Best Doom The Dark Ages graphics settings for Steam Deck

Doom The Dark Ages is the latest addition to the legendary FPS franchise and is set to officially launch on May 15, 2025. Bethesda Softworks and id Software's first-person shooter will be released on various platforms like PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Microsoft Windows. This also includes Windows-based consoles like the Steam Deck.

The Steam Deck is powerful, but the new Doom title is quite demanding too. The game was originally not compatible with the Steam Deck. However, the latest update by Steam fixes the launch problem. So now, it does run on the device, but it certainly needs optimization.

With a few tweaks in the settings, we could have decent quality visuals and smooth performance. This guide provides the best settings for The Dark Ages on the Steam Deck.

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Best settings for Doom The Dark Ages on the Steam Deck

Doom The Dark Ages runs well on the Steam Deck (Image via Bethesda Softworks)

The game runs well when optimized. We've set the resolution to a super low 600p, and the game shows an average of 35-40 FPS, which is quite decent. We've used the lowest graphics preset. Thus, every visual parameter has either been turned off or set to Low.

We've turned on AMD FSR and set it to Performance mode, which gives equal preference to improving visual quality and performance.

You could also try the same settings at 800p, which is the maximum native resolution on the Steam Deck's display. This also looks a tad bit better, but framerates barely reach 30 FPS. You could go for this setting if you don't mind the lower performance.

Here are the best settings for the game on the Steam Deck:

Display

• Window Mode: Fullscreen
• Monitor: Default
• Aspect Ratio: 16:10
• Resolution: 1280 x 800
• Refresh Rate: 60
• Vertical Sync: Off
• Present From Compute: On
• Resolution Scaling Mode: Off
• Resolution Scale: 1.00 (Greyed out)
• Resolution Scaling Target: 60 (Greyed out)
• Performance Metrics: Off

Video

• Field of View: 90
• Chromatic Aberration: Off
• Depth of Field: Off
• Sharpening: 2.50
• Film Grain: 0.00
• Upscaler: FSR
• DLSS Super Resolution: Greyed out
• DLSS Sharpness: Greyed out
• DLSS Frame Generation: Greyed out
• FSR: Performance
• FSR Sharpness: 0%
• FSR Frame Generation: Off
• XeSS: Greyed out
• NVIDIA Reflex Mode: Greyed out

Display Calibration

• Enable HDR: Off
• Gamma: As per preference

Motion Blur

• Motion Blur: Off
• Motion Blur Amount: High (Greyed out)
• Motion Blur Quality: Ultra Nightmare (Greyed out)

Advanced

• Overall Quality Slider: Low
• Texture Pool Size: 1536
• Shadow Quality: Low
• Reflections Quality: Low
• Lights Quality: Low
• Particles Quality: Low
• Decal Quality: Low
• Water Quality: Low
• Volumetrics Quality: Low
• Texture Filtering Quality: Low
• Geometric Quality: Low
• Shading Quality: Low
• Directional Occlusion: Low

Accessibility

• Colorblind Rendering Mode: Off
• Intensity: Greyed out
• Strength: Greyed out
• Contrast: Greyed out
• Brightness: Greyed out

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With the above settings enabled, you should be able to run Doom The Dark Ages smoothly on the Steam Deck. While the max resolution of the Deck is 800p, the new Doom title struggles to maintain 30 FPS at this setting, even at the lowest graphics preset. Thus, we opted for a lower resolution and made a few optimizations in the setup.

With the provided settings, you should be able to see over 30 FPS and still enjoy a certain amount of visual fidelity. We could go lower in terms of resolution, but the game gets blurry and pixelated at that point, making it less enjoyable to play.

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