DOOM: The Dark Ages Path Tracing Update Coming June 18th

This is exciting....until you realize you need at least a 4090 to do it justice.

Every game released in 2025 should have a path tracing update that required at least an RTX4090. In a couple of years time when you're playing on an RTX 6070 or RTX 7060 you'll be glad those devs were forward thinking enough to implement that unobtainium graphics mode.
 
Yeah right? Ray tracing is tracing the path of rays. What they call ray tracing looks more like ambient occlusion and what they call path tracing is actual ray tracing.
Still a clear visual improvement, no? :messenger_winking_tongue:

Though it exposes an inaccuracy that the fire is just a static light source in the reflection instead of behaving like flickering flames.
 
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Yeah right? Ray tracing is tracing the path of rays. What they call ray tracing looks more like ambient occlusion and what they call path tracing is actual ray tracing.
They even omit the RTX ON tag that was previously associated with any form of ray tracing.
I bet by next year nvidia will start pushing non path tracing as "fake ray tracing".
I'm not saying it doesn't look amazing, btw.
 
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Yeah right? Ray tracing is tracing the path of rays. What they call ray tracing looks more like ambient occlusion and what they call path tracing is actual ray tracing.
Ray tracing traces a ray per pixel colour, path tracing tracing a path (multiple) of rays as they go through multiple bounces; they are both tracing rays, path tracing is just a whole lot more computational complex.
 
I don't do gamepass. I let my sub lapse earlier this year. It's not for me.

Besides following your advice I'd now have to sub again to check out this update. And again later in the year to play through the coming DLC.
Which is still cheaper than £50 for the base game. That doesn't make any sense.
 
Man i really hope PS6 is able to do Pathtracing in most games, it is such a big difference plus like this game shows it enables for more dynamic physics based interactions since it does not break the lighting that way if you destroy a house or something.
 
HDR currently on this game is garbage, at least on PS5. Im hoping along with the RT update they fix the HDR in general. Im on chapter 18 or 19, so ill wait to finish the game for this update.

EDIT - Wait....is RT update PC only?
 
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Still a clear visual improvement, no? :messenger_winking_tongue:

Though it exposes an inaccuracy that the fire is just a static light source in the reflection instead of behaving like flickering flames.

Nicely caught! 💪

Since it's id Tech, they could have used the famous flickering light from Quake (clamped for less extreme flickering)
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Which is still cheaper than £50 for the base game. That doesn't make any sense.
Then it would just disappear from my library. I had cheap gamepass for 4 years and hardly used it.

Game subscription services don't suit my gaming habits. Not sure why that's difficult to understand.
 
What to you expect them to use? A 3060? 🤡🤡
You forgot about the 4000 series? But i guess 2x framegen just ain't enough :p
I'd like to see some 4090 numbers, pretty sure it can handle it just fine like Indy Jones (probably better since DOOM is more optimized and has less foliage and water).
 
You forgot about the 4000 series? But i guess 2x framegen just ain't enough :p
I'd like to see some 4090 numbers, pretty sure it can handle it just fine like Indy Jones (probably better since DOOM is more optimized and has less foliage and water).
I played through it on a 4090 with x2 frame gen, couldn't tell the difference with frame gen on or off if im honest.

I just got a 5080 so will take this for a spin tomorrow at x4 just to see how bad it is. x2 worked great though. Fantastic tech for sure.
 
I played through it on a 4090 with x2 frame gen, couldn't tell the difference with frame gen on or off if im honest.

I just got a 5080 so will take this for a spin tomorrow at x4 just to see how bad it is. x2 worked great though. Fantastic tech for sure.
Yeah framegen with a high base framerate is fine, but with pathtracing it will be like half of that if not less.
So if the base fps is below 70-80 it won't feel good going by my experience so far.
With Indy it was fine up until the boat level with all the foliage and water, felt really bad and almost ruined the fun for me :D
 
And even with this, it will still not worth changing the lighting to RT. Doom 2016 and Eternal looks better on PS5. RT adds nothing to this game and results in worse visuals than previous games(on PC I guess it will be better now with this update…)
 
Yeah framegen with a high base framerate is fine, but with pathtracing it will be like half of that if not less.
So if the base fps is below 70-80 it won't feel good going by my experience so far.
With Indy it was fine up until the boat level with all the foliage and water, felt really bad and almost ruined the fun for me :D
Yeah that video shown at 200fps you just know its on a 5090 at x4 so the base will be what around 70-80fps? 4090 should be fine if that's the case. Find out tomorrow.

I'll be playing through again to 100% each area. Fun game.
 
Installed 576,80, smooth driver and zero problems in other games so far.

I had break my run halfway to see those details, I can't wait to go back TDA.
 
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The biggest difference I see from the comparison in the OP is the orange glow from the fire bouncing around everywhere. I wonder why the RTGI from the base game didn't capture that.
 
Yeah that video shown at 200fps you just know its on a 5090 at x4 so the base will be what around 70-80fps? 4090 should be fine if that's the case. Find out tomorrow.
Nah that's sadly just 50 FPS x4 (=200). Without MFG the base FPS would probably be 60+ since it has a computational cost.
I'm playing at 1440P, so the 5080 gets 200 FPS with 4x.. lets add some extra for the 4090 and say it's 60 baseline with FG, then it will be 120 with FG on, which could be very borderline with the inputlag but we'll see tomorrow.
Also the FPS are with DLSS balanced, wtf :D

Installed 576,80, smooth driver and zero problems in other games so far.

Gonna give it a try without the new driver first.
Too many problems so far with the last couple drivers and my current versions runs fine (572.16).

I'll be playing through again to 100% each area. Fun game.

Haven't played it yet, was waiting for the PT patch.
 
Nah that's sadly just 50 FPS x4 (=200). Without MFG the base FPS would probably be 60+ since it has a computational cost.
I'm playing at 1440P, so the 5080 gets 200 FPS with 4x.. lets add some extra for the 4090 and say it's 60 baseline with FG, then it will be 120 with FG on, which could be very borderline with the inputlag but we'll see tomorrow.
Also the FPS are with DLSS balanced, wtf :D



Gonna give it a try without the new driver first.
Too many problems so far with the last couple drivers and my current versions runs fine (572.16).



Haven't played it yet, was waiting for the PT patch.
x4 isn't exactly that in my limited experience. Just like x2 isnt exactly double your base framerate.
 
so the RT they had until now... was not rt?
what a garbage way to delay features

The base game is RT but with limited bounces/reflections/light sources/etc... You need to factor in performance hits with RT implementation, particularly when consoles are involved.
 
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x4 isn't exactly that in my limited experience. Just like x2 isnt exactly double your base framerate.
It is exactly x2 and x4 but you have to differentiate between the base FPS without FG and with FG (the actual FPS it is interpolating), since it has a cost like i said.
So the base FPS i'm talking about is not the FPS without FG, that one is higher.
 
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