was that last part?

While it is refreshing to see a developer being honest about doing a bad port i can not help but wonder why they even bother doing it to begin with or what they hope to gain by being being so upfront about the quality (or lack thereof).

I read those words and what I hear is, "We think it is pretty cheap to port it as is with some minimal new content features. This way, if people don't buy it, we aren't out much money. If they do buy it, then we make maximum profits. We view this as win-win for us."

I think this is the same mindset Bethesda had when they jumped in to the DLC market with horse armor.

I'll buy this game (may be) when it drops to 5 dollars.

So the game will rely mainly on the CPU power to function making little use of the different graphic card capabilities (i.e. no graphic optimization). This reminds me of the GTA IV poor PC port. Looking at the bright side, this means that the game can run on most hardware since it relies mainly on CPU.

I think I'll probably have no trouble getting 30 FPS consistently. Even in Blighttown. A straight port is all I really need, I'd just like to be able to play it, including the new content, on my desktop, with my PC-only friends.

I coudln't care less about theframerate issues. My problem is with the unpolished controls for Mouse Keyboard. But here again, I've played enough ports to pull through.

I don't like everybody's disappointment . I'm not gonna buy it at release, that's for sure, but I believe i will happily pay at least 35$ for it.

I own an x360 controller which I like to use, and powerful PC. GFWL which I loathe somehow works well for 13 games I own that use it. I am not worried.

I appreciate that they appear to be fairly transparent about what to expect, and not expect, with the PC version of Dark Souls. It beats spin and hype hands down.

After the game is released, each person can make an informed choice based on the information straight from the developer and reviews by 'journalists' and gamers.

In runs fine on the Xbox, which is vaguely comparable to a high end PC when Oblivion was released, so I wouldn't be too worried. And I don't see what all the fuss is about Blighttown. I cleared it and didn't notice any framerate issues. I suspect it's more a lack of a HD issue, or not being bothered to install the game.

I've got my 360 Dark Souls installed on HDD and the frame rate is absolutely terrible at times, even Namco are very up front about that issue so it has nothing to do with a user error. Framrate is about 25 on average and at times as low as 5-10 in a few places in the game. Didnt keep me from playing the game though, but better FPS (above 30) would absoultely be a big improvement.

I experienced no framerate issues with the game. Obviously I have a very special wretchbox. The brutal difficulty on the other hand… put the game to one side after being cursed so many times by those toad creatures in the hidden area off Blighttown.