DOOM: The Dark Ages now has path tracing and a PC benchmark

DOOM: The Dark Ages now has path tracing and an official PC benchmarking tool

DOOM: The Dark Ages has just received its June 2025 update on PC, bringing to the game path tracing support, DLSS Ray Reconstruction, and a new benchmark mode.

With Path Tracing, users of high-end graphics cards can take DOOM’s visuals to a new level with more accurate ray tracing. This brings to the game more accurate lighting, more reactive materials, and reflections that are much more detailed.

With DOOM: The Dark Ages’ benchmark mode, PC gamers can test their hardware using a variety of scenes. This will enable gamers to fine-tune their graphical settings to ensure the game runs smoothly on their systems. It will also serve as a more consistent method for PC analysts to test the game, making it better suited for future GPU reviews.

(Image from Bethesda)

Honestly, it is a shame that this tool was too available when DOOM: The Dark Ages launched. It would have made creating our PC performance review for the game a lot easier. That said, there are advantages to using custom in-game benchmark runs.

If PC gamers want to try out DOOM: The Dark Ages’ path tracing update, they should know that it is optimised for Nvidia’s RTX hardware. Nvidia has confirmed that DOOM: The Dark Ages’ new path tracing mode will feature Nvidia technologies. This includes Nvidia’s Spatial Hash Radiance Cache (SHaRC) tech and Nvidia Shader Execution Reordering. As such, the game’s path tracing mode is unlikely to run well on AMD and Intel graphics cards.

You can join the discussion on DOOM The Dark Ages’ path tracing update and benchmarking mode on the OC3D Forums.