Gaming glossary: the words behind the numbers

A short reference for the terms used across this portal, written so that a reader meeting them for the first time can keep going without leaving the page.

Storage and size

Footprint. The total room a title occupies on a device once all its data, updates and optional packs are present. It is usually larger than the figure on a store page.

Headroom. The margin deliberately kept available on a drive so that patches, caches and temporary working copies have somewhere to go. We recommend ten to fifteen percent.

Asset. Any stored resource a title uses while it plays, such as an image, a sound, a model or a data table. The collection of assets is what occupies most of a footprint.

Shader cache. A store of previously compiled graphics fragments that avoids repeating work. It is rebuilt when drivers or a title change, which temporarily increases the figure on disk.

Compression

Lossless. A method that restores the original data exactly. Its saving depends on how repetitive the data is.

Lossy. A method that discards detail in exchange for a larger saving. It is used when a title is produced, not for everyday housekeeping.

Dictionary. A shared table of repeated patterns that a packer builds while working through a group of files. One dictionary across many files yields a better result than starting fresh each time.

Deals

Authorized retailer. A seller that holds distribution rights and can issue a correct receipt and provide support after a sale.

Price history. A dated record of the figure a title has carried, used to judge whether today’s offer is genuinely low.

Window. A short period in which sellers reduce prices together. Windows repeat around the same points in the year.

Streaming

Region. A cluster of remote machines in one physical place. Distance to the nearest region largely decides the responsiveness of a streamed title.

Round trip. The complete journey of an input, from the reader to the remote machine and back as a drawn frame. It repeats many times per second.

Stability. How steady a connection remains over time. It matters more for streaming than raw capacity, because an erratic link produces stutter regardless of its speed.

Legal

Information service. The nature of the Gerleu offering: analysis, figures, alerts and documents, with nothing to obtain or set up.

Withdrawal right. The statutory right of a consumer in the European Union to withdraw from a distance contract within a stated period. Our refund policy describes how it bears on our situation.