DOOM Eternal just got Ray Tracing on the Steam Deck, more games to follow

As if the Steam Decck wasn’t already an incredible device, a new beta update to the console now allows players to enjoy ray tracing in DOOM Eternal. And it seems like many more games will follow suit in the months to come.

As reported by Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Valve coder Pierre-Loup Griffais took to Twitter to share the news about the SteamOS 3.4.6 Preview beta update. This patch can be opted in by anyone willing to try it out, but warns that the features included are still being tested. Some of these features are a new graphics driver which not only helps fix corruption issues with the recently released Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, but also enables ray tracing in the latest Doom title.

In an answer under his post, Griffais revealed that the DOOM Eternal screenshot he posted was taken from a Steam Deck. The image shows the game with some impressive reflections, something that wasn’t possible before. The coder stated that with ray tracing active and at Medium quality preset, they were able to play the game at a stable 30fps, but that they werent able to go much higher.

Griffais also revealed that DXR (DirectX Raytracing) is also being worked on, and will be implemented to the device in the future, but that it isn’t quite ready just yet. Should this development come to pass, that would mean that the Steam Deck would allow plenty of other titles to enjoy ray tracing lighting and reflections in the future while running smoothly.

At this rate, Valve’s latest hardware project could prove to be one of the big consoles of this generation alongside the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch (as well as its possible successor, whenever that happens). With a little over a year since its release, the portable console has been gaining traction in the market thanks to an increase in popularity and user adoption.

Source | Rock, Paper, Shotgun