Glossary
The terms used in this knowledge base, each with the article that explains it and the source that backs it.
B
- Ballistics
- Microsoft's name for pointer acceleration: the same hand movement travels a different distance depending on how fast you make it. It is not applied to raw data.
- Explained in:Why your mouse feels different in games
- Bottleneck
- The single part that limits the whole system. When it sits idle waiting for another part, the game shows fewer frames per second.
- Explained in:Does a pricier CPU automatically mean more FPS?Does dust actually slow down your PC?
C
- CPU-bound and GPU-bound
- Which of the two sides is currently setting the pace. A lower resolution frees up graphics resources and shifts the limit towards the CPU.
- Explained in:Does a pricier CPU automatically mean more FPS?
E
- Echo request
- The message behind ping, standardised in 1981 in RFC 792. The other side must return the received data in its reply, which is why ping measures the full round trip.
- Explained in:The standards behind your ping
J
- JESD218
- The JEDEC standard that governs SSD endurance testing. Samsung states in its datasheet that the TBW figure comes from this procedure.
- Explained in:Do SSDs really wear out after a few years?
R
- Raw input
- The path a game uses to read the mouse straight from the device, without desktop acceleration. At up to a thousand reports per second, several are collected in one batch.
- Explained in:Why your mouse feels different in games
S
- Sensor access
- Some hardware sensors can only be read with administrator privileges. That is why temperature tools ask for elevation at startup.
- Explained in:Does Task Manager show your CPU temperature?
- System latency
- The time between your input and the finished picture on screen. Higher frame rates generally correlate with lower latency, though far from one to one.
- Explained in:Are frames beyond your monitor's refresh rate wasted?
T
- Task Manager
- The built-in Windows tool for processes, load, clock speed and memory. It does not show a CPU temperature.
- Explained in:Does Task Manager show your CPU temperature?
- TBW
- Terabytes written: the amount of data a manufacturer rates an SSD for. For the Samsung 990 PRO that is 600 terabytes on the one terabyte model.
- Explained in:Do SSDs really wear out after a few years?
- Thermal throttling
- The driver lowers the clock speed once the GPU reaches a temperature threshold, around 85 degrees Celsius for most cards. It is a protection mechanism, not a defect.
- Explained in:Does dust actually slow down your PC?Does Task Manager show your CPU temperature?
- Three-way handshake
- The TCP connection setup of request, acknowledgement with counter-request, and acknowledgement. It costs at least one full round trip before any payload flows.
- Explained in:The standards behind your ping
U
- UDP
- A transport protocol that, by its own standard, guarantees neither delivery nor protection against duplicates. For player positions that is exactly the right trade.
- Explained in:The standards behind your ping
V
- Variable refresh rate
- The monitor matches its refresh rate to the graphics card's frame rate, known as FreeSync or G-Sync. The result is a tear-free and flicker-free picture.
- Explained in:Are frames beyond your monitor's refresh rate wasted?