Doom: The Dark Ages Best PC Settings: You Can’t Turn Ray Tracing Off, So Fix These 3 Things First

You can’t turn ray tracing off in Doom: The Dark Ages. The game runs natively ray traced, and its minimum spec is a ray-tracing-capable GPU, so a settings guide built around a ray tracing toggle would be fiction. In the benchmark data I could verify, three things move your frame rate: Texture Pool Size if you have an 8 GB card, your upscaler and its mode, and, on RTX cards only, whether you switch on path tracing. The graphics presets barely matter. For the driver- and OS-level tweaks that apply to every game, start with our PC game settings optimization guide.

Verified against Update 4.0 (July 7, 2026). Most per-setting benchmark data comes from launch-build testing in May 2025 — see “Where the Sources Disagree” below.

Quick Start: Six Changes in Order

• Texture Pool Size: on an 8 GB card, drop it from the 2 GB default to 1.5 GB. This is the single most important fix for that VRAM tier.
• Upscaling: turn it on at Quality mode (DLSS on RTX, FSR on Radeon, XeSS on Arc). Expect roughly 30–40% more FPS at 1440p.
• Preset: don’t chase Ultra Nightmare versus High. Testing found them within a few percent of each other.
• Frame generation: only on top of a base frame rate that already feels smooth, and only after the texture pool change on 8 GB cards.
• Path tracing: RTX cards only, and leave it off below 16 GB of VRAM.
• Verify: run Benchmark Mode (Main Menu → Extras) before and after each change, so you measure your own system instead of trusting a table.

Why You Can’t Turn Ray Tracing Off, and Why Presets Barely Help

Ray tracing is the game’s lighting, not an option layered on top. NVIDIA’s launch article says Doom: The Dark Ages runs “natively in ray traced mode,” with ray-traced global illumination and ray-traced reflections, and the Steam page lists an RTX 2060 SUPER or RX 6600 with 8 GB of VRAM as the minimum for 1080p/60 at Low. That fixed lighting cost is why the preset ladder does so little.

The biggest measured gains come from upscaling first and, on 8 GB cards, the texture pool, not from the preset menu:

Takeaway: dropping from the top preset to the bottom one buys at most about 18% on an RTX 5080 and 29% on an RX 9070 XT, while Quality-mode upscaling alone buys more than that on any card.

Why would presets scale so little? My reading, not an id Software statement: the ray-traced lighting and reflections are computed against the whole scene no matter which tier you pick, so the preset only trims the cheaper rasterised side. One popular claim says ray-traced reflections are the single costliest setting. I found no benchmark that isolates that cost, so this guide doesn’t rank it.

Fix 1: Texture Pool Size, the 8 GB Setting That Matters Most

If your card has 8 GB of VRAM, set Texture Pool Size to 1.5 GB. In TechSpot’s test, the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB ended up 82% faster on average FPS than the 8 GB version at the 2 GB default, with over 200% better 1% lows, once VRAM filled after a few minutes of play. Lowering the pool to 1.5 GB brought the 8 GB card level with the 16 GB one at 1440p with upscaling, with no pop-in they could see.

The mechanism: the pool reserves VRAM for streamed textures, and ray tracing plus frame generation buffers need VRAM of their own. When the total spills past 8 GB, data swaps through system memory, and 1% lows collapse before the average does. TechSpot also found multi-frame generation failing to activate on the 8 GB card at the default pool, and working flawlessly after the cut to 1.5 GB with the Medium preset.

• 8 GB: 1.5 GB pool. Medium preset is optional; TechSpot found it visually near-identical, and the 8 GB card stayed close to the 16 GB one at Medium.
• 10–12 GB: leave the default. PCGH calls 12 GB “largely adequate” at launch but notes frame generation adds pressure, so step the pool down if you see stutter.
• 16 GB or more: default or up to 4 GB. TechSpot saw no performance hit at 4 GB, and no visible gain either.

How other games behave at this VRAM tier is in our 8 GB VRAM guide.

Fix 2: Upscaling and Frame Generation

Use Quality mode on the upscaler your GPU supports. At 1440p, TechSpot measured roughly 30–40% from Quality-mode upscaling, enough to push cards like the RX 7700 XT and RTX 5060 Ti above 60 fps average. Update 4.0 (July 7, 2026) changed the picture: DLSS, FSR and XeSS all support dynamic resolution scaling on PC now, so you can pick a higher quality mode and let the game drop resolution only during heavy fights. The same update upgraded the game to DLSS 4.5, with 5x and 6x frame generation modes on compatible GPUs. The release notes ask for NVIDIA driver 610.74 WHQL, AMD Adrenalin 22.6.1 or newer. Which upscaler looks best on your card is covered in DLSS vs FSR vs XeSS.

Treat frame generation as a multiplier, not a fix: it multiplies the frame rate you already have, stutter included. As a general guideline, turn it on only when your base frame rate is already smooth, and on 8 GB cards only after the texture pool change above.

For frame pacing, cap your frame rate just under your monitor’s refresh rate with variable refresh on. I couldn’t confirm from a fetched source whether the in-game menu exposes a frame limiter, so the reliable cap is the driver-level one in our NVIDIA Control Panel best settings guide. How G-Sync, FreeSync and VRR differ is in G-Sync vs FreeSync vs VRR explained.

Fix 3: Path Tracing Is the Only Ray Tracing Choice, and It’s Nvidia-Only

Path tracing is the one ray-tracing decision the game gives you, and Bethesda’s official support covers “select NVIDIA GPUs.” It arrived in the June 18, 2025 PC update with driver 576.75 or higher. To enable it, open Video Settings, scroll to the Path Tracing section, set it to On, then choose Ray Reconstruction as the Denoiser and apply. Bethesda warns that on other GPUs, “60 FPS, correct visuals and game stability are not assured.”

Memory is the second gate. PCGH’s Revelations benchmark says “8 GiByte of VRAM just won’t cut it” with path tracing and recommends 16 GB. NVIDIA’s own figures for the Revelations update, with DLSS 4.5 and 6x frame generation, show an RTX 5080 reaching 280 fps at 1440p, against a 6.5x average multiplier. Dividing one by the other implies roughly 43 fps of genuinely rendered frames. That is my back-of-envelope arithmetic, since the multiplier is an average across cards, but it shows how much of a headline “280 fps” is generated. In a shooter where you dodge projectiles, the rendered rate sets how responsive it feels.

Which Settings Fit Your Card

Match your VRAM tier first, because it decides whether the texture pool or path tracing is your real question.

Where the Sources Disagree

• Preset scaling: TechSpot’s 2–5% figure is from the launch build in May 2025. I found no later patch note that changes how presets scale (Update 4.0’s PC notes mention DLSS 4.5 and dynamic resolution, not presets), but verify with Benchmark Mode.
• Texture pool and pop-in: TechSpot saw none at 1.5 GB. PCGH warns that cutting the streaming budget from 4,096 MiB to 2,048 MiB causes surface pop-ins. Their baselines differ, so try 1.5 GB and look at distant walls in Benchmark Mode.
• When path tracing arrived: one outlet describes it as new in the Revelations expansion. Bethesda’s own notes date it to June 2025, and I used that.
• Reflections: a settings list from hone.gg suggests Medium Reflections first, while GameGPU’s visual comparison found differences mostly between High and Medium. Neither measured FPS cost in isolation.

FAQ

Can you turn off ray tracing in Doom: The Dark Ages?

No. The game’s global illumination and reflections are ray traced by design, which is why even the minimum spec requires a ray-tracing GPU. The only choice is whether to add path tracing on top.

What is the best graphics preset?

Pick by VRAM, not by the name. High through Ultra Nightmare were within about 2–5% of each other in launch testing, so take the highest your VRAM holds. On 8 GB, Medium looks near-identical and kept the card close to 16 GB performance.

Is 8 GB of VRAM enough?

Yes for standard ray tracing at 1080p or 1440p with upscaling, if you cut the texture pool to 1.5 GB. No for path tracing, where PCGH recommends 16 GB.

Should I use frame generation?

Only as a multiplier on a smooth base. It raises the number on screen, not how fast the game responds, so leave it off if you already sit below a comfortable base frame rate.

Sources

1. TechSpot. Doom: The Dark Ages, 36 GPU Benchmark. TechSpot
2. Bethesda. DOOM: The Dark Ages | June 2025 PC Update | Path Tracing (select NVIDIA GPUs) + Benchmark Mode Release Notes. Slayers Club
3. Bethesda. DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations Update 4 Release Notes. Slayers Club
4. NVIDIA. DOOM: The Dark Ages Available Now, Featuring Ray Tracing & DLSS 4 With Multi Frame Generation. GeForce News
5. NVIDIA. DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations, DLSS 4.5 and Path Tracing. GeForce News
6. PC Games Hardware. Doom: The Dark Ages Revelations: GPU Benchmarks with and without Path Tracing. PCGH
7. PC Games Hardware. Doom: The Dark Ages: GPU Benchmarks. PCGH
8. id Software and Bethesda. DOOM: The Dark Ages, System Requirements. Steam
9. GameGPU. DOOM the Dark Ages Graphic Settings Review and Comparison. GameGPU
10. Hone. Doom: The Dark Ages Revelations Best Settings. Hone Blog
11. Hwbusters. Doom: The Dark Ages Revelations Launches With Path Tracing and a 500 FPS RTX 5090 Flex. Hwbusters

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.