Visually, the game is identical across all machines save for resolution but the same can't be said for performance. If you're on Xbox One X or PlayStation 4 Pro, you can expect a rock-solid experience. After spending a few hours with each version, I was unable to produce any slowdown or drop in performance. There is always a chance things could drop later in the game but I suspect that won't be the case. Doom 3 is a true native 4K60 experience on both machines.
The base machines perform similarly but its Switch that fascinates the most. Like the other versions, 60 frames per second is the target but, unfortunately, this target is not always met. It's close, but larger areas tend to introduce performance issues that see a drop from the target frame-rate - which is a touch disappointing. What's more interesting, however, is that this isn't the first time this hardware has run Doom 3. Even looking beyond typical homebrew, Doom 3 BFG was released officially for Nvidia's Shield Android TV - a device which shares the same Tegra X1 core as the Switch.
The difference? It's powered by Android which is not known for its graphics performance. Before I could even test this, however, I had to jump through hoops. While we had previously purchased Doom 3 on the Shield, it is now delisted and no longer available to download even if you own the game - something that seemed to happen a while back. Thankfully, Android is an open platform and it was easy enough to side-load an APK with the game data necessary to play. We should not have had to do this, however.
We bought this game but we are no longer allowed to own it. The Shield version runs at a full 1080p just like Switch. It lacks the option to enable flashlight shadows, doesn't utilize anti-aliasing and features washed out colours by comparison. The big difference stems from performance - unlike Switch, the Shield version seems to drop frames constantly. It's rarely severe but the frame-rate just never feels consistent and the frame-time graph is regularly disturbed. What's especially strange here is that it seems to be running worse now compared to our tests when it was first released. Maybe it's an OS issue as we tested the game on the very same console.
That said, in reality, the Switch version really isn't dramatically better - it doesn't exhibit those constant small dips and it can drop pretty hard in certain situations. However, you can add around 15 per cent of performance by using default FOV settings and with flashlight shadows disabled, in which case, Switch is faster than the Shield equivalent. Switch even manages to run better portably than in docked mode - the reduction in resolution to 720p helps make up for those demanding settings and I found the experience to be quite impressive on the go.
In fact, playing Doom 3 on a portable system at 60fps just feels crazy to me. It's a game that will always feel 'high-end' to me despite its age so it's really neat seeing it on the go. As much as I like it though, it's clearly the worst of the bunch. Xbox One X and PS4 Pro are my picks for this game.
