u/LumenHDR

Been going back and forth on this for a while. With DOF on, distant scenery gets that soft dreamy blur that some people love, Majula at sunset, the fog-drenched areas, the big open vistas. It gives the world a kind of Cinematic and Painterly feel.

But turn it off and suddenly you can actually see everything. Enemy silhouettes, distant geometry, background detail all sharp. No blur fighting you during combat. For some people that's an instant improvement, for others it strips out part of the game's mood entirely.

There's no wrong answer here, I just genuinely want to know what most of you actually run. Does the DOF feel intentional and artistic to you, or is it just visual noise you kill in the settings the second you boot up?

- Reddit's image upload quality surprises me...

[effacé]

DS2 Lighting Engine Path Tracing (BETA) removes almost all fake lights in Dark Souls 2 SotFS, replacing the original flat lighting with real-time path traced illumination that makes every torch, ember and light source behave physically accurately. Native HDR is fully supported, torches and light-producing items become genuinely essential in darker areas, and DLSS and FSR4 handle the performance demands of real-time path tracing at 4K.

This comparison covers multiple locations across Dark Souls 2 to give the most complete picture of what path tracing actually changes in practice, from outdoor environments and interior dungeons to boss arenas and lighting edge cases where the difference is most dramatic.

I'm also making a couple of videos comparing HDR and Lighting Engine HDR, as well as a special video comparing the vanilla game and E3 colour grading (my personal favourite).

So, which version do you guys like the most? What a time to be a fan of Peak Souls 2! :)

P.S. Please remember that this mod is currently in Beta, so it is subject to improvements and changes.

Resident Evil Requiem SDR vs RenoDX HDR | Side by Side Comparison | 4K | Path Tracing

Resident Evil Requiem SDR vs RenoDX HDR side by side comparison captured in 4K with Full Path Tracing. The most complete visual comparison of RenoDX HDR against vanilla SDR available.

This side by side comparison shows exactly what that difference looks like in practice.