The Dark Souls 2 Lighting Engine mod delivers the remastered experience this game demands
Dark Souls 2 is an usually neglected entry in the Souls collection, regardless of simply how distinctive it was in experimenting with its mechanics and ambiance again in 2014. In being sandwiched between the now iconic unique Dark Souls, and developer FromSoftware’s later efforts like Bloodborne, it is at occasions forgotten – regarded as an experiment, a tangent that wasn’t adopted up on. Even so, the modding neighborhood round Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin is blossoming on PC proper now, and amongst the most outstanding mod choices for the game is the Dark Souls 2 Lighting Engine.
Basically, Lighting Engine is a substitute of the game’s unique engine, permitting main adjustments to its visuals, and presents a toolbox of kinds for others in the modding neighborhood to go a lot additional. At its core, putting in the Lighting Engine mod provides new anti-aliasing choices like Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR – changing the FXAA publish processing of the official launch. We get lighting upgrades, volumetric fog, vastly improved shadows, floor fact ambient occlusion, and it even re-arranges foliage, bushes and terrain with new meshes. That is simply scratching the floor, with extra options which can be work in progress. It is a easy one to put in too: go to Nexus Mods, obtain, unpack, and exchange the shader folder subsequent to the Darksouls 2.exe with the new one – together with a number of different information – and also you’re good to go. From right here, the upgrades are transformative in spots like Forest of the Fallen Giants, and No Man’s Wharf.
All of which raises the query: is this the Dark Souls 2 remaster that we have wanted all these years? In fact, Dark Souls 2 has technically already acquired a remaster of kinds with the Scholar of the First Sin replace in 2015 – a yr after its preliminary launch on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. The thought was to improve it from DX9 to DX11 with improved lighting, textures, enemy placement, bug fixes, whereas bundling in the first three DLC expansions. Nonetheless, regardless of this suite of upgrades, Scholar of the First Sin nonetheless falls quick by trendy requirements. Definitely, it does not stay as much as the charming early trailer of Dark Souls 2: the E3 2013 reveal the place interaction between mild and shadow was a serious mechanic of play, the place wind physics and volumetric results performed a much bigger function. All of this was finally dialled again in the last launch, and did not make the grade in Scholar of the First Sin as effectively. Ten years on, then, it is spectacular to see not less than a few of that early promise realised by a complicated mod like Lighting Engine, as devised by a fan of the game.
An in depth breakdown of how the Dark Souls 2 Lighting Engine modernises and improves the Scholar of the First Sin.Watch on YouTube
So what does this mod do? In speaking with the Dark Souls 2 Lighting Engine’s creator immediately, a lot is achieved by reverse engineering the pipeline. In an identical technique to RTX Remix, it is in a position to detect the g-buffer, when lights are rendered, and even Dark Souls 2’s depth buffer is reverse engineered. Past that, different results are achieved with hooks inside the game code itself: which means as soon as a shader is loaded as soon as by the engine, that triggers an instantaneous response from the Lighting Engine to have interaction.
The enhancements are many, however beginning with a take a look at volumetrics, volumetric lighting could be added into the scene – layering on prime of the easy, baked mild shafts we already noticed in the unique Dark Souls 2. Right here you get a correct volumetric fog impact filling the house, which in a lovely manner, does convey it a step nearer to that 2013 Dark Souls 2 reveal trailer. That is achieved by way of an enormous folder of shader information and, by reverse engineering the game’s depth buffer, a clear volumetric impact is created with no z-fighting or artefacts throughout the distance. Most inside areas present it off finest, and it is notably operating with adjusted color grading that adjusts by the map.
Shifting to exterior areas, the shadow upgrades stand out most. These upgraded shadows make the most of the (nearly) absolutely deferred rendering strategy in the Lighting Engine mod, which once more, interprets the base game’s logic to implement greater high quality delicate shadows. Characters and objects in the surroundings – notably overhanging bushes – now solid shadows from most mild factors, and even the solar, in a extra life like method. In the Forest of Fallen Giants, the Lighting Engine mod has a big impact. Shadows solid by the surroundings are added in – which had been lacking in the unique game. Higher nonetheless, this mod even presents a number of high quality settings, ramping as much as the PCSS possibility – for Nvidia’s contact hardening delicate shadows – which permits diffuse shade to seem the farther it will get from the mild supply. Proximity between the solar and occluding object is simulated in the finish outcome, which means participant shadows will usually, logically, look sharper nearer the floor. It isn’t utilizing ray tracing, however the last impact of including new shadows to the map, plus switching the game to PCSS, is an unbelievable feat of engineering.
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The surroundings is extra richly shaded, and it makes it arduous to return to the unique Dark Souls 2 areas, absent of shadow. To clarify how this is achieved in the mod creator’s personal phrases: as soon as the g-buffer geometry draw is full, the draw name information is cached for all gamers, enemies, and some different vital meshes inside the scene. Utilizing this cached information, the shadow map for all lights is rendered in a big texture atlas, simply earlier than the Lighting Engine begins to course of the body. From there, the clustered rendering compute shader will run by way of all native lights in a single dispatch, for lighting and shadows throughout the scene. The outcome: precisely simulated shadows, dynamically shifting in response to each object inside the surroundings, moderately than solely choose objects.
Sticking with the shadow upgrades, let’s try just a few inside spots. Secondary lights, like torchlights in connecting dungeons, now trigger the character to solid a correct shadow. In equity, we already had shadows solid from bonfires and the solar in the unique Dark Souls 2, however their utility was restricted elsewhere. Lamps merely solid no shade as you stroll by, which is a restrict that is even true of Elden Ring as we speak. The Lighting Engine mod fixes that, and utilizing PCSS we get these sharp shadow outlines on close by surfaces, from torchlight. Moreover, the Lighting Engine permits specular highlights to bounce again from these torches, with a extra detailed response throughout the close by stone.
We additionally profit from a top quality ambient occlusion – the floor fact ambient occlusion additionally seen in engines like Unity. Essentially, this is a extra correct variant of AO that limits the so-called halo artefacts round a participant as they cross a shaded nook, or grass – an issue with the vanilla Dark Souls 2’s built-in ambient occlusion. GTAO darkens the game’s environments fairly visibly. Particularly in No Man’s Wharf, the want for a torch, or a pharos lockstone to mild the route forward is extra essential than ever earlier than – which once more, is some extent that performs just a little nearer to that unique E3 idea trailer.
All of this is offered at 4K decision in the video above, and I am utilizing the newly-added Nvidia DLSS setting (DLAA really, operating at native decision for further readability) – which, clearly, tidies up tough geometric edges extra successfully than the base game’s FXAA. Past that, there are a lot of tweaks to the world element – many you may have noticed already. Firstly, there’s the new foliage and object placement, notably throughout the Forest of Fallen Giants. It is value stressing that collision information just isn’t modified, so gameplay is unaffected; the boundaries of play are intact from Scholar of the First Sin. Nonetheless, new components like grass and bushes – in inaccessible areas – now embellish areas like the Majula hub, and naturally, these components now additionally solid shadows.
With just a few exceptions, like a brand new mountain asset, I am instructed that these belongings are additionally sourced immediately from the unique game with no modification. They at the moment are batched, and rendered in single draw calls to scale back CPU load, too, through the Lighting Engine mod. As for the arduous geometry of Dark Souls 2, now we have adaptive tessellation in place. This will increase and reduces polygon density based mostly on distance, whereas normally, world LODs are pushed out, permitting us to see extra distant terrain throughout the horizon. It is once more very spectacular stuff, and I am additionally instructed that skybox and cloud methods are at present work in progress too.
The excellent news is, the Lighting Engine mod runs with relative ease on trendy methods. The RTX 4080 in my take a look at PC took this on at 4K decision, with PCSS shadows, and I used to be nonetheless hitting round 100fps in each space – utilizing an unlocked mod right here to interrupt previous 60fps. Oddly, I could not get the game to go greater than 100 – which seems to be a problem with the unique game related to some output units. Nonetheless, it proves the level that these adjustments will not be so taxing {that a} locked 60 is not possible if that is the objective.
On a extra basic degree, additionally spectacular is the Lighting Engine’s debugging options, that are accessible by urgent the F1 key. A window seems at the prime proper letting you see all of the parameters for the lighting, fog, GTAO, and color grading. The debug viewing modes even allow you to see ambient occlusion, and normals, rendered in isolation in this helpful split-view. It actually raises the curtain on how every buffer combines to create the last body we recognise. In the meantime, press the F3 key and much more choices open up on the left; this time letting us get a full view of the game’s frustum culling system; how geometry and enemies render out and in based mostly on the digicam’s viewpoint.
The inventive alternatives actually open up from right here. Texture packs are simply swapped in by dropping them into the game’s set up folder. Plus, utilizing the Lighting Engine mod’s creator device, it is doable to color new objects into Dark Souls 2’s world, assuming you have the time to regulate the collision meshes that go along with it. Actually, it underlines what a versatile device it’s, if you happen to’ve the inventive impulse and time to see an thought by way of. On its default setting although, the Lighting Engine mod makes changes with some religion to the unique game structure – and I believe there’s worth in this. It does in fact enable for a simple swapping in of latest texture libraries from the Nexudmods vaults – however at its core this mod does sufficient by itself to rework Dark Souls 2.
This isn’t the first time Dark Souls 2 has been improved – right here we’re taking a look at From’s efforts, evaluating Dark Souls 2 to the Scholar of the First Sin revamp from again in the days after we made real-time cross-platform comparisons based mostly on mirrored controller inputs!(*2*)
It does not finish right here. Seeking to the future, the creator of Lighting Engine can also be busy at work on an identical improve for Dark Souls 3, with GTAO, display house reflections, volumetric fog, plus Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR choices deliberate for the third game. In asking about ray tracing help for both Dark Souls 2 or 3, it appears an RT implementation for these results is an uphill battle. A BVH construction would should be constructed for every surroundings – a time consuming endeavour to cowl each surroundings in the game that’d demand a bigger staff. Plus there’s additionally a requirement to improve the engine to DX12, the place Dark Souls 2 runs on DX11 proper now. Nonetheless what’s in the Lighting Engine already deserves big credit score – and the method during which it reverse engineers a 2015 PC launch makes you surprise what extra is feasible.
I am solely scratching the floor of what this mod’s doing, and to what extent it opens inventive choices as much as different Dark Souls fans. There’s much more detailed data, direct from the supply if you would like to observe ds2LightingMod over on X/Twitter. The comparisons actually do communicate for themselves. If for nothing else, it provides us an opportunity to re-experience Dark Souls 2 in fairly actually in a brand new mild – and on condition that there isn’t any whisper of an official remaster effort on the game, it is effectively value trying out.