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Dark Souls III

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Dark Souls III
Dark Souls III cover
Developers
FromSoftware
Publishers
Bandai Namco Entertainment
Japan FromSoftware
Release dates
Windows April 12, 2016[1]
Reception
Metacritic 89
OpenCritic 90
IGDB 86
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, DLC
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Action, RPG
Themes Fantasy
Series Dark Souls
Dark Souls III on HowLongToBeat
Dark Souls III on IGDB
Dark Souls III guide on StrategyWiki
Dark Souls III on MobyGames
Dark Souls III 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

Dark Souls III is a singleplayer and multiplayer third-person action and RPG game in the Dark Souls series.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Publisher website
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Deluxe Edition also available.
Windows
GamersGate
Icon overlay.png
Deluxe Edition also available.
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Deluxe Edition also available.
Windows
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Deluxe Edition also available.
Windows
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Deluxe Edition also available.
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Deluxe Edition also available.
Windows
All versions require Steam DRM.

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Season Pass Included in the Deluxe Edition.
Windows
Ashes of Ariandel Included in the Season Pass.
Windows
The Ringed City Included in the Season Pass.
Windows

Essential improvements

Proper PC Experience Mod

High refresh rate, unlocked FPS, Ultrawide, G-Sync, increased FOV, no intro[citation needed]
  1. Download DS3 Proper PC Experience Mod.
  2. Copy d3d11.dll to <path-to-game>\Game\.

Skip intro videos

Use no logo mod[citation needed]
  1. Download Dark Souls III No Logo Mod.
  2. Copy dinput8.dll to <path-to-game>\Game\.

Keyboard Icons

Requires iGP11.
Replaces controller button prompts with keyboard ones.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\DarkSoulsIII\GraphicsConfig.xml
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/374320/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\DarkSoulsIII\<user-id>\DS30000.sl2
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/374320/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Steam Cloud

Video

Advanced graphical settings.
Advanced graphical settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Non-16:9 resolutions have black bars (fixed by Souls "Unsqueezed").
Multi-monitor
Use Souls "Unsqueezed" or see the WSGF entry.
Ultra-widescreen
Use the Proper PC Experience Mod or see the WSGF entry.
4K Ultra HD
The opening cutscene and the credits run at 1920x1080.
Field of view (FOV)
Default FOV is 43°. See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Use Borderless Gaming with a delayed process detection to prevent crashing. May cause significant performance issues with Aero UI disabled on Windows 7.[2]
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Scales automatically via Texture Quality setting.[3] Set independently via graphics card control panel.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
On/off only. FXAA.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
On by default. Use Souls "Unsqueezed" to configure.
60 FPS
120+ FPS
Frame rate is capped at 60 FPS by default. Unlockable by using the Proper PC Experience Mod
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Field of view (FOV)

Widening the FOV may cause enemies everywhere except for the center of the screen to move significantly slower.[4]
Possible FOV solutions[citation needed]

Play in first-person perspective

Use first-person mod[5]

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Range from 0 to 10.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Under Input device listed as Mouse Y-Axis. X-Axis can also be inverted.
Controller
Controller support
Disable all other HID-compliant game controllers in the Device Manager if your controller is not detected.
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Range from 0 to 10.
Controller Y-axis inversion
Under Camera Options listed as Camera Y-Axis. X-Axis can also be inverted.
Controller types
XInput-compatible controllers
PlayStation controllers
Generic/other controllers
Additional information
Button prompts
For DualShock prompts use this mod PS4 Controller Icons.
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Feedback strength adjustable from 0 to 10.
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M
Steam Input
Steam Input API support
Official Steam Controller bindings only.
Hook input (legacy mode)
Official controller preset(s)
Steam Controller button prompts
Cursor detection

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
At least up to 5.1.[6]
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Fullscreen only; see Mute on focus lost.

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
French
German
Hungarian
Fan translation.
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Fan (audio) localization by "GamesVoice". Download here
Spanish
Ukrainian
Fan translation.

Mute on focus lost

Mute window in background[citation needed]
  1. Install Souls "Unsqueezed".
  2. Start the game once and close it to allow the configuration file to be created.
  3. Open <path-to-game>\dxgi.ini.
  4. Change MuteInBackground=false to MuteInBackground=true under [Window.System].

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
Online play
6 Co-op, Versus
Online features were temporarily unavailable from January 23, 2022 to investigate security vulnerabilities and reactivated on August 25, 2022.[7]

VR support

3D modes State Notes
Nvidia 3D Vision
new Geo-11 3D Driver (RTX3000/4000 compatible)
vorpX
G3D, Z3D
Officially supported game, see official vorpx game list.

Issues fixed

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[citation needed]
  1. Install Souls "Unsqueezed".
  2. Open <path-to-game>\DS3T.exe.
  3. Set Screen Mode to Fullscreen and save.
  4. Start the game once and close it to allow the configuration file to be created.
  5. Open <path-to-game>\dxgi.ini.
  6. Change RefreshRate=-1 to RefreshRate=0 under [Render.FrameRate].

Increase performance with older video cards

Applies to Nvidia's GeForce GTX 400, 500, 600 series.
Download and install Nvidia GeForce 314.22 driver[8][9]

Download link: Nvidia drivers 314.22 WHQL

Notes

Even if the driver is dedicated to Windows 7 and Windows 8, Windows 10 users have also reported a better performance.
This has yet to be tested on a mobile graphics card.

Audio cut bug

Uninstall Nvidia/AMD HDMI Audio driver[10][11]

Crashing on GTX 700 series cards

Install 347.88 Nvidia drivers[citation needed]
Drivers later than 347.88 cause crashes when Lighting is set above Low on GTX 700-series cards

Crash on startup

Add a Mandatory ASLR exception for DarkSoulsIII.exe
The game will immediately crash on startup if Mandatory ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) is enabled globally in the Windows Exploit Protections (Windows 10 and newer)
An override can be added for DarkSoulsIII.exe in the Program settings tab of the Exploit Protection settings

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 11 [12]
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Physics Havok
Audio FMOD 4.44.61
Interface Scaleform
Cutscenes Bink Video 1.995j

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 7 SP1, 8.1, 10
Processor (CPU) AMD FX-6300
Intel Core i3-2100
System memory (RAM) 4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 25 GB
Video card (GPU) AMD Radeon HD 7950
Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti
DirectX 11 compatible
Sound (audio device) DirectX 11 compatible
64-bit OS is required.
Game launches on Vista too,[13] but this system is not officially supported.


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>/374320/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (374320) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References