Topic
Every article about PC hardware on the COLONIZED blog, newest first.
14 articlesRSS feed
RenderA much larger L3 cache, stacked on the processor, avoids trips to RAM and speeds up data-heavy games. How it works, who benefits, how a 9800X3D differs from a 9950X3D and how to make sure the game uses the right cores.
4 min read
RenderFor large-world MMOs and survival games, per-core speed and cache matter more than core count. The criteria, a reasoned comparison of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and mid-range and budget options, and the usual buying mistakes.
5 min read
RenderFor persistent-world MMOs and survival games, spend on the CPU and memory first, and on the GPU second. Three reasoned builds (high-end, mid-range and budget) with the logic behind each part, where not to waste money and how to split a budget.
5 min read
RenderFrames per second count how many frames come out; frame time says how long each one takes. With a conversion table, the formula, what 1 % and 0.1 % lows are and why a high average can hide stutter.
5 min read
RenderA nine-step recipe for tuning the graphics of a big-world game: start from a preset, find the worst scene, identify the limit and touch only the settings that move that limit. With a table of what loads the CPU, the GPU or VRAM.
5 min read
RenderMeasuring well is what separates knowing from guessing. Which free tools to use, which numbers to watch (frame time, 1 % lows, per-thread usage, temperature), a repeatable test protocol for online games and how to read the graphs.
5 min read
RenderA big world does not fit in memory all at once: it loads on the fly. How much RAM makes sense (and why in two modules), which SSD is enough, how much VRAM each resolution needs and how to recognize memory stutter, which looks a lot like a CPU problem.
5 min read
RenderA Ryzen 9 9950X3D and a 16 GB GeForce RTX 5070 Ti make one of the most balanced pairs for MMOs and survival games. What each brings, which caveats apply (two chiplets, memory, cooling, power supply) and when a 9800X3D is the better buy.
5 min read
RenderThe display refreshes at one pace and the graphics card produces at another: that is where tearing and stutter come from. How vertical sync and variable sync (G-Sync, FreeSync) solve it, why a frame limit helps and which setup to start from.
5 min read
RenderA bottleneck is the part that sets the pace for the whole PC. This guide explains how one forms, why there is always one, which symptoms point to the CPU, GPU, memory, disk or network, and when fixing it is not worth the money.
6 min read
RenderMegaLights became production-ready in Unreal Engine 5.8. What it actually does, why its cost barely grows with the number of lights, what hardware it expects, what it cannot light yet, how it differs from Lumen, and why the COLONIZED development build does not use it.
5 min read
RenderNVIDIA's RTX technologies without the marketing: what each part of DLSS does, which GeForce cards support it in 2026, why generated frames do not respond to your input and how Reflex fits in. Plus how COLONIZED's development build uses them.
4 min read
RenderNanite and Lumen without the marketing: how virtualised geometry and dynamic global illumination work, what Virtual Shadow Maps, MegaLights and TSR add, the budgets and limits Epic documents, and two lessons from using them on a whole planet.
6 min read
RenderA practical guide to performance in UE5 games on PC: the settings with the biggest impact, what eats video memory, how to read minimum and recommended requirements, and the measured story of how we cut a planet's VRAM by 58 % and its cloud cost from 15.5 to 3.5 ms.
6 min read
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