Dark Souls 3 PC Performance Review

4K Screenshot Graphical Comparison

Many people ha stated all over the internet that there is no difference between the lowest and highest graphical settings in Dark Souls 3, but this is simply untrue.

There are a large number of differences between the lowest and highest graphical settings, though in some situations these differences are minimal. One of the places where a big difference we see is in the quality of water in the game, which changes from a flat dark surface at the lowest settings to a rippling/flowing pool at medium or higher settings. 

Here we can also see the effect of FXAA, which is used at medium or above, blurring a lot of detail in the game while at the same time reducing aliasing. It is a real shame that proper AA support has not been implemented into the game. 

In the below screenshot we can see our character looking into the distance we can see that in some places there is a minimal difference between all of the graphical quality settings, with the only major visual differences that we can see is the addition of depth of field and FXAA blurring the detail of distant objects.  

Those with keen eyes will also notice that the player character gains a shadow at medium and above settings and that SSAO adds some shadowing to grass and some other objects, though this is very hard to notice.