Evolve

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Evolve shows a steep, consistent performance drop as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 64.4 FPS at 1080p to 38.4 FPS at 1440p, then to 24.2 FPS at 4K. This represents a 40% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and another 37% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The scaling pattern suggests that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the frame rate declines are proportionally larger than what would be expected from pixel count increases alone.

The Medium settings row shows a similar trajectory: 47.6 FPS at 1080p, 32.9 FPS at 1440p, and 18.5 FPS at 4K. The step from Medium to High at each resolution is modest — for instance, at 1440p, High produces 27.5 FPS versus 32.9 FPS for Medium, a difference of 5.4 FPS. This relatively narrow gap between Medium and High, compared to the much larger gap between Low and Medium, indicates that the GPU is being saturated by the higher preset levels regardless of resolution.

Ultra settings present the most severe scaling. At 4K, Ultra averages just 8.5 FPS, which is barely playable for any genre. The drop from 1440p Ultra (15.8 FPS) to 4K Ultra (8.5 FPS) is a 46% reduction, the steepest relative decline in the entire dataset. This suggests that Ultra settings introduce rendering features that disproportionately tax the GPU's limited resources at high pixel counts.

The overall pattern points to a system where the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is the bottleneck at every resolution above 1080p. The CPU, with its 4 cores and 8 threads, is unlikely to be the limiting factor at 4K given that the frame rates collapse to single digits — a symptom of GPU-bound rendering. At 1080p Low, the 64.4 FPS result approaches the range where CPU overhead might begin to matter, but the data does not show any signs of a CPU-imposed ceiling at this resolution.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal experience for this combination of Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti depends heavily on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 64.4 FPS, which is the only configuration in the entire dataset that exceeds 60 FPS. This makes Low the clear choice for smooth gameplay at 1080p. Medium at 1080p produces 47.6 FPS, which is acceptable for many players but leaves a 16.8 FPS margin on the table compared to Low.

High at 1080p yields 38.2 FPS, while Ultra drops to 28.4 FPS. The data indicates that the jump from Medium to High costs 9.4 FPS, and the jump from High to Ultra costs another 9.8 FPS. These incremental penalties are significant enough that players seeking consistent frame pacing should favor Medium or Low at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, no preset achieves 40 FPS. Low is the only option above 38 FPS, with 38.4 FPS. Medium trails at 32.9 FPS, and High falls to 27.5 FPS. Ultra at 1440p is the least viable option at 15.8 FPS. For 1440p gaming, Low is the only recommendation that approaches playability, and even that is marginal.

At 3840x2160, the data shows no viable settings. Low produces 24.2 FPS, Medium 18.5 FPS, High 12.5 FPS, and Ultra 8.5 FPS. None of these reach the 30 FPS threshold commonly associated with acceptable playability. The recommendation is to avoid 4K entirely with this hardware combination, as the GPU's 4 GB of GDDR5 memory and 112.1 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for Evolve at this resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor from the Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. Its base clock is 3.30 GHz with a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports dual-channel DDR4 and DDR5 memory, though the game's performance is not likely to be memory-bandwidth-bound given the GPU bottleneck.

Synthetic benchmarks place this CPU in the 72nd percentile of all tested processors. Its multi-threaded performance is respectable: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 11912, and Geekbench multicore reaches 7413. Single-thread performance is strong as well, with Cinebench R23 single-core at 1681 and Geekbench single-core at 2224. The 3DMark results show scalability from 1659 with 2 threads to 4023 with max threads, indicating that the 4-core/8-thread configuration handles thread scaling efficiently.

In Evolve, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU. At 1080p Low, the frame rate of 64.4 FPS suggests the CPU can feed the GPU adequately at this setting. However, at higher resolutions and settings, the frame rates are so low that the CPU is unlikely to be the constraint. The nearest rival comparisons show this CPU within 1.8% of the Intel Core i7-7700K and 0.6% of the Intel Core i3-10105 in average benchmark score, indicating it competes well with older and newer parts in its class.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti ranks 1675 out of 1695 tested combos in Evolve. This places it in the bottom 1.2% of all combinations tested — a position that reflects the GPU's limitations more than the CPU's capabilities. The GPU ranks in the 30th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 5316, while the CPU sits in the 72nd percentile.

The disparity between CPU and GPU percentiles is striking. The CPU is well above average, but the GPU is firmly below average. This mismatch means the system is heavily GPU-bound in most scenarios. The GPU's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce 930A (0% delta), the NVIDIA GeForce 940M (0.4% delta), the AMD Radeon R7 240 (0.7% delta), and the AMD Radeon R7 M445 (-0.8% delta). These are all entry-level or mobile-class parts, confirming that the GTX 1050 Ti is among the weakest desktop GPUs in the current benchmark database.

The combo rank of 1675 out of 1695 suggests that nearly every other tested combination delivers better performance in Evolve. This is consistent with the measured FPS data, which shows the system struggling to maintain playable frame rates at 1440p and 4K. The CPU's high percentile ranking does little to compensate for the GPU's low ranking when the game is render-bound.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is built on the Pascal architecture using a 14 nm process from Samsung. The GP107 chip contains 3,300 million transistors on a 132 mm² die. The GPU has 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. Its base clock is 1291 MHz with a boost clock of 1392 MHz, and memory runs at 1752 MHz (7 Gbps effective) across a 128-bit bus, yielding 112.1 GB/s of bandwidth.

The GPU's 4 GB of GDDR5 memory is a critical constraint in Evolve, particularly at higher resolutions and settings. The measured FPS data shows that Ultra settings at 4K produce only 8.5 FPS, and even Low at 4K is limited to 24.2 FPS. The memory capacity and bandwidth are insufficient for the texture and geometry demands of 4K rendering.

Compute performance is modest: FP32 throughput is 2.138 TFLOPS, with a pixel rate of 44.54 GPixel/s and texture rate of 66.82 GTexel/s. The GPU supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. In synthetic benchmarks, the GPU scores 6340 in Passmark G3D and 2652 in Passmark GPU Compute, with a DirectX 11 score of 45 and DirectX 12 score of 26. These numbers reflect the GPU's position in the 30th percentile of all GPUs.

The GPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score are all within 0.8% of its performance: the NVIDIA GeForce 930A (0% delta), NVIDIA GeForce 940M (0.4% delta), AMD Radeon R7 240 (0.7% delta), and AMD Radeon R7 M445 (-0.8% delta). This clustering reinforces that the GTX 1050 Ti sits at the bottom of desktop GPU performance tiers. In Evolve, this translates to a GPU that can only deliver smooth gameplay at 1080p with Low settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings range was tested. Low settings produce an average of 64.4 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the entire dataset. Medium settings average 47.6 FPS, High settings average 38.2 FPS, and Ultra settings average 28.4 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a consistent decline of roughly 9-10 FPS per settings tier, except for the Low-to-Medium step which costs 16.8 FPS.

At 2560x1440, Low settings average 38.4 FPS, Medium averages 32.9 FPS, High averages 27.5 FPS, and Ultra averages 15.8 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra at 1440p is 11.7 FPS, the largest single-tier drop at this resolution. This suggests that Ultra introduces a specific rendering feature that heavily impacts the GPU at 1440p.

At 3840x2160, Low settings average 24.2 FPS, Medium averages 18.5 FPS, High averages 12.5 FPS, and Ultra averages 8.5 FPS. The entire 4K row is below 30 FPS, with the best case (Low) still 5.8 FPS short of that threshold. The Ultra result of 8.5 FPS is the worst measured value in the dataset, indicating that this combination is not suited for 4K gaming in Evolve.

Comparing across resolutions, the 1080p Low result of 64.4 FPS is the only data point that meets or exceeds common 60 FPS targets. At 1440p, the best result is 38.4 FPS (Low), and at 4K the best is 24.2 FPS (Low). The data shows that each resolution step down from 1080p incurs a substantial penalty, and that settings reductions cannot fully compensate for the GPU's lack of raw performance at higher pixel counts.