Plays Fine on Mid-Range Hardware
The good news for PC gamers is that it looks like Dark Souls III will play just fine on mid-range to low end hardware at 1080p with the quality settings maxed out. The GeForce GTX 960 and Radeon R9 380 played well at this resolution as did four year old hardware such as the HD 7950.
There's no doubt the 60fps frame cap will infuriate those running higher end hardware but in all honestly this isn't a game that requires higher frame rates – not like a competitive first person shooter would, for example.
Gaming at 1440p will require a GTX 970 or R9 Fury for best results though the R9 380X will also work well. When it comes to CPU performance the game isn't hugely demanding though to get the most out of your graphics card(s) you will want a Core i7, i5 or high clocked FX processor. The Core i3 processors also did surprisingly well, particularly the Core i3-6100 which matched the FX-9590.
Those running a dual-core Intel processor will want to overclock as high as they can to avoid stuttering and this shouldn't be an issue for Pentium G3258 owners.
Without question Dark Souls III is the most visually impressive Souls game yet and while that might not be saying a great deal given the previous installment is now two years old, the game is still looks great. That said, compared to class leading titles such as Rise of the Tomb Raider, Dark Souls III doesn't look as remarkable so keep your expectations in check.
For those with lower end cards looking to maximize performance, we found that the shadows option had the greatest impact on performance followed by the effects quality option and motion blur. With almost a dozen graphical options to tweak, it's fair to say even those running a low-end GPU should find a nice balance between the quality and quantity of frames.