It’s been a while, but Bethesda’s DOOM Eternal is finally here. The game is optimized, and you’ll likely get good frame rates, but there’s always room for improvement. We’ll help you find out which settings are worth sacrificing to get those extra juicy frame rates.
First, ensure that you meet the minimum system requirements for DOOM Eternal, and we highly recommend that you have a PC that meets the game’s recommended system requirements. If you don’t, you can expect unoptimized gameplay.
Minimum System Requirements
- OS: Windows 7 (64-bit) / Windows 10 (64-bit)
- CPU: Intel Core i5 (3.3 GHz) or AMD Ryzen 3 (3.1 GHz)
- RAM: 8 GB
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4GB), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (3GB), NVIDIA GTX 1650 (4GB), AMD Radeon R9 280 (3GB), AMD Radeon R9 290 (4GB) or AMD RX 470 (4GB)
- HDD: 50 GB
Recommended System Requirements
- OS: Windows 7 (64-bit) / Windows 10 (64-bit)
- CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K or AMD Ryzen 7 1800X
- RAM: 8 GB
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (4GB) or AMD RX 480 (8GB)
- HDD: 50 GB
Let’s move on with the actual optimizations, which is what you are here for. Not only will these optimizations boost your frame rates in DOOM Eternal, but they will also increase your performance in all games on your PC.
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Best DOOM Eternal Settings
The first thing you need to know is that when highly anticipated games are released, both NVIDIA and AMD release game-optimized graphics drivers before the release date.
So update your GPU drivers right now.
After you’ve done that, open up DOOM Eternal, go to the settings page and click on the Video tab.
Window Mode
Set this to Fullscreen for the best possible performance.
Resolution
Set this to your monitor’s native resolution. It should already be set to this by default.
Vertical Sync
Set this to Off.
Enable HDR
Set this to Off.
Field of View
Set this to 103. We recommend you try this if you haven’t already.
Motion Blur
Set this to Off.
Overall Quality
Set this to Custom.
Texture Pool Size
Set this to Medium. If your graphics card has a lot of VRAM, then you can set this value to a higher value.
You can’t really see much of a diversity between the different settings anyway so Medium should suffice for most use-cases.
Shadow Quality
Set this to Low or Medium, depending on your preferences. The shadows are the most performance-heavy aspect of the game.
And just like Texture Pool Size, if your graphics card has a lot of VRAM, then you can set this value to a higher value.
Reflections Quality
Set this to Off.
Motion Blur Quality
Set this to Low.
Directional Occlusion
Set this to Medium or High. This setting does not cost too much FPS and it gives better depth-of-field in the game so it is worth turning up.
Lights Quality
Set this to Low. The visual difference between the different settings values is negligible.
Particles Quality
Set this to Low.
Decal Quality
Set this to Low. The visual difference between the different settings values is negligible.
Water Quality
Set this to Low. There’s not much water in the game anyway.
Volumetrics Quality
Set this to Low. The visual difference between the different settings values is negligible.
Texture Filtering Quality
Set this to Medium or High. There is a small but noticeable difference and it is a good one so you can adjust this setting to an even higher value if you wish.
Geometric Quality
Set this to Low.
Chromatic Aberration
Set this to Off.
Depth of Field
Set this to On.
Depth of field is a very nice thing to see in DOOM Eternal so we definitely recommend that you keep this turned on. It’ll only cost you about 3-4% in FPS loss.
Depth of Field Anti-aliasing
Set this to On. This option does not cause any further FPS drop when the option above is turned on as well. So you’ll still be losing 3-4% FPS for some very nice visual settings.
Optimize Your PC For DOOM Eternal
Now that the game optimizations are finished, let’s do some quick PC optimizations.
See our full guide on how to get the best performance in Windows 10 if you want to see more tricks.
Disable Discord Hardware Acceleration
If you are running Discord in the background like most gamers are, then we recommend that you disable hardware acceleration in Discord. Here’s how to do it.
- Go to Discord Preferences.
- Click on the Appearance tab.
- Turn off Hardware Acceleration.
Disable Google Chrome Hardware Acceleration
Google Chrome also offers hardware acceleration, and if you run it in the background, we recommend that you also turn it off. Here is how you do it:
- Go to Google Chrome Settings.
- Go to the Advanced Settings.
- Turn off Use Hardware Acceleration When Available.
Close Down Your Background Applications
This should go without saying, but you should limit the use of background applications when running games. Therefore, make sure to turn off all unnecessary programs running in the background.
Our System
We tested the settings on a PC with these specifications:
- OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
- CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K (3.6 GHz)
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080
- RAM: 32 GB
- Storage: Samsung 970 EVO 2TB
