Anonymous edits have been disabled on the wiki. If you want to contribute please login or create an account.

Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin cover
Developers
FromSoftware
Publishers
Bandai Namco Entertainment
Japan FromSoftware
Release dates
Windows April 1, 2015[1]
Reception
Metacritic 79
OpenCritic 87
IGDB 87
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Action, RPG
Themes Fantasy
Series Dark Souls
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin on HowLongToBeat
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin on IGDB
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin on MobyGames
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin on Wikipedia
Dark Souls
Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition 2012
Dark Souls II 2014
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin 2015
Dark Souls III 2016
Dark Souls: Remastered 2018

Key points

Updated version of Dark Souls II.
Although it supports mouse and keyboard, the button prompts show Xbox controller buttons and the default key binding settings cause mouse input lag.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Publisher website
Icon overlay.png
Windows
GamersGate
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Amazon.com (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Windows
All versions require Steam DRM.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\DarkSoulsII\GraphicsConfig_SOFS.xml
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/335300/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\DarkSoulsII\<user-id>\DS2SOFS0000.sl2
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/335300/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Steam Cloud

Video

Video
Video
Screen option menu.
Screen option menu.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
16:9; use Flawless Widescreen to remove letterboxing.
Multi-monitor
Use Flawless Widescreen.
Ultra-widescreen
Use Flawless Widescreen.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See borderless fullscreen windowed.[2] Exclusive fullscreen is also supported.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
On or Off setting, FXAA. See Post-processing. Nvidia DSR is also possible.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS
120+ FPS
Use DS2FrameUnlimiter
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Field of view (FOV)

Change FOV with Cheat Engine[citation needed]
  1. Download and install Cheat Engine.
  2. Start the game and Alt+Tab out.
  3. Download the Dark Souls II Cheat Table and double-click on it.
  4. In the window that opens, click the flashing button in the top left corner.
  5. Select DarkSoulsII.exe and click Open, then click Yes.
  6. At the bottom part of the window, check the boxes beside Change FOV and FOV Value.
  7. With FOV Value selected, press Enter and type in a new value (default is 0.76, meaning 76° horizontal), then press Enter again to apply.

Post-processing

Toggle post-process effects[citation needed]
  1. Download Dark Souls II: SotFS 3D Vision Fix.
  2. Extract the contents to <path-to-game>\Game\.

Hotkeys

F3: Bloom toggle (on by default)
F6: Weapon attack blur toggle (on by default)
F8: FXAA edge detect cycle (0.2, 0.05, 0.1, 0.15)

Notes

By default the game effects aren't modified. You can change the default state in the [Constants] section of d3dx.ini.

Input

Game option menu.
Game option menu.

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Keys act as a replacement for controller buttons, meaning no dedicated actions to a specific key.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller may be incorrectly detected, if virtual joystick is installed.
Full controller support
Controller remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion
Controller types
XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration
PlayStation controllers
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Generic/other controllers
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M
Steam Input
Steam Input API support
Hook input (legacy mode)
Doesn't work properly if virtual joystick is installed.
Official controller preset(s)
Steam Controller button prompts
Cursor detection

Xbox buttons prompts explanation

The game is always displaying Xbox button prompts regardless of real input scheme thus making very hard to navigate menus.
Fortunately the game is also accepting in-game actions what would be bound on Xbox controller buttons. Use this as a reference guide.
Actions listed below can be bound to the same key.
Xbox controller button Action in-game
A Interact or confirm.
B Dash/backstep/roll or Cancel.
X Use item or Menu function 1
Y Wield right weapon two-handed or Menu function 2

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Voice, SFX, Music (scales from 0 to 10)
Surround sound
7.1 surround sound supported
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
See Mute on focus lost.

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Traditional Chinese
French
German
Hungarian
Fan translation.
Italian
Japanese
UI and subtitles are only available when purchased from Japan.
Korean
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Ukrainian
Fan translation

Mute on focus lost

Set mute in background[citation needed]
  1. Install Special K by following the Special K Unofficial Guide.
  2. Start the game once and close it to allow the configuration file of Special K to be created.
  3. Open <path-to-game>\dxgi.ini or %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Mods\SpecialK\Profiles\DarkSoulsII.exe\SpecialK.ini depending on the installation method you used.
  4. Change MuteInBackground=false to MuteInBackground=true under [Window.System].

Network

Dark Souls II and Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin players cannot play together.[3]

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
Online play
6

Connection types

Type Native Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Steam Networking P2P API
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

VR support

Issues fixed

White screen followed by crash at startup

Install ReShade[citation needed]

Download and install ReShade.

Delay between mouse clicks and actions

You can bind some of your actions to mouse double clicks, however this feature is causing slight delay between single click and its action as the game is waiting for another click.
Disable double click function[citation needed]
  1. Open the Key Bindings menu and click the mouse options tab.
  2. Set Disable double clicking to On.

Notes

Some actions that are bound by default to double clicks will stop working, you will need to remap them.
The setting has to be toggled off and on every time you start the game (unresolved programming bug).
There is a mod that fixes this bug. [Note 2]

Run the game at screen refresh rate

Fullscreen mode defaults to 60 Hz, even if the screen refresh rate is set higher than that.
Set screen refresh rate and 60 FPS cap[citation needed]
  1. Install Special K by following the Special K Unofficial Guide.
  2. Start the game once and close it to allow the configuration file of Special K to be created.
  3. Open <path-to-game>\dxgi.ini or %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Mods\SpecialK\Profiles\DarkSoulsII.exe\SpecialK.ini depending on the installation method you used.
  4. Change TargetFPS=0.0 to TargetFPS=60.0 to enable 60 FPS cap.
  5. Change RefreshRate=-1 to RefreshRate=0 to set screen refresh rate.

Fire effects causes lag

Turning off shadows causes all fire effects such as bonfires and lanterns to lag the game down to 30 FPS.
Set Shadows to Low or higher in Video Settings[citation needed]

Notes

There is no performance difference between Off or Low.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 11
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Physics Havok
Audio FMOD
Interface Scaleform
Cutscenes Windows Media Video
Multiplayer Steamworks

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 7 SP1, 8.1
Processor (CPU) AMD A8 3870 3.6 GHz
Intel Core i3 2100 3.1 GHz
System memory (RAM) 4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 23 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce GTX 465
AMD Radeon HD 6870
DirectX 11 compatible
A 64-bit operating system is required.


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/335300/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (335300) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.
  2. If you're using ModEngine, you can rename dinput8.dll of the fix and set the chainDInput8DLLPath parameter in the modengine.ini to the new name. This way both ModEngine and Double Click fix will work at the same time.

References