{"id":1361911,"date":"2025-10-18T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/MduyH7DKYKwmjSrWM4imFH"},"modified":"2025-10-18T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T11:00:00","slug":"doom-the-dark-ages-gets-steam-deck-verification-and-a-bunch-of-portable-optimisations-just-in-time-for-the-launch-of-microsofts-new-handheld","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/doom-the-dark-ages-gets-steam-deck-verification-and-a-bunch-of-portable-optimisations-just-in-time-for-the-launch-of-microsofts-new-handheld\/","title":{"rendered":"Doom: The Dark Ages gets Steam Deck verification and a bunch of portable optimisations, just in time for the launch of Microsoft’s new handheld"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Doom: The Dark Ages<\/a> is officially Steam Deck verified, which is surprising only in how long it took considering id Software’s history delivering shooters that are not just visually impressive, but exceedingly well optimised. The studio has worked minor miracles with handheld ports too, most notably the Nintendo Switch version of 2020’s Doom Eternal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That said, The Dark Ages was the first Doom game to be fully and constantly ray-traced, making it a less obvious candidate for handheld gaming when it launched. While it ran well enough on most PC hardware and could even deliver reasonable framerates on a cheap gaming laptop, as Andy Edser noted in his PC performance analysis<\/a>, the Steam Deck nonetheless struggled to meet its minimum requirements, and as such performance was underwhelming.<\/p>\n

But that’s all changed, apparently. Update 2.2<\/a> introduces several handheld-centric optimisations and quality-of-life features. This includes general performance improvements and advanced optimisation settings for handheld devices, as well as more performant SFX and VFX when gaming on the go.<\/p>\n

The update also adds handheld-specific autodetection, and device specifications for numerous devices including Steam Deck and the newly released Xbox Rog Ally X. I suspect the latter’s launch is partly behind Doom: The Dark Ages’ extra performance push, given that both id Software and its publisher Bethesda are owned by Microsoft.<\/p>\n

Aptly named YouTuber Deck Wizard recently took Doom: TDA for a handheld spin<\/a>, and id’s optimisations certainly seem to deliver a consistently smooth experience\u2014though it is unsurprisingly a lot less shiny than when played on a proper PC.<\/p>\n

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