Ready Or Not

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Ready Or Not with the Intel Core i5-9400 and Intel Arc B370 reveal a steep performance curve as resolution climbs. At 1080p High, the combo averages 89 FPS, which drops to 56 FPS at 1440p High, and then collapses to 29 FPS at 4K High. That represents a 37% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a further 48% reduction from 1440p to 4K. This pattern strongly indicates that the integrated-class Arc B370 GPU becomes the dominant limiting factor at higher resolutions, with the scaling curve showing the expected behavior of a component that is running out of fillrate and shading capacity.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings at each resolution confirms this interpretation. At 1080p, the spread from Low (113 FPS) to Ultra (63 FPS) is 50 FPS, showing that the GPU has enough headroom at lower resolutions to respond to settings changes. At 4K, the same spread shrinks to just 16 FPS (37 FPS Low vs. 21 FPS Ultra), meaning the GPU is so saturated at 4K that even dropping to Low settings cannot restore playable performance. The 4K Ultra result of 21 FPS is essentially a slideshow, while 4K Low at 37 FPS remains below the 40 FPS threshold many players would consider minimum acceptable.

The medium preset provides the only fully populated data rows, with min FPS readings of 28 at 4K, 53 at 1440p, and 83 at 1080p. These minimums are telling: at 4K Medium, the 28 FPS minimum is below the average for 4K High (29 FPS), indicating frame-time instability that makes the experience feel worse than the average suggests. At 1440p Medium, the 53 FPS minimum is marginally above the 4K High average, which suggests that 1440p is the practical ceiling for this combination if aiming for consistency.

The limiting component is unambiguously the GPU. The i5-9400 has six cores and six threads with a 4.10 GHz boost clock, which is adequate for feeding a low-end graphics solution in a tactical shooter. The Arc B370, by contrast, is an integrated processor (IGP) with 1280 shading units and a 2400 MHz boost clock, and its benchmark percentile of 5 places it in the bottom tier of all GPUs. The data shows that resolution scaling follows a typical GPU-bound curve: modest losses from 1080p to 1440p, then catastrophic losses from 1440p to 4K as the render target quadruples in pixel count.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Ready Or Not with this hardware?

A: The data indicates 1080p is the only resolution where all presets achieve playable frame rates. At 1080p, even Ultra averages 63 FPS, while Low reaches 113 FPS. At 1440p, only Low (71 FPS) and Medium (62 FPS) stay above 60 FPS, and at 4K no preset reaches 40 FPS.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p?

A: At High settings, the average drops from 89 FPS at 1080p to 56 FPS at 1440p, a 37% reduction. At Low settings, the drop is from 113 FPS to 71 FPS, a 37% reduction as well. The consistent percentage loss across presets confirms a GPU-bound scenario.

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-9400 bottlenecking the system in this game?

A: No. The i5-9400 has six cores and six threads with a 4.10 GHz boost clock, and its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 6629 places it in the 47th percentile of all CPUs. Given that the Arc B370 sits in the 5th percentile of GPUs, the CPU has ample headroom relative to the graphics solution.

Q: Can this system run Ready Or Not at 4K?

A: Technically yes, but not comfortably. The best 4K result is Low settings at 37 FPS average, with Medium at 32 FPS and a 28 FPS minimum. All 4K presets fall below the 60 FPS target, and even the 40 FPS threshold is only barely crossed at Low.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: The gap is 50 FPS: Low averages 113 FPS while Ultra averages 63 FPS. This suggests that Ultra settings cost roughly 44% of the Low setting's frame rate, which is a significant penalty for visual improvements in this title.

Q: How does this combo rank among tested configurations?

A: The combination ranks 2710 out of 2947 tested combos for Ready Or Not, placing it in the bottom 8% of all tested systems. This aligns with the GPU's 5th percentile ranking and the CPU's 47th percentile ranking.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 provides six physical cores and six threads, operating at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. This Coffee Lake architecture processor has 9 MB of shared L3 cache and 256 KB of L2 cache per core, with a 65W TDP. In synthetic benchmarks, the chip scores 935 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 6629 in multi-core, placing it at the 47th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 (0.2% slower), the Intel Core i7-10710U (0.3% faster), and the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 (0.4% faster), indicating the i5-9400 is positioned squarely in the mid-range of desktop processors.

In Ready Or Not specifically, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU. The evidence is the resolution scaling pattern: if the CPU were the bottleneck, frame rates would remain relatively flat across resolutions because the same number of draw calls would be required. Instead, the data shows a 24 FPS drop from 1080p High to 1440p High, and a further 27 FPS drop to 4K High. This scaling is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario where the CPU is feeding frames faster than the graphics solution can render them.

The i5-9400's six threads are sufficient for a tactical shooter like Ready Or Not, which typically relies on fewer heavily-threaded tasks rather than massive parallel workloads. The 4.10 GHz boost clock provides strong single-thread performance for game logic and AI updates, which are often single-thread bound in this genre. The CPU's Cinebench R15 single-core score of 94 and multi-core score of 668 further contextualize its capability relative to the GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 1184, which sits at the 5th percentile.

However, the CPU is not entirely without limitations. Its 42.7 GB/s memory bandwidth on dual-channel DDR4 could constrain data-heavy scenarios, and the lack of hyper-threading means six threads must handle all background tasks alongside the game. Yet, given that the GPU's average 3DMark score places it near the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (0.5% slower) and the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (0.2% faster), the i5-9400's performance is unlikely to be the primary constraint in any measured configuration.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1080p: The full settings range is playable. Low averages 113 FPS, Medium averages 98 FPS with a minimum of 83 FPS and maximum of 113 FPS, High averages 89 FPS, and Ultra averages 63 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 83 FPS indicates that even in demanding scenes, the system stays well above the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra at 63 FPS average is the only preset that approaches the 60 FPS line but does not cross it, suggesting that Ultra may occasionally dip below 60 FPS in heavy combat sequences.

1440p: Performance degrades noticeably but remains viable for lower presets. Low averages 71 FPS, Medium averages 62 FPS with a minimum of 53 FPS and maximum of 71 FPS, High averages 56 FPS, and Ultra averages 40 FPS. The Medium preset's 53 FPS minimum is the key data point here: it shows that even Medium can drop below 60 FPS during intense moments, while High and Ultra will consistently sit below the 60 FPS mark. Ultra at exactly 40 FPS average is borderline for playable, depending on user tolerance.

4K: The system is not capable of smooth gameplay at this resolution. Low averages 37 FPS, Medium averages 32 FPS with a minimum of 28 FPS and maximum of 37 FPS, High averages 29 FPS, and Ultra averages 21 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 28 FPS is below the Low average, indicating significant frame-time variance. Even the best case, Low at 37 FPS, is below the 40 FPS minimum that many players consider acceptable for a tactical shooter where quick reaction times matter.

The data reveals that the step from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 37% of the average FPS across all presets, while the step from 1440p to 4K costs an additional 48% on average. This compounding loss means that 4K performance is roughly one-third of 1080p performance for the same preset. For example, High settings yield 89 FPS at 1080p, 56 FPS at 1440p, and 29 FPS at 4K — a 67% total reduction from 1080p to 4K.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is an integrated graphics processor (IGP) based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, fabricated on a 3 nm process. It features 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, 20 raster output units, and 10 ray tracing cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 300 MHz and boosts to 2400 MHz, with a TDP of just 25W. Memory is system shared with bandwidth that is system dependent, which means the GPU relies on the i5-9400's dual-channel DDR4 at 42.7 GB/s.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Arc B370 scores 1184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, placing it at the 5th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (0.2% faster), the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (0.5% faster), and the AMD Radeon HD 7650M (0.7% faster). This places the Arc B370 in the same performance class as graphics cards from the early 2010s, which is a critical context for interpreting the Ready Or Not results.

The GPU's role in this game is the primary determinant of performance. The measured FPS data shows that the Arc B370 is only capable of delivering 60+ FPS at 1080p with Low or Medium presets, and it achieves 89 FPS at High and 63 FPS at Ultra. At 1440p, only Low (71 FPS) and Medium (62 FPS) cross the 60 FPS threshold. At 4K, no preset reaches 40 FPS. This performance profile is consistent with a GPU that has limited shading throughput (6.144 TFLOPS FP32) and a modest pixel rate of 48 GPixel/s.

The 20 ROPs are a significant constraint at higher resolutions. At 4K, the pixel count is over 8.3 million, and the Arc B370's 48 GPixel/s pixel rate translates to a theoretical maximum of about 5.8 FPS just for fillrate — though the actual results are higher because not all pixels require full processing. Still, the 4K results of 21-37 FPS suggest that the GPU is heavily fillrate-limited at this resolution. The 40 TMUs and 96 GTexel/s texture rate also limit how quickly textures can be sampled, which is likely a factor in the steep drop from Medium to Ultra settings.

The GPU's low 25W TDP indicates that it is designed for power efficiency rather than raw performance, and the system shared memory architecture adds latency compared to dedicated VRAM. This combination makes the Arc B370 fundamentally unsuited for high-resolution gaming in Ready Or Not, as the data clearly demonstrates.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal preset for this hardware depends on the target resolution and the user's tolerance for frame rate dips.

At 1080p, the recommended preset is High, which averages 89 FPS. This provides a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold while offering better visual quality than Medium (98 FPS) or Low (113 FPS). The 24 FPS difference between High and Ultra (63 FPS) is not worth the visual upgrade, as Ultra risks dipping below 60 FPS in demanding scenes. For players who prioritize maximum smoothness, Medium at 98 FPS with an 83 FPS minimum is the safest choice, but High delivers the best balance of performance and visual fidelity.

At 1440p, the recommended preset is Medium, which averages 62 FPS with a 53 FPS minimum. This is the only preset at this resolution that maintains an average above 60 FPS, though the minimum does fall below that threshold. Low averages 71 FPS and would be preferable for competitive play, but Medium offers significantly better visuals at a cost of 9 FPS average. High at 56 FPS and Ultra at 40 FPS are not recommended, as they fall below the 60 FPS target and Ultra is borderline unplayable.

At 4K, no preset is recommended for a satisfactory experience. The best option, Low at 37 FPS, is below the 40 FPS threshold that most players would consider the absolute minimum for a tactical shooter. Medium at 32 FPS and High at 29 FPS are progressively worse, and Ultra at 21 FPS is effectively unplayable. Users should either lower the resolution to 1440p or accept that the game will not run smoothly at 4K with this hardware.

For the overall best experience, the data suggests 1080p Medium as the default recommendation, as it provides a 98 FPS average with an 83 FPS minimum, ensuring consistent frame delivery without any drops near the 60 FPS line. If visual quality is a priority and the user can tolerate occasional dips, 1080p High at 89 FPS is a strong alternative. The combination of the i5-9400's six-core processing and the Arc B370's limited graphics capability means that the system is best suited for 1080p gaming in Ready Or Not, with 1440p viable only at Low or Medium settings.