How to improve FPS in Doom: The Dark Ages (PC)
Doom: The Dark Ages marks a shift within the series: slower, shield-based combat, massive battles against giant mechs and dragons, and a use of ray tracing that's no longer optional like in Doom Eternal, but a core part of global illumination and reflections. idTech 8 inherits id Software's reputation for surgical optimization, but here the engine has to sustain scenes with far more geometry, destruction physics, and simultaneous ray tracing. The result is a game that still scales well on modest hardware, but where certain RT and shadow settings have a real cost worth understanding before touching anything blindly. This guide prioritizes what to lower first without losing combat readability, and what to keep so you don't ruin the visual parry.
This is what you'd gain with a NVIDIA RTX 3050
Want the RTX 3050 at the best price?
Check the current price on Amazon.
Calculations based on our FPS model combined with the % gain of each setting (measured in public benchmarks).
1. Quick wins (no visual loss)
Start here. Each one adds a little, but together they give +42% free FPS.
Ray Tracing Reflections
Ray-traced reflections mainly affect metallic surfaces and blood puddles, very flashy but barely relevant during frantic combat. Disabling them frees up a considerable performance margin with almost no noticeable difference in scene readability.
Volumetric Fog
Volumetric fog saturates the infernal scenery with atmospheric light shafts, but its cost grows non-linearly on Ultra. Dropping it to Medium keeps the atmosphere without penalizing framerate in the biggest arenas with dragons.
Shadow Quality
Dropping from Ultra to High reduces the resolution of the dynamic shadow maps cast by mechs and large creatures, with an almost imperceptible loss of detail in motion. It's one of the few settings with such a favorable cost-benefit ratio.
Particle/Effects Quality
Massive battles generate hundreds of simultaneous destruction and magic particles. Dropping one notch from Ultra reduces the density of secondary particles without affecting the ones that actually communicate combat timing.
Motion Blur
Motion blur doesn't add significant real performance, but disabling it improves perceived sharpness during fast shield parries, where every frame of information counts.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Ray Tracing Global Illumination
Ray-traced global illumination is the visual foundation of the game and can't be fully disabled, but dropping it from Ultra to Medium noticeably reduces cost in large arenas by keeping ray resolution lower. The visual impact is noticeable on very lit surfaces, but acceptable against the gain.
Texture Quality/Pool
Dropping the texture pool from Ultra to High frees VRAM on 8GB cards without affecting overall sharpness much, since idTech compresses its base textures very well. On GPUs with little memory it avoids streaming stutters.
Anti-Aliasing (TSR/DLAA)
TSR at its highest mode smooths edges excellently at a moderate cost; dropping it one notch improves framerate in scenes with many enemies without generating aggressive aliasing. DLAA is reserved for those who prioritize sharpness over performance.
Screen Space Reflections/GI Fallback
In areas where RT doesn't cover the whole scene, the screen-space fallback adds extra cost. Dropping it to Medium keeps basic visual coherence without doubling render cost indoors.
Level of Detail (Draw Distance)
Reducing LOD one notch mainly affects distant objects in the open arenas with dragons, where distant geometry rarely matters for combat. The gain is modest but consistent.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
NVIDIA DLSS 3 (with Frame Generation on RTX 40/50)
+45% FPSDLSS 3 offers the best image-performance balance on idTech 8, and Frame Generation on RTX 40 and 50 practically doubles perceived FPS in the most demanding scenes with RT active. It's the recommended option if you have a compatible GPU.
AMD FSR 3
+35% FPSFSR 3 works on any modern GPU, with good image quality in Quality mode and its own frame generator, though with somewhat more ghosting than DLSS during fast shield movements.
Intel XeSS
+30% FPSXeSS delivers solid results on both Arc GPUs and cards from other brands, being a reliable alternative when DLSS isn't available, with slightly lower sharpness at maximum resolution.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable Reflex if your card supports it: it reduces input lag right at the critical moment of the shield parry.
- •On RTX 40/50, combine DLSS Quality with Frame Generation to maintain 100+ FPS even with RT on Medium.
- •Always update to the latest Game Ready driver before playing, since idTech 8 receives frequent optimization patches.
AMD
- •Use FSR 3 in Quality mode instead of Balanced to avoid artifacts in fire and magic effects.
- •Enable Anti-Lag+ to offset the added latency from Frame Generation in mech fights.
- •Check that Smart Access Memory is active in Ryzen + Radeon combos for extra stable FPS.
Sistema
- •Install the game on an SSD (preferably NVMe): the big arenas load geometry and textures continuously.
- •Close background recording overlays; the engine is sensitive to frame-time spikes during parries.
- •Make sure you have at least 16GB of RAM to avoid slow texture streaming in scenes with dragons.
5. Known game issues
Shader-compilation stutters on first launch
When starting the game for the first time after a driver change, background shader compilation can appear, causing occasional microcuts during the first few minutes.
Estado: Day-one patch
Occasional FPS drops with RT Reflections in highly reflective interiors
In some rooms with lots of metallic surfaces, enabling Ray Tracing Reflections on Ultra causes sharp framerate drops disproportionate to the rest of the scene.
Irregular frame pacing with Frame Generation enabled at 1080p
At low resolutions, some users report less consistent frame pacing when combining Frame Generation with an already-high base FPS, creating a feeling of smoothness inferior to the numeric counter.
6. Frequently asked questions
Is it worth playing with ray tracing in Doom: The Dark Ages?▾
What settings give the most FPS without sacrificing too much image quality?▾
Do DLSS or FSR affect shield-combat precision?▾
Why does my mid-range GPU suffer more than in Doom Eternal?▾
Want to know exactly how many FPS YOUR PC will get?
Enter your GPU and CPU in our calculator and measure the real impact of each setting.
Calculate FPS for Doom: The Dark Ages →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →