Best Of

It is the Vulkan API. If you have not checked out the latest DOOM on AMD hardware, switching from OpenGL to Vulkan is an insane performance bump. I'm talking at least 50% more FPS in demanding scenes. I'm thinking you could probably play this game on Ultra at 1080p at 60 FPS on a reasonably inexpensive gaming PC now that Vulkan lowers the overhead. I know DX12 essentially is looking to do the same, but I'm excited about Vulkan and if it could gain some traction. A future of high end PC gaming without Windows? YES PLEASE!!

I spent all of last year kind of turned off to PC gaming. I've been aggravated at the slow burn to move it ahead. I actually played PS4 more last year because PC gaming was in console port limbo. Releases were buggy, crossfire support was lousy (I'm back to a single 390x and much happier). We got a little preview with Mantle, but that was a more modest gain on the few games that supported it. Vulkan is doing some magic trick in DOOM, I don't know what it is, but it almost makes me wish I had purchased a 144 hz monitor. It's that fast on my hardware and we are talking about every single setting cranked. Vukan and DX12 may actually make it feasible to play some really high end games on budget PC builds, we are talking maybe a $500-$600 budget being all you need to get something that smacks the heck out of a console again. Thank God, I was loosing part of my identity.... This is important, I can't be a console gamer, it just feels so wrong.

Anyhow, DOOM is on sale now for $30, if you had any reservations about running it, if you have AMD hardware that supports Vulkan, I'm almost certain you will be pleased with how it looks and plays.

Aukey, Anker. Trust me on this. It doesn't get better.