Popular first-person shooter Doom Eternal can run at 1,000 frames-per-second (FPS), as demonstrated by a demo from Bethesda and Polish hardware firm x-kom. The extraordinary frame rate, which id Software programmer Billy Khan speculated was possible back in March, is a remarkable achievement for the game’s id Tech 7 engine.
Doom Eternal has impressed players with consistently smooth graphics across platforms, and Doom Eternal‘s upcoming next-gen port will allow the game to look even better. Still, 1,000 FPS is well beyond what even ultra-high-end consumer PCs can achieve, and Bethesda and x-kom had their work cut out for them.
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According to a video and blog article posted by Bethesda on Tuesday, the team began by assembling a rig with ultra-high-end components, built around an Intel eight-core i7 9700K processor and ASUS RTX 2080Ti graphics card. The team achieved a frame rate above 500 FPS with this set-up, but they would need to overclock it much farther to reach or exceed 1,000 FPS. By using a liquid nitrogen cooling system, the team was able to overclock all CPU cores to about 6.6 GHz, finally yielding a maximum frame rate of 1,006 FPS (and even higher on a tutorial map).
It should be noted that this kind of overclocking experiment should never be repeated at home, as liquid nitrogen is tremendously dangerous to work with. Fans certainly haven’t wasted processing power when creating impressive Doom fan works, but 1,000 FPS play sessions could only take place in a controlled professional setting.
Doom Eternal makes a number of major changes as compared to previous series entries, and it’s good to see that its new id Tech 7 engine has also stepped up its game. Next-gen console ports of the game will not be able to produce a frame rate anywhere near 1,000 FPS, but the robustness of the engine bodes well for the quality of the upcoming ports.
That said, some players likely care less about the game’s technical performance and more about ensuring that Bethesda does not reinstate features like the Denuvo anti-cheating system. Bethesda did remove the Denuvo system after considerable backlash, so hopefully the company will continue to listen to its fanbase.
Doom Eternal is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Stadia.
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Source: Bethesda, via DSO Gaming