DOOM: The Dark Ages gets a major performance upgrade for handhelds - now Steam Deck Verified

id Software just released a major performance update for DOOM: The Dark Ages, making it run a whole lot better on handhelds like the Steam Deck. Thanks to the update it's also now Steam Deck Verified.

This is some really impressive upgrades, and just shows that you can squeeze out playable performance even at the lower end while keeping visuals looking good.

In the announcement they said the game will go through auto detection for handhelds, but you can still customize the settings. Plus, settings are now stored per-device too so no messing with other systems you play on.

The update includes general performance improvements specific to handhelds, advanced optimization settings specifically for handhelds, they optimized SFX and VFX specifically for handhelds and there's a new handheld benchmark mode too. From the announcement they noted the expected performance across devices:

Performance depends on selected power mode and whether the device is attached to a dedicated power source. Values detailed here assume the device is using the highest power setting in the OS and is not running from battery

• Steam Deck : 720p @ ~30FPS
• Z1 Devices : 720p @ ~30FPS (such as ASUS ROG Ally)
• Z1E Devices : 1080p @ ~30FPS (such as ASUS ROG Ally X, Lenovo Legion Go)
• Z2A Devices : 720p @ ~30FPS (such as XBOX ROG Ally)
• Z2E Devices : 1080p @ ~60FPS (such as XBOX ROG Ally X)

On top of that they also said they added QOL input improvements when handhelds are docked to a stand and new controller detection on handhelds for wireless and wired external controllers.

There's also a whole bunch of general fixes and tweaks to the game for all platforms.

I think, realistically, we have the launch of the Xbox ROG Ally handhelds to thank for this sort of update, since Bethesda Softworks is owned by Microsoft they want more games to run smoothly on the Xbox ROG Ally X and especially the lower-end Xbox ROG Ally.