DOOM: The Dark Ages PC Performance Review and Optimisation Guide

DOOM: The Dark Ages has arrived on PC

DOOM: The Dark Ages is here, and it’s awesome

id Software has just launched DOOM: The Dark Ages, the successor and prequel of DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal. This new game also marks the launch of id Tech 8, the first version of id Tech to make ray tracing mandatory.

DOOM: The Dark Ages takes the DOOM franchise in a new direction. Thanks to id Tech 8, the game supports larger game environments and more enemies on screen. The game supports more advanced physics, more destructible environments, and uses ray tracing in unique ways. Alongside ray-traced graphical features, ray tracing is used for bullet hit detection, acting as a faster way to complete specific calculations. DOOM: The Dark Ages cannot function on GPUs that lack hardware-accelerated raytracing. DOOM: The Dark Ages is a game for modern hardware.

While DOOM: The Dark Ages has a “Path Tracing” mode on the horizon, this mode is currently unavailable. As such, we will be testing DOOM: The Dark Ages as it is on launch day. We will be looking at the game using a variety of PC hardware configurations and see how the game runs on both old and new graphics cards.

Note that we were provided a copy of DOOM: The Dark Ages for review. This review copy arrived late, preventing us from completing this PC analysis ahead of launch.

Review Contents

• CPU Performance
• Memory Performance
• VRAM Use
• Preset Scaling – Low to Ultra Nightmare
• AMD FSR Testing
• Nvidia DLSS Testing
• 1080p Performance
• 1440p Performance
• 4K Performance
• Conclusion

GPU Drivers

To test DOOM: The Dark Ages, we used the newest GPU drivers available from AMD and Nvidia: AMD Software 25.5.1 and GeForce Hotfix 576.40.