Dark Souls General FAQ

A general guide to Dark Souls regarding technical, gameplay, and other frequently asked questions. This guide is not intended as a replacement for a walkthrough or compendium for in-game items and spells, but is a light touch on getting the most out of Dark Souls on the PC. This guide is based on the original writing in the Dark Souls forum on the Steam Public Users Forum (SPUF). It may be updated.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2900179

General

What is Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition?

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition is a port of the acclaimed Dark Souls for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The Prepare to Die Edition includes new areas and creatures to go after while maintaining the classic difficulty of it's predecessor.

What are the minimum requirements for Dark Souls?

System Requirements

• OS: Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, or newer
  
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 GHz+ or AMD Phenom II X2 545 3.0 GHz+
  
• Memory: 2 GB
  
• Hard Disk Space: 8GB
  
• Video Card: GeForce 9800 GTX+ or ATI Radeon HD 4870+
  
• DirectX®: 9.0c
  
• Sound: Direct Sound Compatible

Keep in mind that this game DOES use Games for Windows Live.
Dark Souls does NOT support Windows XP x64.

I heard this was a port, or some kind of marina.

You heard right. Dark Souls is what PC players would consider a "Bad Port". At the time of writing, controls and video are limited due to the console nature of the game. While unfortunate the game in itself is still good. There have been attempts by the community to iron out these shortcomings, but your mileage may vary.

Does Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition use Games for Windows Live?

Yes. Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition uses Games for Windows Live for profile saves, achievements, and multiplayer matchmaking. You do not need a gold account.

Does Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition use Steam Cloud for saves?

No, saves are independent on each machine, encrypted by Games for Windows on a per-profile basis.

DSFix; The Proper Resolution Solution

What is DSFix?

DSFix is a small tool that allows people to force the internal resolution of the game to something more specific so that Dark Souls will display at the resolution asked for. This does NOT fix the aspect ratio (black bars), but will sharpen the game significantly.

DSFix also allows the opportunity to install mods (most notably texture replacements) and to turn on other various pieces of eye-candy.

Does DSFix conflict with Games for Windows Live?

Past experience has shown that it does not impact or conflict with Games for Windows Live at present. With that said though, some options may not work properly when enabled.

As always, there is no guarantee that DSFix will not damage your hardware, conflict with Games for Windows Live, or result in other strange behavior.

What does DSFix do?

DSFix is a utility that intercepts DirectX calls and changes them so that you can run the game at a truly higher resolution as well as throwing in other features such as anti-aliasing, SSAO, and even unlocking the framerate for the game.

How do I install DSFix?

DSFix is very simple to install. Simply download the latest version[darksouls.nexusmods.com] from Dark Souls Nexus and unzip the files to ..\Steam\common\Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition\DATA

After that, edit DSFix.ini to what you'd like. It is strongly recommended that you stick to changing renderWidth and renderHeight only until you know what you happen to be doing. Increasing the internal resolution will increase the hardware requirements and negatively impact performance.

Make sure that you disable Anti-Aliasing in Dark Souls itself.

Technical

How do I change the language in Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition?

You can change the language by changing "Format:" under Control Panel, Region and Language, Formats. This is (supposedly) the default method GFWL games determine language.

DSFix offers a method to change language without needing to change the setting via the Control Panel.

Where do I find my save files for Dark Souls?

You can find your Dark Souls saves in C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\NBGI
Keep in mind that saves are checked for alterations and that Steam nor Games for Windows Live offers cloud storage services for these saves.

Dark Souls crashes and has a reference to XLive.dll, what do?

First, ensure the Windows Live Sign-In Assistant is started. This should typically set to automatic, but it IS needed to log in to Xbox Live.

You can find it's status in the Services Panel. (For Vista/Win7, search for services.)

Thanks to ikbosh, he provides this suggestion.

Originally Posted by ikbosh
Windows 8 GFWL Fix (Dark Souls)
All files are provided in download, obtained Here[ikbosh.info].
1. Remove all previous installations of GFWL.
2. Run gfwlivesetupmin.exe
3. Run GFWL, it will prompt you to update.
4. Close that and GFWL.
5. Run gfwlivesetup.exe
6. Copy Xlive.dll to %windir%\system32\
7. GFWL
8. Run Dark Souls and enjoy!
In some cases, people have reported running the Games For Windows Marketplace in the background can also fix this problem.

Keep in mind that downloading DLLs can be inherently dangerous. Do so at your own risk.

Dark Souls crashes referencing vsfilter.dll?

Players have reported that renaming vsfilter.dll may fix this problem. (Examples include just changing the extension.) Naturally changing a DLL may cause other programs to not work.


Can I get Dark Souls to work on Windows 8?
While I don't have Windows 8 myself, Westunfuchs has reported something that has been working for him, as well as a few others.

Well, I got it to work by doing this in Win 8, maybe it works for Win 7 too:

1) Remove/uninstall Microsoft Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable
2) Remove/uninstall Microsoft Games for Windows Marketplace
3) Download gfwlivesetup from here (thanks to sevenalive): http://sdrv.ms/O2WvBt
4) Run it - install it and after that you can play the game

*Don't forget to uncheck Compatibility mode, if you checked it before*

Dark Souls crashes when loading. I have no particular error message either?

Certain USB devices can cause Dark Souls to crash. Make sure any non-essential devices are unplugged.

Can I map things to number keys?

Thanks to JahBit, you can use the following to help build your own mappings to a degree.

Here's how:

1. Open up your DarkSouls.ini located at C:\Users\[USENAME]\AppData\Local\NBGI\DarkSouls
2. Find the action you want to rebind
3. replace the number with a corresponding one from the list below

'1' = 49
'2' = 50
'3' = 51
'4' = 52
'5' = 53
'6' = 54
'7' = 55
'8' = 56
'9' = 57
'0' = 48

4. Save

And there you go.
----
For example '1' for main weapon, '2' for secondary, '3' for spells' and '4' for items would be:

[KeyConfigEquip]
ChangeRightWep = 49
ChangeLeftWep = 50
ChangeGoods = 52
ChangeMagic = 51

[bagerman]

the game keeps saying u are not signed in so no auto save is possoble witch means cant save game an i cant sign in on pc either so my question is how do i save the game ???? =)

[D4nlel]

You can activate steam cloud saving.

[Jenvo]

@Hyperion

I understand that there is a lot of PC users that perfer Windows XP over Windows 7, but Windows XP is becoming increasingly outdated and often times is not supported by newer games anymore. I would advise the upgrade if you don't want to be stuck with compatibility issues. Windows 7 isn't really that bad, there's plenty of tweaks you can make to keep that minimalist Windows feel. Also, I don't recommend upgrading to Windows 8 (as of yet) else you may have similar problems, maybe less often than Windows XP.

Great guide though, and nice screenshot. Been using DSFix but never thought to use the Supersampling. Really makes the game playable.

[Hyperion]

So the game doesn't support Windows XP x64? I guess that explains why it loads up and then just freezes at "Creating Save Data"

Would have been nice to know before I wasted my money on it. And thanks to GFWL, I can't even try to give it to someone else. Ughhh.

[PornFlakes]

The game seems to be crashing at random times whilst playing the game. I'm going to give this additional fix a rundown to see how well the game performs from this point onward.

[Freyar]

Probably annoyed that it duplicates another. Even still I'm working from my original FAQ written at release.

[iza]

Why would people rate it down, i don't get it. Thanks to the DSfix i pushed myself to play it through. I cried to the outro music, but i am still not sure because i finished it actually or just the music itself.