DOOM Eternal PC graphics and difficulty settings revealed
System Requirements
Optimum 1080p PC Build
Low vs Ultra Screenshots
GPU Performance Chart
CPU List That Meet System Requirements
GPU List That Meet System Requirements
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Doom Eternal
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8.92 user review score. Average score out of 10, based on 276 review scores” style=”background: #4db53c”>
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The time has finally come… After what has felt like forever, DOOM Eternal is here upon us, gracing us with it’s scorching hot presence. When we all saw the system requirements last week, I think we all took a collective gulp seeing how demanding it was. Well, in order to see how well it performs you can check out all our other benchmarking articles around DOOM Eternal, but for now we can take a look at the kind of graphics settings you’ll find when launching the game.
First of all, DOOM Eternal utilises the Vulkan API and nothing else, so you can’t switch to DirectX. There were rumours that DirectX12 would be available, but right now there is no option. That said DOOM Eternal comes with a wide array of graphical options to choose from, and get that perfect quality to performance balance. It’s not quite as many options as Red Dead Redemption 2 for example, but there’s definitely a lot of room to play with.
With all that said, now let’s take a look at the graphics options available and the level at which you can customise each:
DOOM Eternal Display settings:
Window Mode – Windowed/Fullscreen/Borderless Windowed Monitor Aspect Ratio Resolution Vertical Sync – Adaptive/Off/On/Triple Buffering Enable HDR – Off/On
DOOM Eternal Video settings:
Field of View – 90 > 120 Motion Blur – Off/Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare Gamma Loot Drop Brightness – 0 > 100 Performance Metrics – Off/Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare
DOOM Eternal Accessibility settings:
Colorblind Rendering Mode – Off/Protanopia/Deuteranopia/Tritanopia Intensity – 0 > 100 Strength – 0 > 100 Contrast – 0 > 100 Brightness – 0 > 100
DOOM Eternal Advanced settings:
Overall Quality – Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare/Custom Texture Pool Size – Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare Shadow Quality – Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare Reflections Quality – Off/Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare Motion Blur Quality – Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare Directional Occlusion – Off/Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare Lights Quality – Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare Particles Quality – Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare Decal Quality – Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare Water Quality – Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare Volumetrics Quality – Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare Texture Filtering Quality – Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare Geometric Quality – Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare Chromatic Aberration – Off/On Sharpening – 0 > 100 Film Grain – 0 > 100 Resolution Scaling Mode – Off/Static/Dynamic Resolution Scale – 50 > 100 Resolution Scaling Target FPS – 60 >1000 Depth of Field – Off/On Depth of Field Anti-aliasing – Off/On
What are the DOOM Eternal Difficulty settings?
There are a fair few difficulty settings to choose from in DOOM Eternal as well. We have the typical Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard difficulties titled: I’m too young to die, Hurt me plenty, Ultra violence and Nightmare respectively. We also have the returning fan favourite option: Ultra-Nightmare. But joining us this time round is a new mode called: Extra Life Mode.
I’m Too Young To Die
This is your standard Easy difficulty: enemies are weaker and you are stronger. Ammo and health/armour pickups are worth more than normal. Great for newcomers to first-person shooters (especially newcomers to the DOOM Series).
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Hurt Me Plenty
Normal difficulty setting, for those looking to experience the standard difficulty. Enemies and players deal normal damage to each other. If you played DOOM (2016), know your way around first-person shooters and looking for something no-too-hard but also not-too-easy, this is the setting for you.
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Ultra-Violence
Again, the standard Hard setting. Enemies attack faster and deal more damage. This is the setting for players who are really looking for a challenge. If you played DOOM (2016) and thought it was way too easy, this might be for you.
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Nightmare
This is the setting for hardcore enthusiasts. I wouldn’t recommend it for any new players, even if you are a DOOM Pro Player, since DOOM Eternal has a lot of new mechanics to master. It’s called Nightmare for a reason after all… Then again, if you feel like causing yourself pain, then why not?
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Luckily, all these difficulty options above can be changed on the fly whilst playing the campaign. So if you’re finding that things are a little too easy, or maybe they’re a bit too hard, you can swap out to an easier/harder difficulty level as you please. However, if you feel like choosing these last two options, unfortunately you won’t be able to change them mid-campaign…
Ultra-Nightmare
For those familiar with DOOM (2016)’s infamous Ultra-Nightmare mode, this will come as no surprise to you. Nothing has changed in this setting, so let me just explain it to those who don’t know what this is. The premise is simple: take DOOM’s hardest difficulty mode, Nightmare, and play through the entire campaign. The catch is that if you die, your entire campaign is reset and you must start from the very beginning again. Not just the mission, but the entire game. So a potential 6-10 hour run can be completely wiped in an instant. And DOOM Eternal is bringing it back.
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Extra Life Mode
This mode isn’t necessarily a harder or easier difficulty setting, instead it serves as a special mode for players looking for a more classic experience; where games required extra lives in order to play the game. Throughout DOOM Eternal; you’ll find extra lives in hidden areas, run out of them and the entire campaign is over just like in the Ultra-Nightmare mode. The interesting part about this one is that you can choose this mode, and then select which difficulty setting to play on, but, understandably, you can’t choose Extra Life Mode and then choose Ultra-Nightmare.
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So now you know what you’ll be getting yourself into when launching DOOM Eternal in just a few days. You can check out how each graphics option above fares in terms of performance in our DOOM Eternal Most Important Graphics Options article. You can also see how well different graphics cards and rigs performed in our DOOM Eternal Performance Benchmarks article. The game is out in only a few days, so hopefully you’ll have some idea of how well it will run on your system by then.
