Dark Souls 2 Mod Update Adds Real-Time Path Tracing and Directional Texture AO

A brand new beta version of the DS2LightingEngine mod was released for Dark Souls 2. This update introduces real-time path tracing support to the game. The update enhances visual fidelity by adding real-time Path Tracing support and directional Texture AO.

The update adds directional texture ambient occlusion to all surfaces in the game. This change aims to provide more depth to various textures. The modder Ganaboy stated that this feature should give a ton of depth to many surfaces. The path-traced version also benefits from new physically based rendering materials. Modder AnemoiaWorks noted that these materials should make the path-traced version look even better.

Enhanced visual fidelity with global ambient occlusion and texture depth improvements

Technical issues such as pink/glow artifacts on AMD/Linux machines and Intel GPUs were fixed in this release. The update resolves pink and glow artifacts that appeared on AMD Linux machines and Intel GPUs. It also corrects saturation issues that could occur on AMD GPUs. The fix addresses multiple bounding volume hierarchy errors in the Brume and Shulva areas. Static clothes are now correctly added to the bounding volume hierarchy.

The mod also introduces a significant number of new color grading lookup tables. The mod adds new color grading LUTs and applies Directional Texture AO to everything, giving a ton of depth to many surfaces. DSOGaming reported that directional texture ambient occlusion is now applied to everything. The team confirmed that the baked texture ambient occlusion is now applied in the path tracing resolution. John Papadopoulos described this as a must-have update for anyone wanting to play Dark Souls 2 with path tracing.