Barony

# Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured frame rates for this AMD Ryzen 7 5700G + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 combination reveal a distinctive scaling pattern across resolutions that points to a mixed CPU/GPU balance depending on the settings tier. At Low settings, the progression from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 shows averages of 600, 379, and 198 FPS respectively. This represents a 36.8% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 67.0% drop from 1080p to 4K. The magnitude of these drops is substantial, suggesting that even at Low settings, the rendering load at higher resolutions begins to tax the GPU significantly.

At Medium settings, the scaling follows a similar trajectory: 446 FPS at 1080p, 281 FPS at 1440p, and 147 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops here are 37.0% and 67.0% respectively, nearly identical to the Low setting pattern. This consistency indicates that the resolution scaling behavior is largely independent of the preset chosen, at least between Low and Medium.

High settings present a slightly different picture. The averages are 383 FPS at 1080p, 242 FPS at 1440p, and 126 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 36.8%, while from 1080p to 4K it is 67.1%. Ultra settings, the most demanding preset, yields 274 FPS at 1080p, 173 FPS at 1440p, and 91 FPS at 4K. Here the drops are 36.9% and 66.8%. The remarkable consistency of these percentage drops across all four settings presets — hovering around 37% for the 1440p step and 67% for the 4K step — suggests that the limiting factor scales predictably with pixel count rather than with the complexity of the scene or the specific settings.

What does this imply about the limiting component? The fact that 4K performance at Ultra (91 FPS) is still well above 60 FPS, while 1080p at Low reaches 600 FPS, indicates that the GPU has ample headroom at lower resolutions. The CPU, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, appears to be the primary constraint at 1080p, where frame rates exceed 400 FPS at Medium and above. At 4K, the GPU becomes more heavily loaded, but the RTX 4080's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth keep performance high. The data suggests a balanced system where the CPU limits at low resolutions and the GPU becomes the bottleneck as resolution increases, but neither component ever becomes a severe constraint in this roguelike title.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific combination of AMD Ryzen 7 5700G and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 achieves a combo rank of 244 out of 3717 tested combinations in Barony. This places the pairing in the top 6.6% of all combos tested for this game, which is a strong showing given the game's release date of 2015-06-22 and its roguelike genre characteristics.

The CPU itself sits at the 79th percentile when compared against all CPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 27051. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i9-9900K with an average score of 27097 and a delta of -0.2%, the AMD Ryzen AI 7 445 at 26936 with a delta of 0.4%, the Intel Core i5-14400T at 27166 with a delta of -0.4%, and the Intel Core i7-1370P at 26900 with a delta of 0.6%. These deltas are all within 0.6% of the 5700G's score, indicating that the CPU competes very closely with these alternatives in general-purpose benchmarks. The fact that the 5700G is within a fraction of a percent of these newer and often higher-tier processors suggests that its Zen 3 architecture remains competitive despite its 2021 release date.

The GPU ranks at the 86th percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54247. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER at 54209 with a delta of 0.1%, the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X at 54828 with a delta of -1.1%, the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB at 55698 with a delta of -2.6%, and the AMD Radeon 8060S at 55757 with a delta of -2.7%. The RTX 4080 is essentially tied with its SUPER variant, differing by only 0.1%, which is remarkable given the SUPER's positioning as a higher-tier product. The GPU's performance in Barony, combined with the CPU's capability, results in the strong combo rank observed.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is built on the AD103 chip using the Ada Lovelace architecture, manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It contains 45,900 million transistors on a die size of 379 mm², with a transistor density of 121.1 million per square millimeter. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2205 MHz and a boost clock of 2505 MHz, with memory running at 1400 MHz (22.4 Gbps effective). This configuration delivers 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and an equal 48.74 TFLOPS of FP16 performance, indicating a 1:1 ratio that is typical for this architecture generation.

The memory subsystem consists of 16 GB of GDDR6X on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 716.8 GB/s. This large memory capacity is particularly relevant for higher resolutions and texture-heavy settings. The GPU also features 9728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, 112 raster operation units, 76 ray tracing cores, and 304 tensor cores. These specifications translate to a pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s.

In the context of Barony's measured results, the GPU's role becomes clearer when examining the FPS differences across settings at each resolution. At 1080p, the gap between Low (600 FPS) and Ultra (274 FPS) is 326 FPS, representing a 54.3% reduction. At 1440p, the gap between Low (379 FPS) and Ultra (173 FPS) is 206 FPS, a 54.4% reduction. At 4K, the gap between Low (198 FPS) and Ultra (91 FPS) is 107 FPS, a 54.0% reduction. The consistency of these percentage reductions across resolutions indicates that the GPU's performance scaling with settings is uniform, and the RTX 4080 is able to maintain its relative advantage even as absolute frame rates drop with increasing resolution.

The 16 GB of VRAM ensures that even at Ultra settings and 4K resolution, the GPU does not run into memory capacity constraints in this game. The measured minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 125 FPS, and at 1440p Medium it is 239 FPS, while at 1080p Medium it is 379 FPS. These minimums suggest that the GPU maintains consistent frame pacing without significant drops, which is important for a roguelike where player reactions matter.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates are 600 FPS at Low settings, 446 FPS at Medium, 383 FPS at High, and 274 FPS at Ultra. The Medium setting row includes a minimum of 379 FPS and a maximum of 513 FPS, providing a range of 134 FPS. This spread indicates some variance in frame times, but the average remains exceptionally high. The progression from Low to Ultra represents a 54.3% reduction in frame rate, showing that even the most demanding settings at 1080p leave substantial performance headroom.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 379 FPS at Low, 281 FPS at Medium, 242 FPS at High, and 173 FPS at Ultra. The Medium setting shows a minimum of 239 FPS and a maximum of 324 FPS. The reduction from Low to Ultra is 54.4%, nearly identical to the 1080p pattern. At this resolution, even Ultra settings produce frame rates well above 144 Hz, making this an excellent pairing for high-refresh-rate 1440p monitors.

At 3840x2160, the averages drop to 198 FPS at Low, 147 FPS at Medium, 126 FPS at High, and 91 FPS at Ultra. The Medium setting has a minimum of 125 FPS and a maximum of 169 FPS. The reduction from Low to Ultra is 54.0%, maintaining the consistent pattern. At 4K Ultra, the 91 FPS average is still above 60 FPS, and even the minimum at Medium (125 FPS) exceeds typical 60 Hz displays. This indicates that the RTX 4080 can handle 4K gaming in Barony at all settings, with Ultra being the only preset that dips below 100 FPS on average.

The data shows a clear pattern: each settings tier at a given resolution reduces frame rate by roughly 20-30% compared to the previous tier. For example, at 1080p, moving from Low to Medium reduces FPS by 25.7%, from Medium to High by 14.1%, and from High to Ultra by 28.5%. At 1440p, these reductions are 25.9%, 13.9%, and 28.5% respectively. At 4K, they are 25.8%, 14.3%, and 27.8%. The consistency of these reductions across resolutions suggests that the settings presets scale uniformly regardless of pixel count.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700G is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture with the Cezanne codename. It operates on the AMD Socket AM4 platform with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU is manufactured on a 7 nm process at TSMC, containing 10,700 million transistors on a die size of 180 mm². Its cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and a total of 16 MB of L3 cache.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 5700G shows strong multi-threaded performance with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 12830.5 and a single-core score of 1494. Its Geekbench results are 9950 for multicore and 1894 for single-core. In 3DMark tests, the CPU scores 6629 with 16 threads, 1758 with 2 threads, 3389 with 4 threads, 5648 with 8 threads, 6627 with max threads, and 899 with a single thread. The PassMark multithread score is 24419, with a single-thread score of 3283.

The CPU's role in Barony is most evident at lower resolutions where frame rates are extremely high. At 1080p Low, the 600 FPS average suggests that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough draw calls to sustain very high frame rates. However, the fact that frame rates do not exceed 600 FPS even at Low settings with a powerful GPU like the RTX 4080 indicates that the CPU may be the limiting factor at this resolution. The 8 cores and 16 threads provide ample parallel processing capability, and the 3.80 GHz base clock with 4.60 GHz boost ensures strong single-threaded performance for game logic.

The memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s from dual-channel DDR4 support is worth noting, as roguelike games often have significant memory access patterns. The CPU also includes integrated Radeon Vega 8 graphics, though in this configuration the discrete RTX 4080 handles all rendering. The 5700G's percentile rank of 79 against all CPUs, combined with its average benchmark score of 27051, places it in a competitive position. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i9-9900K, scores nearly identically at 27097 with a delta of -0.2%, showing that the 5700G is a worthy competitor to Intel's previous-generation flagship despite being an APU with integrated graphics.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend heavily on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1920x1080, all settings presets deliver frame rates well above 240 FPS, with Low at 600 FPS, Medium at 446 FPS, High at 383 FPS, and Ultra at 274 FPS. For players with 144 Hz or 240 Hz monitors, any preset will suffice, but Ultra settings at 274 FPS still provide a smooth experience while maximizing visual quality. The High preset at 383 FPS offers a reasonable balance between visual fidelity and performance headroom.

At 2560x1440, the situation is similar. Low (379 FPS), Medium (281 FPS), High (242 FPS), and Ultra (173 FPS) all exceed 144 Hz, making this resolution ideal for high-refresh-rate gaming. Ultra settings at 173 FPS provide excellent visual quality while remaining well above the 144 Hz threshold. Even the minimum FPS at Medium (239 FPS) is far above typical display refresh rates. For players prioritizing maximum visual fidelity, Ultra is the recommended preset at 1440p.

At 3840x2160, the recommendations become more nuanced. Low (198 FPS) and Medium (147 FPS) both exceed 144 Hz, while High (126 FPS) exceeds 120 Hz, and Ultra (91 FPS) remains above 60 Hz. For 4K displays with 60 Hz refresh rates, all presets are viable, but Ultra at 91 FPS offers the best visual experience without dropping below 60 FPS. For players with 120 Hz or 144 Hz 4K displays, Medium at 147 FPS or High at 126 FPS are the best choices, as they maintain high refresh rates while providing good visual quality. The Medium preset at 4K also has a minimum FPS of 125, ensuring consistent performance without significant drops.

The data suggests that the RTX 4080 handles this roguelike with exceptional ease, and the primary consideration is matching the frame rate to the display's refresh rate. For most scenarios, the High or Ultra presets provide the best experience, as the performance headroom is sufficient to absorb the additional visual detail without compromising smoothness.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Barony?

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 at Ultra settings delivers 173 FPS average, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate displays. At 3840x2160, Ultra delivers 91 FPS average, which is still above 60 FPS but may not fully utilize 120 Hz+ displays.

Q: Can this system run Barony at 4K Ultra settings?

A: Yes, the measured average FPS at 3840x2160 Ultra is 91 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 125 FPS, indicating consistent performance.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 5700G compare to its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The 5700G has an average benchmark score of 27051, which is within 0.6% of the Intel Core i9-9900K (27097, -0.2% delta), AMD Ryzen AI 7 445 (26936, +0.4%), Intel Core i5-14400T (27166, -0.4%), and Intel Core i7-1370P (26900, +0.6%).

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low settings produce 600 FPS average while Ultra produces 274 FPS average, representing a 54.3% reduction in frame rate when moving to Ultra.

Q: Does the RTX 4080 have enough VRAM for this game?

A: The RTX 4080 has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory, which is more than sufficient for Barony at any resolution and settings preset. The measured minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 125 FPS, showing no signs of memory-related performance drops.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested combinations?

A: This CPU+GPU pairing achieves a combo rank of 244 out of 3717 tested combinations in Barony, placing it in the top 6.6% of all tested configs.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: The data suggests the CPU acts as the primary limiter at 1080p, as frame rates reach 600 FPS at Low settings but do not go higher. The GPU's capability is better demonstrated at 4K, where it still delivers 91 FPS at Ultra settings.