Bethesda has lifted the review embargo for Doom: The Dark Ages. Powered by id Tech 8, it’s time now to benchmark it and examine its performance on the PC.
For our benchmarks, we used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000Mhz, AMD’s Radeon RX 6900XT, RX 7900XTX, RX 9070XT, as well as NVIDIA’s RTX 2080Ti, RTX 3080, RTX 4090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090. We also used Windows 10 64-bit, the GeForce 576.40, and the Radeon Adrenalin Edition 25.5.1 drivers.
id Software has added a lot of graphics settings to tweak. PC gamers can adjust the quality of Textures, Shadows, Lights, Geometry, Water and more. Moreover, the game supports NVIDIA DLSS 4, AMD FSR 3.0 and Intel XeSS from the get-go. Plus, there is an in-game setting for DLSS 4 Multi-Frame Gen.
Doom: The Dark Ages does not have a built-in benchmark tool. So, for our benchmarks, we used the following area. This appeared to be one of the most demanding areas early in the game. It also has a lot of enemies on screen, so it should give us a pretty good idea of how the rest of the game runs. Also note that the game does not support Path Tracing yet. id Software will add support for it via a post-launch update.
Doom: The Dark Ages is mostly a GPU-bound title. Moreover, like Indiana Jones, it uses Ray Tracing for its GI by default. This means that you’ll need a Raytracing-capable GPU to run it.
At 1080p/Ultra Settings, the game run smoothly on almost all of our GPUs. The only GPU that was unable to hit 60FPS was the NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti. All the other GPUs had no trouble at all pushing framerates over 60FPS at all times. At 1080p, the AMD Radeon RX 6900XT and 9070XT came close to the performance of the NVIDIA RTX 3080 and RTX 5080, respectively.
At 1440p/Ultra Settings, our top five GPUs were able to run the game with over 60FPS. As for Native 4K/Ultra Settings, the only GPU that was able to push 60FPS at all times was the NVIDIA RTX 5090.
As I said, Doom: The Dark Ages has native/in-game support for DLSS 4 Multi-Frame Gen. Plus, the game uses, by default, the Transformer Model. Thus, you don’t have to mess around with the NVIDIA App in order to enable it. I’m mentioning this because if you force the Transformer Model via the NVIDIA App, the in-game setting for MFG will stop working.
At 4K, the game ran super smoothly with MFG X4. We’re talking about framerates over 260FPS (and sometimes, it could go higher than 300FPS). The game felt really responsive as our base framerate was already quite high. Not only that, but I did not notice any of the visual issues I’ve seen in other games with MFG X4. UI icons do not suffer from flickers while moving the camera. I also did not notice any additional ghosting due to MFG X3 or X4. At least in the areas I tested, MFG appears to be working exceptionally well.
Naturally, I also tried the game at 8K on the NVIDIA RTX 5090. With DLSS 4 Performance Mode and MFG X2, you can get framerates over 60FPS at all times. By upping MFG to X4, I was able to get framerates between 129-134FPS. Input lag was noticeable, especially after gaming at 4K. However, the game was perfectly playable, even during chaotic battles.
Graphics-wise, Doom: The Dark Ages is great. Even without its Path Tracing effects, Doom: The Dark Ages looks amazing. Although id Tech 8 does not have an answer to Nanite, environmental pop-in was kept at a minimum. From what I could see, the pop-ins are not as bad as those we saw in Indiana Jones. All enemies are highly detailed, though the human characters are not as impressive as those of Indiana Jones. The game also has high-quality textures and lots of cool particle effects. In a nutshell, the game looks amazing, but it will not leave you speechless. Things might change, though, when id Software releases the Path Tracing patch.
Before closing, I should note that I did not experience any major stutters. This should please a lot of PC gamers as the game felt smooth during my benchmarks. So, this is another game that uses Denuvo but does not suffer from stutters.
All in all, Doom: The Dark Ages runs amazingly on PC. The game does not require a powerful GPU at 1080p. At 4K, you’ll need the most powerful GPU to run it at native res. This is to be expected as Doom: The Dark Ages uses RT by default. We also did not experience any stutters. Plus, the DLSS 4 implementation is amazing in this title.
id Software will add support for Path Tracing and Ray Reconstruction via a future patch. Once this patch comes out, I’ll be sure to test it!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
John, would you mind testing the graphics presets and posting the results? Also, the last sentence in your fourth paragraph got cut off partway through.
Thanks and fixed. I'll also take a look at the presets.
Take a look at the recent Hardware Unboxed benchmark. It's got everything you need to know.
Yeah I'm watching their video now. I also looked at techpowerup's benchmarks. I think John found the most strenuous scenario though as his benchmark shows the lowest numbers compared to the other two, so it'd be good to see what he's getting with different presets.
RTX 5080 = joke
*Disrespect to consumers/gamers
indiana jones without path tracing and ray reconstruction is meh .its gonna look crazy with pt .
It is currently sitting at 84 based on 47 reviews for the GayStation 5 and 86 based on 47 reviews for the PC.
Can't wait for the score for this POS that is "Doom" in name only made by mentally deranged activists to drop further, yet sadly, the simple-minded normies will still buy whatever their favorite gayme companies throw at them, because these gullible and simple-minded normies only buy names and not games.
What the f*k are you talking about?
DOOM Eternal got flack for making fun of these people. The team behind this game is the same. Nothing that has been shown has in any way even remotely looked like it was made by "activists".
You play as a hyper masculine bada*s hulking tank of a man FFS.
You are f*king dumb buddy.
hes 1 of the local idiots that run there mouth here talking about make believe things and lives in a fary tale world. you better know that he only permits people to disagree with him once. on twice he blocks you
Curious how the XTX runs this at 4k with fsr3 FG
Since John didn't mention this, Steve from Hardware Unboxed has revealed that setting the Texture Pool size to 1,5 Gb from the default 2Gb will significantly allevieate the load on 8 GB GPUs allowing them to play the game with DLSS Quality on Medium preset at about 70-80 FPS without hiccups.
Leaving that setting at the default 2 GB on 8Gb cards will result in the frame rate dropping like 50% right after the Vram is saturated after several minutes of playtime.
"The game does not require a powerful GPU at 1080p"
yeah it does, if you want 60 fps you need something on the 3080-4070 tier. The game is super demanding.
Anyway if even ggmanshills is meh outed by this, it tells you that it sucks, worse story than eternal, constantly parrying and countering attacks, slow repettive combat, too much collectathon, repettive gameplay, terrible dragon sections and the same medieval heavy metal castles settings as the last game. I am skipping this one. Ill play robocop instead.
1-I don't think he's a shill; he just gives his opinion.
2-Even if he was, he has a family. Any normal human being in his position would do the same. He'd be rytarded as fck if he tried to appeal to braindead nerds on the internet instead of shilling for money that he can use to buy food and put on his table, or buy condoms and fck your mom with.
he makes videos shilling for old games he has reviewed before and for new games that came out, his starfield review proves he is a shill or has low standards.
Shilling for old games? old games don’t even sell.
I don’t give a fck to defend a random guy on the internet but it’s obvious you’re calling him a shill because he likes games that you don’t.
1-I don't think he's a shill; he just gives his opinion.
2-Even if he was, he has a family. Any normal human being in his position would do the same. He'd be rytarded as f*k if he tried to appeal to braindead nerds on the internet instead of shilling for money that he can use to buy food and put on his table, or buy condoms and fck your mom with.
Read a few performance analysis from this guy and he shoots down the middle with no negativity…it's what a performance analysis should be, rather than that garbage clickbait from DF who's main audience is on console…talk about pandering to the poor. Also why are you talking about gameplay? You seem desperate to prove your system is still capable and this game sucks.
Its just too bad people with comparable systems can't have a decent analysis without people with outdated systems coming on and demanding the author make them feel better.
If you can't run this game with a smooth framrate then it's time to upgrade…plan and simple
Doom is doom in name only, its more of an arcade hack'n'slash at this point than a doom game worthy of the title.
8K benchmark is pointless .. only 0,0001%
"play "in that res.
1024×768 is my go to reslution on a crt monitor, it looks fantastic.
I have 4k 32 inch monitor and to be honest, I see 0 reason to ever go 8k on that screen size, it would just be a waste of gpu resources for marginal, if any, visual upgrade. Perhaps on 100 inch TV 8k makes a lot more sense?
I've got a 55 inch 4K TV for gaming via my PC, and even at that size there's no reason to go to 8K.
I’m far more ok with 8K benchmarks as an indication of hardware reality vs aspiration than the MFG charts which are nothing but pure propaganda that makes the little baby Jesus cry.
An engine as bad as UE
Not the engine's fault. It's that they build in RTX which cannot be disabled.
no. awful engine
Not even in your worst dreams. ID is one of the only engines out there that scales as linearly as possible.
its beyond sh*t
Nvidia already fu###ed DOOM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what a waste !!!!!!!!!!!
https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTg5OGZmOWM5czA4cWZkOWFwZGcyc3Z0OXVpdDhzaTdzNGJjbDF4cjJ3M3E4d2FzdyZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/xTiTnFSDodtAAo6tpK/giphy-downsized-small.mp4
"All in all, Doom: The Dark Ages runs amazingly on PC."
On a 5090.
Wow, I can't believe the feature that gives you fake quadruple frames gave you quadruple frames. That's crazy!
Seriously why do these people keep acting surprised when FG does exactly what it's supposed to do?
Well, FG drastically increases fluidity so if you have high refresh 4k screen it`s a quite amazing technology, just be sure to have at least 60 fps before FG or preferably 80 – that will reduce artifacts and input lag to non-issue.
if i got 60 fps then i dont need frame generation.
60fps feels like slide show, I’m used to 4k200fps
Always appreciating your work for these games John. I think it really speaks to the disparity of these last two generations of 90 class cards of how up and away they get from every other card in its field. Like surely they could hammer away more SKUs between 80 and 90 for more options in performance tiers the way they do at the bottom rungs of the ladder.
edit: having watched a few more benchmarking video for Doom, I think the area you pick for testing really shows the 9070XT for what it is. It's not a high end card as it can't reliably beat the 7900XTX but its improved RT performance lets it at least match it.
As per usual.
How about anything other than Ultra?
And throw in the most popular graphics card on Steam for reference for most people! It's the 3060 or 3060ti…
It usually gains a lot in performance for little visual difference. That would be helpful.
The game is so dark. Also at 5:59 lighting bug?
i wouldnt call it a real doom experience, doom 2016 was that, this is doom 3 the black sheep of the series but better.
if you guys want a real doom like experience get this instead. it's all about key hunting to progressive doesnt hold your hand and guide your way just like original doom games gotta figure out what to do with common sense.
https://www.gog.com/en/game/retchid
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1419060/Retchid/
You already have it ? Thought it was 5 days away.
After the gamers nexus and hardware unboxed videos came out today about Nvidia threatening reviewers, I think I know why John keeps putting up these MFG charts.