Dark Souls Remastered

File information

Last updated

Original upload

Created by

Riadon

Uploaded by

Riadon

Virus scan

Safe to use

About this mod

This is a ReShade Preset intended to bring a more stylistic look to Dark Souls Remastered. I found DS:R to be visually uninteresting, missing the stylistic bloom and distant DOF effects of the PTDE, and also felt it added a bit of unneeded warmth to the color palette. I did my best to enhance the atmosphere without completely changing the feel.

Permissions and credits
Mirrors
Tweaked for 5 (default) in-game brightness

Make sure to check out the included screenshots and videos for a good idea of the preset's appearance.  Any sort of pixellation is a result of compression, there are no film grain or chromatic abberation-type effects included in this preset.

I included a version with no added bloom or ambient light, in case you are opposed to that effect.

Of my presets, the Lite version is around 50% more demanding than the base game, the Very Lite version is around 30% more demanding. Expect the Full version to be upwards of 3x as demanding as the base game, so only recommended for very strong modern GPUs (970 1080p, 1070 1440p, 1080 TI 4k). 

At 4k using the Full version, MXAO render scale should be set to 0.500 in the ReShade overlay, as the performance hit is exponentially higher than other resolutions (up to 25%), but makes little visible difference at 4k past 0.500.

How to install:

Downloading the ReShade program itself is no longer necessary.

1. Download my collection of tweaked and custom shaders for Dark Souls Remastered from the download section.

2. Unzip your version of choice into your Dark Souls Remastered installation folder (the folder with DarkSoulsRemastered.exe) and choose to replace all if necessary.

3. When ingame, go through the ReShade tutorial using the shift f2 overlay. Select the preset from the dropdown menu most appropriate for your hardware. The screen will look weird for a second, wait and it will correct itself.  You can toggle effects for comparison using Scroll Lock.

Please consider endorsing if you enjoyed the preset.

Info & Toggle Keys:

Scroll Lock - Toggle ReShade
Delete - Toggle MXAO
Insert - Toggle Depth of Field

The preset was tweaked using default brightness, with ingame AA set to TAA, AO set to on, and DOF set to on.

If certain effects don't look right, try launching Dark Souls Remastered in offline mode. Some games don't allow access to the depth buffer when playing online.

If text appears blurry in certain situations, the cause is depth of field. you can toggle the effect with Insert, or you can just aim the camera at the ground when using the menu if the problem occurs.  Alternatively, if you don't care for DOF in general, you can just disable it.

Only problem I've seen is that MXAO (Full version only) bleeds slightly through fog, the effect can be toggled with Delete if it bothers you.

To those who experience crashing problems or white screen with ReShade (don't do this otherwise), try renaming dxgi.dll and dxgi.ini to d3d11.dll and d3d11.ini inside of the main game folder.  If that doesn't work, try disabling Steam Overlay.

Effects used:

Pirate Bloom (Very Lite only)
Ambient Light
SMAA (Full only)
Clarity
HDR
LiftGammaGain
Colorfulness
AdaptiveSharpen (Full only)
MXAO + Indirect Lighting (Full only)
Pirate Light Adaptation
Pirate Depth of Field (static)
Levels
Lumasharpen (Lite only)

Pirate GI and SSAO are included in the preset only because they are part of the same effect as DOF and deleting them would cause it to stop working.  Turning these on will only eat FPS for no visible difference, so just ignore them.

High quality screenshot comparisons

https://sfx.thelazy.net/games/preset/9333/

An alternate download page with uncompressed, high quality screen shots that can be directly compared to the vanilla game by selecting and moving the mouse left to the right over the picture.

V1.3 Changes:

MXAO tweaked further and made more noticeable
HDR and light adaptation adjusted slightly
Clarity tweaked for Full and Lite presets, added to Very Lite version (replacing Light Adaptation)
Very Lite version now looks more similar to other versions in most areas

V1.2 Changes:

MXAO tweaked heavily to be more accurate
Light adaptation tweaked to lessen slight overexposure
Ambient light tweaked and added to Lite preset, Pirate Bloom removed from both Full and Lite presets
Clarity tweaked for Lite preset to consume less performance and allow Ambient Light to be used
HDR adjusted slightly