A last-minute SteamOS update has saved Doom: The Dark Ages on Steam Deck, and it runs surprisingly okay-ish

I couldn’t connection galore Steam Deck-specific insights successful my look astatine Doom: The Dark Ages’ PC show past week, due to the fact that a crashing contented was inconsiderately – situation I say, rudely – blocking maine from adjacent reaching the main menu. Over the weekend, however, a purpose-built SteamOS Preview update stepped in, making the brawly sci-fantasy shooter playable connected the handheld. Just successful clip for its motorboat connected the 15th, nary less.

I’ll confess that arsenic I acceptable astir parrying imps betwixt my plastic-calloused fingers, the "playable" portion was inactive dropping insignificant bombshells. My main ailment with however The Dark Ages runs connected desktops is the mandatory ray tracing effects that have, compared to the hardly overmuch uglier Doom Eternal, slowed it close down. The Steam Deck tin tally galore things, but it usually reacts to traced rays by curling up and sobbing until they spell away. Still, possibly I should person had much religion successful the bid that fundamentally brought functional RT effects to the Deck successful the archetypal place, arsenic this astir recent, astir demanding instalment tin inactive tally astir a playable 30fps. Without resorting to its lowest settings, too.

Just to double-clarify, to get The Dark Ages moving connected the Steam Deck does – astatine the clip of writing, T-minus 3 days earlier motorboat – necessitate you to spell into the strategy settings and power to SteamOS’s Preview branch, updating specifically to the 3.7.6 version. Presumably the aforesaid clang hole volition marque its mode to the Stable and Beta branches arsenic well, though for what it’s worth, the closest happening to instability I’ve endured connected the Preview subdivision has been a mates of little mid-game stutters.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

Otherwise, it’s... fine? It launches good with the fix, 1280x800 is supported fine, the default controls each consciousness fine, tiny substance reads fine, unreality saves sync fine. Performance is, arsenic connected desktop, sharply down from the days of Eternal, but it’s functional with an assistance from FSR upscaling. On the Low preset with upscaling connected Performance, framerates alteration from a Mancubus' bumhair beneath 30fps up to 40fps successful the tighter corridor bits. And you tin replicate that show portion sticking immoderate settings connected Medium oregon High prime – much connected that below.

It does pain done artillery life, lone narrowly avoiding an all-time RPS benchmark debased by draining my archetypal LCD-screen exemplary from afloat to level successful 1h 20m. Still, arsenic disappointing The Dark Ages’ wide slowing-down tin beryllium connected a big, fat, desktop, we tin astir apt chopped it immoderate slack connected the Deck. Need for a SteamOS prevention aside, it truly doesn’t person immoderate concern moving connected this benignant of hardware astatine all, fto unsocial with a mostly unchangeable 30fps wrong reach; The Steam Deck’s APU and shared RAM/VRAM alert truthful acold nether the minimum strategy requirements that they’re faceplanting the runway. Yet, present we are. By modern standards, it’s not adjacent that dense a value connected the Steam Deck’s SSDs, with a last instal size of 69GB (despite asking for 100GB successful the requirements).

Fingers crossed that important SteamOS Preview update makes it to the main subdivision asap. Then, we could possibly adjacent spot The Dark Ages surpass Eternal’s Valve-granted Playable presumption by earning a Steam Deck Verified badge, and that did not look similar an imminent anticipation past week.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

Doom: The Dark Ages Steam Deck settings guide

While astir modern graphics cards tin permission a clump of The Dark Ages’ settings connected their highest, Ultra Nightmare, without superior repercussions, the Steam Deck’s pluckiness doesn’t widen rather truthful far. That said, I’ve recovered that astir of them don’t really request to stoop to Low, with nicer (or, arsenic this is Doom, much enthusiastically horrible) Medium and High options capable to instrumentality effect without noticeably hobbling that aforementioned 30-40fps range.

Here’s the afloat database of what I’ve been playing on; everything other tin beryllium near connected the defaults.

• Aspect ratio: 16:10
• Resolution: 1280x800
• Present from Compute: On
• Resolution scaling mode: Off
• Chromatic aberration: Off
• Depth of Field: On
• Upscaler: FSR
• FSR: Performance
• FSR Frame generation: Off
• Motion blur: Off
• Texture excavation size: 2048
• Shadow quality: Low
• Reflections quality: Low
• Lights quality: Low
• Particles quality: High
• Decal quality: High
• Water quality: Medium
• Volumetrics quality: Low
• Texture filtering quality: Medium
• Geometric quality: Low
• Shading quality: Medium
• Directional occlusion: Medium

It remains a shame that there’s nary ray-tracingless Ultra Mega Low settings to get backmost up towards the 60fps people wherever nu-Doom games person truthful comfortably lived before. But still, if enforced RT games are present to enactment – and judging by this, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, they apt are – past astatine slightest it’s not a fixed that the Steam Deck is getting near behind.

Just don’t beryllium tempted to flick connected FSR framework procreation arsenic a means of punching done that FPS ceiling. The Dark Ages looks genuinely gruesome with its algorithm-generated frames attempting to impersonate the existent ones, with loads of lag and outright breached anti-aliasing that fuzzes up edges to unplayable degrees. Stick to the aged fashioned settings, insofar arsenic regular FSR upscaling tin beryllium considered aged fashioned.