Dino SlothGame technology consultancy

Workshop report 01 · Remote first, Thailand UTC+7

The build is telling you something. Let’s measure it.

Dino Sloth investigates the technical constraints that keep game teams from shipping: frame time, iteration, delivery risk and the evidence behind the plan. Captures, measurements and a practical order for fixing what matters.

Request a technical review See a sample report

Unreal since UE3 · Console optimisation · Remote delivery worldwide

Frame time across one repeatable test route A frame-time trace holding near 13 milliseconds in ordinary play, rising to about 20 milliseconds through a combat encounter, with a single spike to 34.8 milliseconds caused by a synchronous load on first use. The 16.67 millisecond frame budget is marked. 0 10 20 30 ms 16.67 ms — 60 fps budget 34.8 ms — synchronous load, first use one call, once per session, costs the whole frame Training room Market encounter Storm approach
This is the deliverable. One route, two cold runs, the spike named and costed — not a maturity score. Trace from the sample report. Fictional project, real method.

Start where it hurts

“We’re at 24 fps on console.” Unreal performance reviewSee the service “Our build takes four hours.” Engineering effectiveness reviewSee the service “We’re crashing on memory in cert.” Start with a technical orientationSee the steps “We’re evaluating a studio.” Red-flag screen or full diligenceSee the service

None of those quite it? The free health check is eleven private questions, nothing submitted — or just ask.

Thirty years, in order

  1. 1994–1996 Destruction Derby Programmer. PlayStation, when the frame budget was the whole job.
  2. 1996–2005 Pitbull Syndicate Co-founder. The Test Drive series. Acquired by Midway.
  3. 2005–2009 Midway Lead optimisation programmer. Console performance, full time.
  4. 2009–2010 CCP Games Senior rendering programmer. Dust 514 on PlayStation 3.
  5. 2010–2014 Pitbull Studio Founder. Acquired by Epic Games.
  6. 2014–2015 Epic Games UK General Manager. A team contributing to Unreal Engine 4 and Fortnite.
  7. 2015–2021 Coconut Lizard Founder. Engine-level work with studios including Rare and Funcom. Acquired by Keywords Studios.
  8. 2021–now Dino Sloth Independent. Performance, iteration health and studio diligence.

Three companies founded. Three exits. The diligence experience is not theoretical — the founder has been the studio being examined, three times. More on the About page

Services

Ways to get an answer

01 Technical orientationA small first engagement to understand the question and recommend the sensible route. Start without access 02 Unreal performance reviewInsights traces and GPU captures on target hardware, memory high-water marks, hitches and shader compilation cost. Full-access engagement 03 Engineering effectiveness reviewBuild and cook times, DDC hit rates, sync-to-playable, CI turnaround and senior time allocation. Team and workflow review 04 Technical delivery diligenceCan it ship, what has been forked out of Unreal, who is technically load-bearing, and what it costs to finish. Technical delivery diligence
Not sure where the real problem sits? The free project health check is eleven private questions with no email gate and nothing submitted.
Investors · trial engagement

Red-flag screen

A go/no-go view on a target before you commit to full diligence: four consulting days over a committed ten-working-day window from access, focused on the deal-breakers rather than a full report.

How the screen works
10working days, committed
4consulting days

Writing

Working notes from the workshop.

These are the questions people actually type into a search engine. No email gate, no gated whitepaper — just the working notes.

Unreal · Performance

Your UE5 game runs at 24fps. What now?

Where to look first, in what order, and which of the usual suspects almost never turn out to be the cause.

Read it

Pipeline · Cost

Your build takes four hours. Which four hours?

How to break a build time down into cook, compile, shaders and DDC misses — and what each one is worth fixing.

Read it

Technical delivery · Method

The first two days of a technical review.

What to ask for, what to measure and why a useful answer starts with the build rather than the status report.

Read it

All writing — diligence, cert, AI, gamification and studio health

Sample reports

See the shape of the answer.

Three invented examples showing what the work looks like before you buy it.

01 · Performance

Unreal performance review

Build measurements, one worked finding, priorities and explicit limitations.

View report 02 · Investment

Studio due diligence

Capability, delivery, concentration, technical risk and questions for other advisers.

View report 03 · Growth

Partner and investor readiness

Positioning, proof, target partners and a practical route into global relationships.

View report

What you get

A clear answer, backed by evidence.

No theatre, no maturity model, no RAG-status spreadsheet, and no incentive to sell you the implementation afterwards.

01The problem

Which pass, which thread, which asset — named, in milliseconds, in language the room can use.

02The evidence

Insights traces, GPU captures, memory reports, cook logs and the code path itself — attached, so your engineers can reproduce the finding and disagree with it.

03The next move

What to fix first, roughly how many engineer-days it costs, and what happens to p99 and the memory high-water mark if you do.

Flexible by design

Remote by default. On-site when it adds value.

Most work runs through your VPN or VDI: capture sessions on your target hardware, traces reviewed asynchronously, and calls only where a conversation beats a document. Dino Sloth’s base in Thailand is particularly useful for Southeast Asian studios that want direct access to global publisher, AAA and transaction experience—without limiting the work to this region.

If being in the room will improve the result, on-site work is available worldwide.

How remote access, travel and confidentiality work
Robert Troughton

Robert Troughton

Thirty years in games, applied to your build.

Dino Sloth’s founder has shipped games, fixed console performance, built and sold three studios, and led Epic Games UK.

Dino Sloth selects people appropriate to the work. Everyone who will work on an engagement is identified to the client by name and role, and covered by the same confidentiality, access and deletion terms, before access is granted. Measured technical evidence and direct operating judgement, with one line of accountability from scope through delivery.

30 years in games 3 studios founded or co-founded 3 exits
About Dino Sloth View sample reports →

Start small

Bring the decision.

Twenty minutes is enough to establish whether Dino Sloth can help. It is free, and there is no pitch.

Book an intro