Not every developer has made good use of the ray tracing technology offered by Nvidia, but there are several examples out there worth a closer look. At the same time, ray tracing has the potential to completely transform classic titles, something we already saw in Minecraft and Quake II. However, the time has come for a certain natural enemy of infernal hordes. That's right! Thanks to the effort of engineer Sultim Tsyrendashiev, today we can play Doom with ray tracing.
A fundamental pillar of FPS games, the quintessential Hello World for all kinds of systems and strange artifacts, an inexhaustible classic with countless mods and alternative engines. Doom can give you an experience identical to the one you remember when you first played it, or transform into a completely different game with updated graphics, expanded physics, and much more.
What's next on the list? Believe it or not... ray tracing! No, it's not an April Fools' joke. Engineer Sultim Tsyrendashiev decided to give the lone marine the proper ray tracing treatment, creating a port of PrBoom called PrBoom Plus RT. Obviously we have some screenshots of the game in action, but to fully convey the differences between conventional Doom and this version... nothing better than a video:
How to Play Doom with Ray Tracing and PrBoom Plus RT
On a technical level, installation couldn't be simpler: Unpack the contents of PrBoom Plus RT into a temporary folder, place a copy of DOOM.WAD inside it, and double-click the executable. Don't have a DOOM.WAD handy? Don't worry, in this article we explain all the alternatives for obtaining it. The rest is a matter of exploring PrBoom Plus RT's graphics options, and there are more of them than we expected in a version 1.0.
Needless to say, to enjoy Doom with ray tracing you'll need a relatively powerful Nvidia graphics card, ideally from the RTX series, taking advantage of its dedicated cores. Ray tracing mode is available for 16-series or 10-series cards, but in those cases I recommend lowering the render resolution. Another advantage of RTX hardware is access to DLSS, but you have to download a copy of the official nvngx_dlss.dll file and place it in the PrBoom Plus RT folder for it to work.
However, this port includes support for AMD's FSR technology, so we can experiment by combining ray tracing, FSR and higher resolutions, with the goal of achieving a higher framerate. Finally, you might want to lower the Bloom level a notch, as some players say the default is too aggressive, but the final decision is yours. Download Doom with ray tracing, and enjoy!
Official site and download: Click here
