The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents an interesting test for modern hardware. The data for the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT shows a combination that is more than capable of handling the game at high frame rates, but the optimal settings depend heavily on your display's resolution. The measured results across three resolutions and four quality presets provide a clear picture of where this hardware excels and where it begins to strain.

Settings Recommendations

For the best overall experience, the High preset is the clear sweet spot for this hardware combination. At 1920x1080, High settings deliver an average of 153.7 FPS, which is exceptionally smooth. Moving up to 2560x1440, the average drops to 97.4 FPS, still ideal for high-refresh-rate gaming. Even at 3840x2160, High settings maintain a playable 55.8 FPS average. This preset offers a substantial visual upgrade over Medium while avoiding the significant performance penalty of Ultra.

The Ultra preset is the most demanding and shows a substantial cost for the extra visual fidelity. At 1080p, Ultra delivers 120.7 FPS, which is still very playable but represents a 33 FPS drop from High. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 77.4 FPS, which is fine for 60Hz displays but less ideal for competitive play on 144Hz monitors. At 4K, Ultra becomes the only setting that dips below 60 FPS, averaging just 44.8 FPS, which makes it a poor choice for that resolution.

The Medium preset is a solid fallback if you want higher frame rates and are less concerned with visual quality. It delivers 182 FPS at 1080p and 118.2 FPS at 1440p, both excellent numbers. However, given the performance headroom at these resolutions with High settings, there is little reason to compromise on visuals. The Low preset provides the highest possible frame rates—232.8 FPS at 1080p and 149 FPS at 1440p—but is best reserved for competitive scenarios where maximum responsiveness is paramount, as the visual downgrade is severe.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture. Its performance profile is robust, with benchmarks like Cinebench R23 showing a multicore score of 46438 and a single-core score of 6555. This strong single-threaded performance is crucial for older games like The Technomancer, which often rely heavily on a few cores. The data indicates the CPU is not a bottleneck in this pairing, as even at lower resolutions and settings, the frame rates scale dramatically, showing the GPU is the primary limiting factor.

The CPU's high boost clock of 5.60 GHz and substantial L3 cache of 64 MB ensure it can feed the Radeon RX 9070 XT with data quickly. Its benchmark percentile is 94, meaning it outperforms most CPUs on the market, and its average benchmark score of 54450 places it in a tight grouping with rivals like the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D, which has a near-identical average score of 54681, just 0.4% higher. The Intel Core i7-14700F is only 0.7% behind. In the context of The Technomancer, the CPU's capabilities are more than sufficient, and the game's performance is dictated by the graphics settings and resolution rather than the processor.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K clearly demonstrates the growing load on the GPU. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 153.7 FPS at 1920x1080 to 97.4 FPS at 2560x1440, a 36.6% reduction. Moving to 3840x2160, the frame rate falls to 55.8 FPS, a further 42.7% drop from the 1440p figure. This pattern of steep declines with each resolution increase is the classic signature of a GPU-bound scenario.

This behavior is consistent across all presets. At Low settings, the game runs at 232.8 FPS at 1080p but drops to 83.2 FPS at 4K. At Ultra settings, the frame rate plummets from 120.7 FPS at 1080p to 44.8 FPS at 4K. The fact that even at Low settings and 1080p the frame rate does not exceed 233 FPS suggests there is some other limit, possibly a game engine cap or a CPU limitation at extremely high frame rates, but the overall trend is unmistakable: the game is heavily reliant on the GPU as resolution increases. The 4K resolution stresses the RX 9070 XT to its limits, especially with the Ultra preset.

FAQ

Q: Can this hardware run The Technomancer at 4K with the Ultra preset?

A: It can, but not at a consistently smooth frame rate. The measured average is 44.8 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target most players prefer for a comfortable experience.

Q: What is the best setting to use for a 1440p monitor with a 144Hz refresh rate?

A: The High preset is the best option. It delivers an average of 97.4 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS baseline and provides a smooth experience, though it won't fully saturate a 144Hz display. The Ultra preset would be a compromise, averaging 77.4 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rivals in general compute performance?

A: The Ryzen 9 9900X has an average benchmark score of 54450. This is 0.4% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D's score of 54681, and 0.7% higher than the Intel Core i7-14700F's score of 54097. It is also 1.5% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K.

Q: Is there a big performance difference between the Medium and High presets?

A: Yes, but it's not uniform. At 1080p, High is 28.3 FPS slower than Medium (153.7 vs 182). At 1440p, the gap is 20.8 FPS (97.4 vs 118.2). At 4K, the gap narrows to 6.3 FPS (55.8 vs 62.1), showing that at higher resolutions the GPU is the limiting factor.

Q: What kind of frame rate can I expect if I want the absolute highest FPS at 1080p?

A: Using the Low preset will provide the highest measured average frame rate at 232.8 FPS. This comes at the cost of visual quality but maximizes performance.

Q: Does the GPU have enough VRAM for this game?

A: Yes. The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT comes equipped with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, which is more than sufficient for a title from 2016, even at 4K resolution with the Ultra preset.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the primary driver of performance in The Technomancer. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s, which is ample for this game. The GPU's high boost clock of 2970 MHz and game clock of 2400 MHz allow it to push high frame rates at lower resolutions. Its benchmark scores reflect a strong mid-to-high-range performer, with a Passmark G3D score of 26795 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 7260.

The GPU's percentile rank of 82 shows it outperforms the majority of graphics cards. Its average benchmark score of 39647 is nearly identical to its nearest rivals, such as the AMD Radeon Pro 575 (39703, 0.1% lower) and the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile (39568, 0.2% higher). The performance scaling in The Technomancer is almost entirely dictated by the GPU's workload, as evidenced by the significant frame rate drops when increasing resolution. The GPU is the clear bottleneck at 4K, where even the High preset struggles to maintain 60 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to an average of 44.8 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following table details the exact measured average frame rates for each resolution and settings combination.

| Resolution | Settings | Avg FPS |

| :--------- | :------- | ------: |

| 1920x1080 | Low | 232.8 |

| 1920x1080 | Medium | 182.0 |

| 1920x1080 | High | 153.7 |

| 1920x1080 | Ultra | 120.7 |

| 2560x1440 | Low | 149.0 |

| 2560x1440 | Medium | 118.2 |

| 2560x1440 | High | 97.4 |

| 2560x1440 | Ultra | 77.4 |

| 3840x2160 | Low | 83.2 |

| 3840x2160 | Medium | 62.1 |

| 3840x2160 | High | 55.8 |

| 3840x2160 | Ultra | 44.8 |

The data shows a clear hierarchy: performance degrades predictably as both resolution and visual quality increase. At 1080p, all presets are highly playable, with even Ultra averaging 120.7 FPS. At 1440p, Low and Medium presets remain excellent for high-refresh displays, while High and Ultra are best suited for 60Hz monitors. At 4K, only the Low preset provides a frame rate above 60 FPS, and the Ultra preset is the only configuration that falls below 50 FPS, making it the least viable option in the measured set. This combination is a powerful pairing for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but 4K requires a significant compromise in settings.