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DOOM: The Dark Ages is a fantastic game, and I had a blast with it. In my review, I went over how much I loved the step backwards into horizontal movement, while introducing new mechanics like the shield and parrying. It's still as gruesome and gory as ever, but it did have some trouble on the Steam Deck. Launching it would lead to an error before getting to the main menu, leaving us unable to test it. However, Valve has come in clutch and pushed out a small preview update yesterday to fix this issue, so I jumped on it and decided to test the game on the Steam Deck, but it only confirmed the theories I had before.
Yesterday, before the update was released, I wrote an article and made a video showing how DOOM: The Dark Ages runs on the ROG Ally, ROG Ally X, and AYANEO 3. I wanted to see what it would be like to play the game on other, more powerful handhelds, and it could barely run on the base ROG Ally. At the time, I hypothesized that performance would be similar and worse on the Steam Deck, and while I did hope I would be wrong, I was unfortunately very correct.
To make sure I was testing with the best performance possible, I made sure to use SteamOS 3.7.6 Preview (for the patch to actually make the game launch), and the Bleeding-Edge beta for Proton Experimental. I chose this to use the latest version of the branch with the most updates on it. I did also test with the latest Proton GE layer (9-27), but the results were generally the same.
Trying to play the first chapter at XeSS Quality Mode and low-quality presets at 1280x720 resolution was a nightmare. This is a more linear level, and I wanted to test with the same settings I used for the other handhelds. As soon as enemies came on screen, my framerate dropped into the low 20s, and it could barely stick to 30 otherwise.
From there, I went to The Siege Part 1, one of the more demanding chapters that represent the more open-area levels. The performance there was understandably even worse, and the only way to get to 30 FPS at all was by turning the resolution down to 960x540. This makes the game extremely blurry and pixelated, not to mention it still had drops into the mid-20s every now and then.
And for those thinking Frame Generation may come to save the day, it doesn't. It won't work correctly with the in-game option, which cuts the framerate in half and makes it even more pixelated. I even tried using the Decky Framegen plugin to inject frame generation to see if it would work that way, but it wouldn't recognize it.
So, when all is said and done, it's not going to be a good time on the Steam Deck. It's nice that we can boot the game and confirm it for ourselves, but it isn't going to be playable. It's possible there will be patches later on, similar to what Nixxes Software did with Spider-Man 2 or MachineGames did with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, but we will have to wait and see for ourselves. However, I would not count on it, and I think it's safer to assume that your performance now is what you will be getting.
DOOM: The Dark Ages can be pre-purchased for $69.99 ahead of its May 14th release. You can also get it over on Fanatical for $58.09 if you want to save some money.
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I used SteamDeck=0 %command% to unlock the framerate. Without it, it's locked at 30fps no matter what you do.
With it, I was able to get 40-50 fps.
How does this fit in with Geforce Now & Gamepass? I'm very curious to test this out on either of those to see if it runs steady. Games like Black Ops 6, Indiana Jones & Fortnite all ran fairly smooth on Deck using Gamepass.
Aside from all of that, what a huge failure for id software & Bethesda to not optimize a DOOM game for all current platforms. Forced Ray Tracing is a complete joke, as is Denuvo. Can it run Doom? Turns out, beyond PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and a few thousand dollar PC builds, no, it can't.
I don't play Deck for 4K 60FPS experiences. And nobody should, except for the reddit folks who don't step outside. I just wanna play games. Helldivers runs HDR with ray tracing at 30FPS and to me, that's next level. Why can't this?
I'm sure it will be a solid experience with GeForce NOW and Game Pass, just make sure your connection is good to mitigate any input lag. Forced ray tracing is a tough one, and I do wish it was better, but there's not much we can do as of right now sadly.
Did you try with -dx11 or --use-d3d11 flags? Any attempt to turn off RT in the configs? I get these are not in-game settings, but these are pretty things that can sometimes drastically improve performance. That's what I'm looking for in a Steam Deck game review, I could go to reddit to hear about how it doesn't run well straight out of the box
If you're getting 40 FPS with frame gen off, why not turn it on? I know the dogma on r/SteamDeck is that framegen causes unplayable lag, but that has not been my experience in games that use it like Wukong and oblivion remaster.
And, like Wukong and Oblivion remaster and Clair obscure, i have a feeling this will be able to run on SD with some straightforward optimizations. Especially once forced RT gets patched out, which I think is just a matter of time, whether it comes from the community or the devs themselves
Hi there! We can keep testing different launch options in mind, but we generally try to keep any big optimizations we can make within game mode, so going into the config files is usually out of the question initially. We can go back and take a look later, but it's not something we do for our initial reviews. However, I can tell you that the dx11 and d3d11 launch options do not help performance at all.
As for frame gen, I have had no good experience with frame gen other than Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered. I don't recommend frame gen for a good reason. With DOOM: The Dark Ages, I discussed and showcased how frame gen doesn't work correctly, cuts the framerate in half, and further pixelates the screen. Injecting it with the Decky Framegen plugin didn't work either. Based on my experiences, I will almost never personally recommend frame generation unless it has a stable framerate, no input lag at all, and no stuttering or slowdowns.
I don't believe forced RT will get patched out by the devs. Community mods maybe, but I doubt it will come from the developer. It's also possible to take it out via the .ini files, but I will have to investigate.