Doom: The Dark Ages is the newest mainline entry in the beloved DOOM franchise, and hands players control of the Slayer, as he decimates through hordes of hellspawn in order to exact his revenge. The Dark Ages takes place some time before the events of 2016’s DOOM – and marks a previously uncharted section of the game’s overall lore and narrative.
The game is built on top of the latest ID Tech 8 game engine, promising to bring with it numerous technological improvements with regards to both performance and visuals. To this extent, developer id Software has also released an extensive list of PC system requirements – detailing both minimum and recommended configs.
Doom: The Dark Ages PC minimum system requirements
As per the official Steam page of the game, Doom: The Dark Ages comes with the following reasonable minimum PC system requirements:
- Operating System: Windows 10 64 bit or newer
- CPU: Intel Core i7 10700K or an AMD Ryzen 7 3700 X or newer
- RAM : 16 GB
- GPU: Nvidia RTX 2060 Super or an AMD RX 6600
- Storage: 100 GB
The configuration above is required for 1080p gameplay, at upwards of 60 frames per second. The page also went into quite a fair bit of detail regarding these components.
For starters, the CPU in question must come equipped with 8 cores and 16 threads – which is certainly quite a high entry point. While there is no doubt that the game will run on weaker quad core systems, id Software’s 8-core requirement means that the game is expected to be a lot more CPU heavy this time around.
Secondly, the game also mandates a GPU with ray tracing support, asking 8 GB of VRAM at minimum. This means that legacy cards such as the trusty RTX 1080 and weaker will likely not be able to run the game on account of them lacking RT support entirely.
Finally, coming to storage, the requirement is an eye watering 100 GB of free space. While certainly not as bloated compared to titles such as Call of Duty, 100 GB of storage is no joke, and could be a quirk of ID Tech 8. After all, 2016’s DOOM utilizes megatextures which resulted in the same bloated file size.
Interestingly, id has clearly mandated the usage of fast, NVMe-based SSDs this time around. Would-be players cannot expect a good time playing the title on their hard drives (HDDs) or even SATA-based SSDs.
NVMes offer far superior read and write speeds, and are likely necessary to prevent many texture and performance-related issues.
A solid port or yet another unoptimized mess?
Doom: The Dark Ages seems to be shaping up to be a grand time, but what about its port? While id Software has historically released very well optimized ports with support for multiple ‘niche’ PC features on launch, a few things stand out from its listed PC system requirements.
The focus on ray tracing in particular, is quite disheartening. RT is mandatory this time around, and Doom: The Dark Ages truly joins the dark ages as a modern AAA title that forces ray tracing to achieve visual fidelity.
While it is likely that id will manage to optimize the game well ahead of its official launch, one must wonder if it will manage to keep up its promises this time around.
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