The Technomancer

The Technomancer presents a demanding scenario for the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H paired with the AMD Radeon 760M integrated graphics. The measured data across resolutions and settings reveals a configuration that is fundamentally limited by its GPU, making playable frame rates a challenge outside of the lowest settings. The combination ranks near the very bottom of the database, at 2817 out of 2825 tested combos, indicating that this system is not suited for a smooth experience in this Action RPG.

Settings Recommendations

For users of this hardware configuration, the choice of settings is the single most critical factor in achieving a functional frame rate. The data is unambiguous: at 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra settings is a 23 FPS gap, dropping from 48 FPS to 25 FPS. This is a massive performance swing that directly determines playability. The only setting that provides an average frame rate above 30 FPS at the most common resolution is Low, which delivers 48 FPS. This should be the default choice for any user seeking a responsive experience.

Medium settings at 1080p produce an average of 37 FPS, which is playable but with noticeable dips, as the minimum recorded FPS is 32 and the maximum is 43. This provides a smoother visual experience than Low, but the performance headroom is thin. The data shows that the frame rate is not stable, with a 11 FPS variance between minimum and maximum. For users who prioritize visual fidelity over absolute smoothness, Medium is a viable compromise, but it is not recommended for fast-paced combat scenarios where frame drops could be problematic. High settings at 1080p drop the average to 32 FPS, which is right at the edge of playability. The lack of min/max data for this setting suggests a less consistent experience, and the 16 FPS drop from Medium to High is significant for a marginal visual improvement.

The Ultra preset is essentially unplayable at every resolution. At 1080p, it averages only 25 FPS, and at 1440p it falls to 16 FPS. This setting should be avoided entirely. The performance cost of Ultra is disproportionate to its visual gains on this hardware. The 4K results are uniformly poor, with even Low settings only achieving 17 FPS, making any attempt to run the game at this resolution futile. The optimal approach is to use Low settings at 1080p for a consistently playable experience, or Medium if the user can tolerate occasional frame dips. The measured data strongly indicates that this combo is not designed for high-fidelity gaming, and settings must be aggressively lowered to achieve playable performance.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon 760M is the decisive performance bottleneck in this configuration. With a boost clock of 2599 MHz and a base clock of 800 MHz, the GPU has a wide operating range, but its performance class is clearly defined by its benchmark scores. The GPU's average benchmark score is 6019, placing it in the 35th percentile of all GPUs, which is decidedly low-end. This is an integrated graphics processor, and the data confirms its limitations in a demanding title like The Technomancer.

The GPU's memory is "System Shared," meaning it uses a portion of the system's main memory rather than dedicated VRAM. This architecture has a significant impact on performance, as memory bandwidth is "System Dependent." The data shows that this shared memory configuration struggles to feed the GPU's 512 shading units and 16 ROPs effectively. The GPU's FP32 performance is 5.323 TFLOPS, but this theoretical peak is rarely reached in real-world gaming scenarios, as the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of only 400 demonstrates. This low score indicates that the GPU cannot handle modern DirectX 12 workloads efficiently, which is directly relevant to The Technomancer's performance.

The Radeon 760M's nearest rivals in benchmark scores include the AMD Radeon RX 6400 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M, with delta percentage values of 0.3 and 0.3 respectively. This places it in the same performance tier as these older dedicated GPUs. However, unlike those dedicated cards, the 760M has no dedicated VRAM of its own, relying on shared system memory. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 5310 is its best showing, but its DirectX 11 score of 52 and DirectX 12 score of 25 are extremely low, explaining why the game's frame rates are so poor. The GPU is simply not designed for high-end gaming, and its performance in The Technomancer is consistent with its low percentile ranking. The texture rate of 83.17 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 41.58 GPixel/s are theoretical figures that the shared memory system cannot sustain in practice.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a stark and predictable scaling pattern across resolutions. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings, the average FPS drops from 48 to 32, a 33.3% reduction. The same resolution step at High settings sees a drop from 32 FPS to 21 FPS, a 34.4% reduction. This consistent drop of roughly one-third indicates that the GPU is not just fill-rate limited, but also bandwidth limited. When the resolution increases, the demand on the system shared memory increases, and the GPU's performance degrades proportionally.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K is even more severe. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 32 to 17, a 46.9% drop. At Medium settings, it goes from 24 FPS to 13 FPS, a 45.8% reduction. This non-linear scaling is a clear sign that the GPU is completely overwhelmed at 4K. The memory bandwidth, which is "System Dependent," becomes the primary limiting factor. The GPU cannot fetch texture and geometry data fast enough to keep up with the pixel processing demands of 4K resolution. The result is that even the lowest settings are unplayable at 4K, with an average of only 17 FPS.

The pattern across all settings is that the frame rate drops roughly in half from 1080p to 4K. For instance, at High settings, it goes from 32 FPS to 11 FPS, a 65.6% drop. At Ultra, it goes from 25 FPS to 9 FPS, a 64% drop. This indicates that the GPU is the limiting component at every resolution. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see less of a performance drop at higher resolutions, as the CPU's workload remains relatively constant. Instead, the consistent and severe drop with increased resolution confirms that the Radeon 760M's processing power and its shared memory bandwidth are the determining factors. The game is a GPU-bound workload, and this integrated solution simply cannot provide acceptable performance beyond 1080p.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H and the AMD Radeon 760M ranks 2817 out of 2825 tested combos for The Technomancer. This places it in the bottom 0.3% of all systems tested, a position that underscores its fundamental unsuitability for this game. This is not a case of marginal performance issues; the data shows a configuration that is severely underpowered for the task. The rank is a direct consequence of the GPU's low performance, as the CPU is a high-end mobile processor.

The CPU itself, the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, is a capable processor with an average benchmark score of 35670, placing it in the 85th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 and the Intel Core 7 250H, with delta percentages of -0.1 and -0.2 respectively. This shows that the CPU is a strong performer, but it is paired with a GPU that is in the 35th percentile. The massive disparity between the CPU's capability and the GPU's is the root cause of the poor combo ranking.

The combo rank of 2817 out of 2825 is a clear verdict. It indicates that 2824 other combinations of hardware performed better in this game. This rank is a more informative metric than the individual component benchmarks because it reflects the real-world gaming performance of the complete system. The data shows that the GPU's weakness is not offset by the CPU's strength. In a game like The Technomancer, which appears to be heavily GPU-dependent, a strong CPU cannot compensate for a weak graphics solution. The rank effectively tells users that this is one of the worst possible configurations for this game. The 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 400 for the GPU, compared to the CPU's high PassMark scores, highlights the imbalance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H is a 16-core, 22-thread processor based on the Meteor Lake architecture. It has a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. These specifications suggest a processor capable of handling heavy multi-threaded workloads. Its benchmark results confirm this, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 17984.5 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 11657. However, the CPU's role in The Technomancer's performance is secondary to the GPU.

The data from the measured FPS shows that performance scales significantly with resolution. If the CPU were the primary bottleneck, the frame rate would remain relatively stable across resolutions, as the CPU's workload is largely independent of resolution. Instead, we see a dramatic drop from 48 FPS at 1080p Low to 17 FPS at 4K Low. This pattern is characteristic of a GPU bottleneck. The CPU is likely providing the necessary draw calls and game logic without issue, but the GPU cannot render the frames fast enough to utilize the CPU's full potential.

The CPU's single-thread performance is also strong, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1810.5 and a PassMark single-thread score of 3697. This is important for gaming, as many game engines rely heavily on single-core performance for main thread processing. The data suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this configuration. The CPU's L3 cache is 24 MB shared, which is ample for a game like The Technomancer. The processor's memory bandwidth is rated at 89.6 GB/s, but the GPU shares this bandwidth, and the "System Dependent" nature of the GPU's memory means that both components compete for the same resources. The CPU's high performance, evidenced by its 85th percentile ranking, is effectively wasted in this gaming scenario because the GPU cannot keep up. The bottleneck is unequivocally the Radeon 760M.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates for this configuration reveal a consistent and predictable pattern of performance across different settings and resolutions. The data is presented as average FPS, with minimum and maximum values provided for the Medium settings at each resolution.

At 1920x1080, the results are as follows:

• Low: Average 48 FPS. This is the only setting that provides a clearly playable frame rate.
• Medium: Average 37 FPS, with a minimum of 32 FPS and a maximum of 43 FPS. This is playable but with noticeable frame dips.
• High: Average 32 FPS. This is borderline playable, with no min/max data available.
• Ultra: Average 25 FPS. This is not playable for a smooth experience.

At 2560x1440, the performance drops significantly:

• Low: Average 32 FPS. This is the only setting that approaches playability at this resolution.
• Medium: Average 24 FPS, with a minimum of 21 FPS and a maximum of 28 FPS. This is unplayable for most users.
• High: Average 21 FPS. This is not playable.
• Ultra: Average 16 FPS. This is not playable.

At 3840x2160, the performance is critically low:

• Low: Average 17 FPS. This is not playable.
• Medium: Average 13 FPS, with a minimum of 11 FPS and a maximum of 15 FPS. This is not playable.
• High: Average 11 FPS. This is not playable.
• Ultra: Average 9 FPS. This is not playable.

The data shows a clear hierarchy. The 1080p Low setting is the only configuration that yields an average FPS above 40. The 1080p Medium setting is the only other configuration that stays above 30 FPS. Every other combination of resolution and settings falls below 30 FPS, which is often cited as the minimum for a playable experience. The variance in the Medium settings shows that the frame rate is not stable, with a 11 FPS spread at 1080p, a 7 FPS spread at 1440p, and a 4 FPS spread at 4K. This indicates that the GPU is struggling to maintain a consistent frame time, leading to stutter and inconsistent gameplay. The maximum FPS recorded for any setting at any resolution is 48 FPS, which is only achieved at 1080p Low. The minimum FPS recorded is 9 FPS at 4K Ultra. These numbers paint a clear picture of a system that is fundamentally underpowered for The Technomancer, with only the absolute lowest settings at the most common resolution providing a usable experience.