A patch is now available for DOOM, updating id Software's first person shooter with support for the Vulkan low-level graphics API, a fitting move since part of the fluid gameplay of the original DOOM was achieved through low-level programming innovations (thanks RedEye9). They offer a Vulkan FAQ explaining all the details, and this post from id Software CTO Robert Duffy gives the news. Here's part of that, and how this may be able to allow some older machines to live long and prosper running the game:

When we were looking to adopt Vulkan for DOOM, the main question we asked ourselves was: “What’s the gamer benefit?” Ultimately the biggest benefit will be high framerates. There are a number of game-focused reasons super-high framerates matter, but primarily its movement and player feel. The game just feels amazing running that fast, so we made it a priority to try to really exploit the available hardware on PC.

We also anticipate some older GPUs will now be able to play the game at good framerates. We hope the range of GPU support widens with additional game and driver updates. That said, this is the first time a triple-A game is releasing on a brand-new API and brand-new drivers so there may be a few bumps, but our testing is showing really great performance and stability.

Vulkan is a cutting-edge next-generation graphics and compute API from the Khronos Group. Vulkan allows very low-level access to the hardware and moves most of the driver overhead into the developers’ hands. For PC gamers Vulkan will bring speed and features to DOOM, which is a big upside.