The Technomancer

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for The Technomancer with this Intel Core i7-13700K and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti combination reveals a stark reality about where the bottleneck lies. Moving from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 at High settings, the average frame rate collapses from 38.1 FPS to 16.2 FPS, a reduction of roughly 58%. This dramatic drop is a textbook indicator that the GPU is the limiting component, as resolution scaling directly taxes the rasterization and memory bandwidth pipeline.

At 2560x1440, the High preset yields 21 FPS, which sits nearly halfway between the 1080p and 4K figures. The pattern is consistent across settings presets. Low settings at 1440p produce 39.1 FPS, while the same preset at 1080p reaches 58 FPS. The gap between 1440p and 1080p at Low is about 19 FPS, whereas the gap between 4K and 1440p at Low is roughly 23 FPS. This suggests that even at the lowest graphical load, the GPU's 4 GB frame buffer and 112.1 GB/s memory bandwidth are severely strained when pixel count increases.

What is particularly telling is the behavior at 4K. At 3840x2160, the difference between Low (16.4 FPS) and High (16.2 FPS) is negligible, while Medium (12.4 FPS) and Ultra (11.5 FPS) actually perform worse. When a change from Low to High produces no measurable improvement in frame rate, it indicates the GPU is saturated at the pixel level, not the shading level. The 4K results are all below 17 FPS, meaning none of the settings presets are playable at this resolution. The data strongly suggests that any attempt to run The Technomancer at 4K with this combo will be a slideshow regardless of quality settings, pointing to the 128-bit memory interface and 4 GB VRAM as fundamental constraints.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Core i7-13700K and GTX 1050 Ti ranks 1631 out of 1656 tested combos in The Technomancer, placing it in the bottom 1.5% of all configurations. This is an exceptionally poor showing, and the data makes clear why. The CPU itself is a top-tier processor — its average benchmark score of 47282 puts it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 39000 and a single-core score of 5505. The nearest CPU rivals include the Intel Core i7-13700KF (deltaPct -0.1), AMD EPYC 4364P (deltaPct 0.3), and Intel Core i9-12900F (deltaPct 0.4), all of which are within a fraction of a percent in average score.

The GPU, however, tells a completely different story. The GTX 1050 Ti has an average benchmark score of 5316, placing it in the 30th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce 930A (deltaPct 0), NVIDIA GeForce 940M (deltaPct 0.4), and AMD Radeon R7 240 (deltaPct 0.7) — all low-end or mobile-class parts. The deltaPct values among these GPU rivals are tiny, confirming that the GTX 1050 Ti sits at the very bottom of the desktop GPU hierarchy. The combination of an elite CPU with an entry-level GPU creates a massive imbalance, and the game's performance reflects the GPU's limitations almost exclusively. The rank of 1631 out of 1656 is a direct consequence of this pairing, where the processor's potential is entirely wasted by the graphics card's inability to feed frames at any reasonable rate.

Settings Recommendations

Examining the measured rows, the only configuration that approaches a playable frame rate is 1920x1080 with Low settings, which delivers 58 FPS. This is the sole measured point above 50 FPS. At 1080p Medium, the average drops to 43.8 FPS, which is borderline but workable for slower-paced action RPG gameplay. High at 1080p yields 38.1 FPS, while Ultra falls to 25.8 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth motion.

At 2560x1440, no preset achieves even 40 FPS. Low produces 39.1 FPS, Medium 30.4 FPS, High 21 FPS, and Ultra 18.3 FPS. The data indicates that 1440p should be avoided unless the user accepts Low settings and tolerates frame rates in the high 30s. At 4K, all presets are below 17 FPS, making the resolution effectively unusable for this game.

The pragmatic recommendation based strictly on the measured data is to run at 1920x1080 with Low settings for the best experience, as it is the only preset/resolution combination that maintains a consistent 58 FPS average. If visual quality is prioritized over frame rate, 1080p Medium at 43.8 FPS offers a reasonable compromise, but the drop from Low to Medium (about 14 FPS) is steep relative to the modest visual gains typical of that step. The jump from Medium to High at 1080p costs another 5.7 FPS, and the jump to Ultra costs an additional 12.3 FPS, making Ultra clearly the worst value in terms of frame rate per setting level.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings was measured. Low settings produce an average of 58 FPS, which is the highest figure recorded across any resolution or preset in the entire dataset. Medium drops to 43.8 FPS, High to 38.1 FPS, and Ultra to 25.8 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 32.2 FPS, indicating that settings have a substantial impact at this resolution, but even the best case barely clears 60 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers shift downward significantly. Low settings average 39.1 FPS, Medium 30.4 FPS, High 21 FPS, and Ultra 18.3 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra here is 20.8 FPS, a smaller absolute range than at 1080p, which suggests the GPU is beginning to hit a wall where even lowering settings cannot compensate for the increased pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the data becomes erratic in a revealing way. Low averages 16.4 FPS, High 16.2 FPS, Medium 12.4 FPS, and Ultra 11.5 FPS. The fact that Low and High are nearly identical (within 0.2 FPS) while Medium and Ultra are both lower is unusual. This non-monotonic behavior — where High outperforms Medium — indicates that the GPU is so overtaxed that settings changes have unpredictable effects, likely due to memory allocation patterns and driver-level optimizations that vary with the preset. The total spread at 4K is only 4.9 FPS from best to worst, confirming that resolution is the dominant factor and settings are nearly irrelevant at this level.

GPU Role

The GTX 1050 Ti is the clear performance ceiling for this combination. Its memory configuration consists of 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 112.1 GB/s. The GPU has 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. Its base clock is 1291 MHz with a boost of 1392 MHz, and memory runs at 1752 MHz (7 Gbps effective). These specifications place it firmly in the entry-level segment, and the benchmark data reflects this: the PassMark G3D score is 6340, while the DirectX 12 score is a meager 26.

The game's performance characteristics align closely with the GPU's known limitations. The 4 GB VRAM is particularly problematic for a 2016 action RPG like The Technomancer, which was released on 2016-06-27, just months before the GTX 1050 Ti launched on 2016-10-24. At 4K, the frame buffer is likely exhausted, causing texture thrashing that explains why High and Low produce nearly identical results — both are limited by memory capacity rather than shader throughput. The 128-bit memory bus further constrains performance at higher resolutions, as the bandwidth cannot keep pace with the increased pixel fill rate demand.

The GPU's compute performance is also weak, with a FP32 throughput of 2.138 TFLOPS and a PassMark GPU compute score of 2652. For a title that may use compute shaders for post-processing effects, this limits the ability to maintain frame rates even at lower settings. The pixel rate of 44.54 GPixel/s and texture rate of 66.82 GTexel/s are modest figures that directly cap the resolution at which the card can operate smoothly. In practical terms, the data shows the GPU's role is decisive: no matter how powerful the Core i7-13700K is (16 cores, 24 threads, boost clock of 5.40 GHz), it cannot compensate for the graphics card's fundamental hardware boundaries.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this hardware in The Technomancer?

A: The only configuration that achieves a playable frame rate is 1920x1080 with Low settings, which averages 58 FPS. The next best option is 1080p Medium at 43.8 FPS, but any resolution above 1080p results in frame rates below 40 FPS even at Low settings.

Q: Why does the game perform so poorly despite having a high-end CPU?

A: The Intel Core i7-13700K ranks in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 47282, but the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti ranks in only the 30th percentile with an average score of 5316. The GPU is the limiting component, and its 4 GB VRAM and 112.1 GB/s bandwidth cannot handle the game's demands at higher resolutions.

Q: Is 4K playable with any settings preset?

A: No. At 3840x2160, the highest average FPS recorded is 16.4 FPS on Low settings, with High at 16.2 FPS, Medium at 12.4 FPS, and Ultra at 11.5 FPS. All 4K results are far below playable thresholds.

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

A: This combination ranks 1631 out of 1656 tested combos in The Technomancer, placing it in the bottom 1.5% of all configurations. This is primarily due to the GPU's low benchmark scores relative to its peers.

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

A: At 1920x1080, Low settings average 58 FPS while Ultra averages 25.8 FPS, a difference of 32.2 FPS. The settings presets scale roughly linearly at this resolution, with Medium at 43.8 FPS and High at 38.1 FPS.

Q: Does changing settings have any effect at 4K resolution?

A: The effect is minimal and non-monotonic. At 3840x2160, Low (16.4 FPS) and High (16.2 FPS) are nearly identical, while Medium (12.4 FPS) and Ultra (11.5 FPS) are actually lower. The total spread across all presets is only 4.9 FPS, indicating the GPU is saturated by resolution alone.