Dark Souls: Prepare to Die specs are not-so-scary

From Software has been managing expectations for the upcoming PC version of Dark Souls. The required specs for Prepare to Die have been revealed, and they should be in line with what many PC gamers have been expecting.

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From Software has been managing expectations for the upcoming PC version of Dark Souls. While fans have long-clamored for a PC port of the hardcore dungeon crawler, the developer admitted it was "having a tough time" optimizing the game for Windows. "First we thought it would be a breeze, but it's turned out not to be the case," producer Daisuke Uchiyama admitted.

Still, having a straight port is probably better than not getting the game at all. And the PC version will include additional content that console gamers will have to pay extra for.

The required specs for Prepare to Die have been revealed (via Eurogamer). They should be in line with what many PC gamers have been expecting:

  • OS: Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, or newer
  • Processor: 2.6 GHz Dual-Core
  • Memory: 1 GB (XP), 2GB (Vista/7)
  • Hard Disk Space: 4 GB
  • Video Card: 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 4850 or higher, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT or higher

    DirectX®: 9.0c

Dark Souls' PC release may not be the jaw-dropping DirectX 11 experience we want it to be, but PC gamers that want the franchise to continue on the platform would be wise to support this release. Who knows? Perhaps From Software will be able to learn for their next game.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    June 21, 2012 10:30 AM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, Dark Souls: Prepare to Die specs are not-so-scary.

    From Software has been managing expectations for the upcoming PC version of Dark Souls. The required specs for Prepare to Die have been revealed, and they should be in line with what many PC gamers have been expecting.

    • reply
      June 21, 2012 10:56 AM

      You know I really think its going to turn out to be a solid port and even a port +. WTF you may say well here is why:

      “PC gaming for us as a company, Namco Bandai, is a renewed focus. What you’re going to be seeing, starting with Star Trek [and Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition], [is that we’re bringing other games to PC]. Why? Because PC gamers love games. PC gamers deserve the best, so that’s why we’re spending a lot of time with NVIDIA, who have a good expertise in making the best hardware available in the PC world, so if you look at Star Trek, that collaboration helps make sure we’re maximizing the power. Games like Star Trek will play the best on the NVIDIA platform.”

      So in short I hope they have a new mandate and they did say DS is part of this movement, we will see.

      Source : http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/star-trek-developer-working-closely-with-nvidia-to-integrate-physx-effects-and-3d-vision/

      • reply
        June 21, 2012 11:08 AM

        that's encouraging to hear and i hope you're right, but all that shit talking that was going on about this port a while back has me worried. guess we'll all just have to wait and see!

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          June 21, 2012 12:31 PM

          Yeah I know I am not sure what that was about? was it real or a publicity stunt to draw attention?

          Makes no sense to me if it where true why on earth would you mention it its so negative.

          This positive news is the latest I have heard other than these specs released which makes think its obber positive.

          No offense to anyone with this system its its still decent, but these specs are really freaking tiny and behind the norm. Having said that if the game runs like shit like they said and has major performance issues how the shit could it possible run on this system with theses specs?? Answer me that?

          Processor: 2.6 GHz Dual-Core
          Memory: 1 GB (XP), 2GB (Vista/7)
          Hard Disk Space: 4 GB
          Video Card: 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 4850 or higher, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT or higher
          DirectX®: 9.0c

          I think any one with a :

          i5 4core or i7 8+core
          6+ gigs of ram
          1gig + DX11 card will absolutely crush this game

          And with SLI crossfire etc the game will be like 200FPS sounds logical no?

          The specs are freaking positive indeed now that I think of it \m/

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            June 21, 2012 12:35 PM

            I doubt the game even supports crossfire setups, and if it's capped at 30fps as they were saying it won't matter anyway.

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              June 21, 2012 12:47 PM

              With these specs it seems mental to cap the FPS so many could hit 60 easily, the majority have 3 ghz to 4 ghz cpus in 4 core + more mem and way better gpus.

              Juts like a lot of games that where limited it will be hacked and lifted, I have no idea why you would ever add a fps limiter?

              Man I hope it turns out to be good.

              • reply
                June 21, 2012 1:04 PM

                It's not always that simple. It could be coded as such that uncapping the framerate means faster animation / game speed / physics / etc thus broken gameplay. They targeted a hard 30 on the console and weren't ever considering the game beyond that during initial development. Which if a real problem that exists in their game and engine, they could probably fix if they wanted to put in that effort. But when the game is said to be an extremely basic port with stuff like forced 720p resolution and them unable to fix the framerate drops in the problem areas on hardware that's much more powerful and they are having a hard time bringing it over in general, you can't really assume anything from the recommended specs.

                To me it almost sounds like it's being emulated, faults and all, in some weird way rather than a proper port job.

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            June 21, 2012 12:45 PM

            i don't think the game has performance issues in the sense that it's bottlenecked by CPU or GPU. it has performance issues in the sense that the framerate is locked to the physics tick rate and they can't push that any higher than 30, so it's capped. you're going to run this game and your cpu and gpu will be practically idle

            • reply
              June 21, 2012 12:51 PM

              Pretty much this. Blade Kitten had the same problem (framerate locked to physics engine, console standard 30 fps). I totally understand their situation though; when you're developing for console with no plans for a PC release, doing this makes perfect sense. I imagine trying to change this after the fact is a huge undertaking.

              The upside of the 30fps limit is that you can heap on all the AA you want without seeing any impact on framerate.

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              June 21, 2012 12:56 PM

              Why would you ever --> "locked to the physics tick rate"?

              Would you physics code not just go off your regular games parent clock? I have not written hard core physics like havok framework or what ever but I have my own physic code that flings things around and bounces of stuff etc and its all of the global game clock for that progression factor that does the moving of the object around like everything else that has motion.

              DS uses Havok so why on earth would it be coded this way? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havok_(software) is this the way Havok is written surely it doesn't have anything to do the FPS of the game? Anyone that uses it please let use know what the deal is I am very curious.

              • reply
                June 21, 2012 2:40 PM

                When you are developing for a console it is a closed platform and all systems are the same. I don't know anything about game development but it makes sense that they might do this to optimize the game for the 360 or PS3.

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      June 21, 2012 12:43 PM

      Still wondering if they've moved off GFWL to Steam or not.

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      June 21, 2012 1:01 PM

      Wow, geez. The Geforce 8800 is a six year old card. Them's some looooow specs.

      • reply
        June 21, 2012 1:10 PM

        The 360 is running what, a beefed up ATi x1900/nVidia 8800?

        It's old, but it's still capable of running most games at low specs.

        • reply
          June 21, 2012 2:03 PM

          Hah, the 360 GPU is more like a ATI 850. A 8800GT GPU would be monstrous compared to the current hardware. Shows how much you can optimize for console metal.

        • reply
          June 22, 2012 6:47 AM

          x1900 or a 7800/7900GT in approximate capability, the 8800 was waaaay more powerful than either of those cards.

    • reply
      June 21, 2012 5:04 PM

      yeah yeah good, but steamworks instead of GFWL?

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