Glossary: optimizer terms explained

BRUTAL's screens and logs use a handful of Windows and gaming terms. Here is what each one means in plain English, and why BRUTAL touches it. Where a term has its own deeper article, the link takes you there.

The terms

• IFEO — Image File Execution Options. Per-app settings Windows applies by an executable's name. BRUTAL uses it to give your game or emulator a higher CPU priority. See what each module does.
• MMCSS — Multimedia Class Scheduler Service. The Windows scheduler class that prioritizes multimedia and game threads so they get CPU time ahead of background work.
• EcoQoS — a Windows 11 efficiency mode that throttles background apps onto efficiency cores to save power. BRUTAL turns it off for your game so the game isn't slowed down.
• QoS / DSCP — network packet priority tagging. A DSCP value of 46 (EF, Expedited Forwarding) marks your game's traffic as high-priority on your local network. See VPN and QoS.
• TRIM — SSD maintenance that tells the drive which blocks are free. This is the correct flash maintenance — not defragmentation. See Drive Health and the SSD truth.
• Present rate — how many frames a game hands to Windows to show each second. On Windows 11 the BRUTAL FPS counter counts the game's own presents; where it can't, it shows the display's rate and labels it "Display rate". See how the FPS counter works.
• Hardware tier — the LOW / MID / HIGH / ULTRA class BRUTAL assigns from your VRAM, RAM, and CPU core count. The tier sets how aggressive optimization gets. See hardware tiers explained.
• Core parking / unparking — Windows putting idle CPU cores to sleep to save power. Unparking keeps them ready and awake. See what each module does.

Why this matters

Most of these terms describe priority — telling Windows that your game's CPU, network, and disk work should come before background noise. None of them read game memory, inject code, or hook DirectX. Each publisher decides what its anti-cheat allows. And each module from 3 to 22 has its own Undo. See what is reversible and anti-cheat safety.