DOOM Eternal looks like an impressive game, and while we’ve spoken plenty already about its action and the improvements its making over its predecessor in terms of gameplay, it also represents a step forward for id Software from a technical perspective. That’s possible, of course, thanks to the new id Tech 7, the upgraded version of the studio’s in-house engine, which they’ve waxed lyrical about aplenty of late. Recently, they dropped yet another piece of info about just how much this new engine enables them to do.
Speaking recently in an interview with IGN (which you can view below), id Sofware lead engine programmer Billy Kahn talked about how the new id Tech 7 has allowed the developers to achieve new visual heights with DOOM Eternal, from bigger and more vibrant explosions to better particle effects. Something else that the engine enables is higher frame-rates than id Software games have ever had before, going up to as high as 1000 FPS (if you have the hardware for it, of course)- which, of course, is extra valuable for a fast-paced action title like DOOM.
“On id Tech 6, we maxed it out to 250 frames per second,” said Kahn. “This game, if you have the hardware right, it could hit 1000 frames per second. That’s the max we have.”
“There’s really no upper limit,” he added. “I’ve had some hardware here locally that we built just for testing, where we had scenes running at 400 frames per second. So for people who have 144hz monitors – or even the new monitors that you’ll see coming out that are even above that – going forward, this game will hold up for many years, and it will give you really amazing opportunities to leverage that hardware.”
DOOM Eternal is due out for the PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia on March 20. id Software have also spoken about the possibility of PS5 and Xbox Series X ports of the game, though nothing has yet been confirmed. Meanwhile, the Switch version – which currently doesn’t have a release date – will be running at 30 frames per second.
