Downfall

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Downfall across the three tested resolutions reveal a classic scaling pattern, but with some notable nuances tied to the specific settings preset. Starting at 1920x1080 with the High preset, the system produces an average of 247.5 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440, that figure drops to 180.8 FPS, a reduction of roughly 27%. At 3840x2160, the average falls further to 114.6 FPS, which is about 54% lower than the 1080p result. This scaling indicates that the workload is becoming increasingly GPU-bound as pixel count rises, which is expected given the nature of the rendering pipeline.

The Low preset tells a slightly different story. At 1080p, the average is 283.7 FPS. At 1440p, it drops to 251.6 FPS, and at 4K, it settles at 167.4 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is only about 11%, which is surprisingly small. This suggests that at lower settings, the frame rate is being constrained by something other than raw pixel throughput—likely the CPU's ability to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic updates. The larger drop from 1440p to 4K (about 33%) shows that even at Low settings, the 4K resolution eventually overwhelms the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth.

For the Medium preset, the pattern is more linear. The system delivers 266.3 FPS at 1080p, 222.8 FPS at 1440p, and 136.9 FPS at 4K. The relative drops are roughly 16% and then 39%, respectively. This suggests that Medium settings strike a balance where both CPU and GPU contribute to the bottleneck, but the GPU becomes the dominant limiter as resolution increases.

The Ultra preset shows the steepest scaling curve. At 1080p, the average is 161.1 FPS. At 1440p, it falls to 116.8 FPS, a drop of about 27%. At 4K, it plummets to 70.8 FPS, which is 56% lower than the 1080p result. This steep decline indicates that Ultra settings introduce rendering effects—likely advanced shadows, reflections, and post-processing—that scale heavily with resolution. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the system is firmly GPU-limited, with the frame rate dropping to a level that may not be ideal for high-refresh-rate displays.

Overall, the scaling data suggests that Downfall is well-optimized for high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, but 4K gaming requires careful settings management. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is substantial: 167.4 FPS versus 70.8 FPS, a difference of 96.6 FPS. This wide range gives users significant headroom to tune performance versus visual fidelity.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance on which preset offers the best experience for this hardware combination. At 1920x1080, all four presets deliver playable frame rates, but the High preset stands out as the sweet spot. It produces 247.5 FPS, which is only 36.2 FPS lower than Low (283.7 FPS) but represents a significant visual upgrade over Medium (266.3 FPS) and a massive improvement over Ultra (161.1 FPS). The High preset at 1080p is likely the best choice for competitive play, as it maintains a very high refresh rate while offering improved visual fidelity over the lower presets.

At 2560x1440, the High preset again emerges as the recommended option. It delivers 180.8 FPS, which is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on modern monitors. The Medium preset offers 222.8 FPS, but the visual difference between Medium and High is often more noticeable than the frame rate gap suggests. Ultra drops to 116.8 FPS, which is still playable but may not fully utilize a high-refresh-rate display. Low at 251.6 FPS is technically the fastest, but the reduced visual quality is a poor trade-off for the modest frame rate gain over High.

At 3840x2160, the situation changes. The High preset produces 114.6 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for high-refresh-rate gaming. Medium delivers 136.9 FPS, offering a better balance for 4K. Low at 167.4 FPS is the only preset that comfortably exceeds 144 FPS at this resolution, but it comes with significant visual compromises. Ultra at 70.8 FPS is likely too slow for smooth gameplay on most displays. For 4K users, the Medium preset appears to be the best compromise, providing a solid frame rate while maintaining acceptable visual quality. The data clearly indicates that High is the recommended preset for 1080p and 1440p, while Medium is the pragmatic choice for 4K.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate measured for this system in Downfall?

A: The highest average frame rate is 283.7 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset.

Q: How does the 4K Ultra preset compare to the 1080p Ultra preset?

A: The 4K Ultra preset delivers 70.8 FPS, which is 90.3 FPS lower than the 1080p Ultra result of 161.1 FPS. This represents a 56% reduction in performance.

Q: Is the system more CPU-limited or GPU-limited at 1080p Low settings?

A: The data suggests CPU limitation. The frame rate only drops from 283.7 FPS at 1080p to 251.6 FPS at 1440p, a mere 11% reduction, indicating that the CPU is the bottleneck before the GPU becomes fully saturated.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between the High and Ultra presets at 2560x1440?

A: The High preset averages 180.8 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 116.8 FPS. The difference is 64.0 FPS, with Ultra being approximately 35% slower.

Q: Can the system maintain 60+ FPS at 4K with any settings preset?

A: Yes. All four presets at 3840x2160 exceed 60 FPS. The lowest result is 70.8 FPS at Ultra, and the highest is 167.4 FPS at Low.

Q: How does the 4K Medium preset compare to the 1440p Ultra preset?

A: The 4K Medium preset averages 136.9 FPS, which is 20.1 FPS higher than the 1440p Ultra preset's 116.8 FPS. This suggests that at 4K, the Medium preset offers better performance than Ultra at 1440p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured frame rate data for Downfall with this hardware configuration is presented below, organized by resolution and settings preset.

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 283.7 FPS. The Medium preset delivers 266.3 FPS, which is 17.4 FPS lower. High produces 247.5 FPS, a further drop of 18.8 FPS. Ultra is the slowest at 1080p, with an average of 161.1 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 122.6 FPS, highlighting the significant cost of the highest settings.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 251.6 FPS. Medium follows at 222.8 FPS, a reduction of 28.8 FPS. High delivers 180.8 FPS, which is 42.0 FPS lower than Medium. Ultra drops to 116.8 FPS, a substantial 64.0 FPS gap from High. The total spread at 1440p is 134.8 FPS, wider than at 1080p, indicating that the settings presets have a larger impact at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 167.4 FPS. Medium produces 136.9 FPS, a drop of 30.5 FPS. High averages 114.6 FPS, which is 22.3 FPS lower than Medium. Ultra is the slowest overall at 70.8 FPS, a 43.8 FPS reduction from High. The spread at 4K is 96.6 FPS, narrower than at 1440p, but the absolute frame rates are much lower across the board.

Comparing resolutions for the same preset, the High settings show a clear progression: 247.5 FPS at 1080p, 180.8 FPS at 1440p, and 114.6 FPS at 4K. The Medium preset follows a similar pattern: 266.3, 222.8, and 136.9 FPS. Low starts at 283.7 FPS at 1080p, drops to 251.6 FPS at 1440p, and falls to 167.4 FPS at 4K. Ultra begins at 161.1 FPS at 1080p, drops to 116.8 FPS at 1440p, and bottoms out at 70.8 FPS at 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is the primary driver of the frame rates observed in Downfall. The GPU's 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for handling the texture and geometry data at high resolutions. The 4K results, particularly at Ultra settings, show the GPU being pushed hard: the 70.8 FPS average at 4K Ultra is the lowest measured result, indicating that the GPU's compute and memory subsystems are saturated.

The GPU's clock speeds are modest relative to its performance class: a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2452 MHz. These clocks, combined with 8960 shading units, produce a FP32 throughput of 43.94 TFLOPS. This raw compute power is evident in the high frame rates at 1080p, where the GPU is rarely the bottleneck. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the frame rate is 283.7 FPS, which is likely close to the CPU's limit rather than the GPU's.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it at the 87th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 52086. Its nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, which scores 52085 with a deltaPct of 0. This indicates that the RTX 5070 Ti is essentially performance-equivalent to the RTX 4080 in synthetic benchmarks. In Downfall, this translates to strong 4K performance, though the Ultra preset at 4K remains challenging.

The 16 GB of VRAM is a significant asset for Downfall, especially at 4K resolution. The game's horror setting likely features detailed textures and atmospheric effects that consume memory. The data does not show any signs of VRAM-related stuttering or frame drops, suggesting that 16 GB is sufficient for this title at all tested settings. The memory clock of 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed contributes to the high bandwidth figure, which is well-suited for the demands of 4K rendering.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Comet Lake architecture, built on a 14 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. The CPU's L3 cache is 12 MB shared, and it supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus, providing 42.7 GB/s of memory bandwidth. These specifications position it as a mid-range processor from the 10th generation, with a 73rd percentile ranking among all CPUs.

The CPU's benchmark scores show a mixed picture. In multithreaded workloads like Cinebench R23, it scores 10297, while in single-threaded tests it reaches 1453. The Passmark multithread score is 12115, and the single-thread score is 2541. These scores indicate that the CPU is capable but not exceptional. In Downfall, the CPU's influence is most apparent at lower resolutions and settings, where frame rates are extremely high.

The data shows that at 1080p Low, the frame rate of 283.7 FPS is likely CPU-limited. The drop to 251.6 FPS at 1440p is only 11%, which is unusually small. This suggests that the CPU is the bottleneck in this scenario, as the GPU has enough headroom to handle the increased pixel count without a proportional frame rate drop. At 1080p Medium, the frame rate is 266.3 FPS, and at High it is 247.5 FPS. These figures are all in the same range, further supporting the idea that the CPU is the limiting factor at low resolutions.

The CPU's nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7552 with a deltaPct of 0.4, the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C with -0.8, and the Intel Core i5-8500 with -1.1. These small deltas indicate that the i5-10400F is closely matched with these processors in synthetic benchmarks. In Downfall, the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient to maintain high frame rates, but the data suggests that a stronger CPU might push the 1080p Low result even higher. However, for most users, the frame rates achieved are well beyond what is needed for smooth gameplay, making the CPU a non-issue at 1440p and 4K, where the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck.