3D Game Performance Engineering

Eight-month intensive training starting October 2025

This isn't about making games prettier or adding flashy effects. We focus on what actually matters when players are running your game on hardware that wasn't top-of-the-line even three years ago. You'll spend real time understanding how rendering pipelines work, why frame drops happen at specific moments, and what trade-offs make sense when your budget won't cover another senior engineer.

How It Actually Works

We built this around what studios told us they needed, not what sounded good in a course description.

1

Foundation Phase

You'll start with rendering fundamentals and GPU architecture. Not the exciting stuff, but you need to know why certain operations cost what they do before anything else makes sense.

Weeks 1-8
2

Profiling & Analysis

Learning to read profiler data properly changed everything for most of our previous participants. We spend serious time here because guessing doesn't work at scale.

Weeks 9-16
3

Applied Techniques

LOD systems, occlusion culling, memory management. This is where theory meets the messy reality of shipping a game that needs to run on varied hardware.

Weeks 17-26
4

Project Work

You'll take an existing demo that performs poorly and fix it. Real constraints, real trade-offs, actual debugging sessions that might take days.

Weeks 27-34

Where People Ended Up

These are folks who finished the program between 2023 and 2024. Their paths varied quite a bit, which is pretty normal.

Profiling dashboard showing frame time analysis

Bardh Kelmendi

Technical Artist at mobile studio in Pristina

Bardh came in with a solid art background but kept hitting walls when optimization came up. He spent about six months after the program doing freelance work before landing his current position. What helped most, he says, was finally understanding the cost of his shader decisions.

His studio ships games for mid-range Android devices, which means constant balancing. Last we checked in, he was working on vegetation rendering for an open-world project.

18 months later: Still at the same studio, now mentoring their junior artists on performance considerations. Recently helped them cut draw calls by forty percent on their flagship title.

Technical workshop participant reviewing code

Visar Hoxha

Engine programmer at indie studio

Visar already knew C++ well but hadn't worked much with graphics programming. The first month was rough for him because our pace assumes you can pick up new concepts quickly. He stuck with it though.

After graduating in early 2024, he joined a small team building their own engine. It's ambitious work and the pay started modest, but he gets to solve interesting problems daily. When we talked in March 2025, he mentioned they'd just got their renderer stable enough for actual gameplay.

14 months in: Their game got shown at a regional festival. Visar credits the profiling skills specifically because their demo had to run on the event's older hardware without issues.

Developer working on optimization task

Leonora Sadiku

QA lead with performance focus

Leonora's path surprised us a bit. She finished the program but decided she preferred the testing and analysis side over implementation. She moved into QA at a larger studio and gradually specialized in performance testing.

Her technical knowledge meant she could write detailed bug reports that actually helped the engineering team. Instead of just reporting framerate drops, she could point to likely causes. That made her valuable quickly.

20 months on: Promoted to lead their performance QA process. She built out their testing procedures and now reviews optimization work before it goes to production. Different career path than most, but it's working for her.

Code review session in progress

Granit Morina

Contract optimizer

Granit finished in late 2023 and spent most of 2024 doing contract work for various studios. Some projects lasted a week, others a few months. He specialized in coming in when games were already built but performing poorly before release.

It's not steady work and there were gaps between contracts, but he seems to prefer the variety. His GitHub from the program helped land the first few gigs, then word of mouth took over.

Current status: Working a four-month contract helping port a PC game to console. He mentioned the memory constraints are brutal but interesting. Planning to keep contracting rather than taking a permanent role.

Common Questions

Things people usually ask before deciding if this makes sense for them.

What background do you actually need?

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You should be comfortable with at least one programming language and understand basic computer science concepts. Linear algebra helps but we review what's necessary. Most importantly, you need to be okay spending hours debugging something that seems like it should work but doesn't.

We've had people come from pure programming backgrounds and others from technical art. Both can work if you're willing to learn the pieces you're missing.

How much time does this actually take per week?

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Classes run three evenings a week for three hours each. But the coursework takes longer than that. You'll probably spend another ten to fifteen hours weekly on assignments and projects, sometimes more when deadlines hit.

People with full-time jobs manage it, but barely. Expect your weekends to involve coursework for most of the eight months.

What if you fall behind?

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Happens to most people at some point. We record sessions so you can review later, and there's a Discord where people help each other. Instructors hold office hours twice a week for questions.

That said, if you miss multiple weeks consecutively, catching up gets really difficult. The material builds on itself pretty heavily.

Can this be done remotely?

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The October 2025 session will be hybrid. Core lectures happen in Gjakovë with live streaming for remote participants. Lab sessions work better in person because of the debugging help, but you can follow along remotely if needed.

Remote students need decent internet since we share screens and sometimes pair program. Time zone matters too since sessions run Kosovo evening time.

What about hardware requirements?

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You need a computer that can run Unity or Unreal at acceptable speeds. Doesn't have to be top-end, but if your current machine struggles with basic 3D work, you'll have problems. A discrete GPU helps significantly.

We provide detailed specs once you enroll. Some software is free, some offers student licenses. Budget around 200 euros for paid tools you'll need.

What's the actual cost?

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Program tuition is 2400 euros for the full eight months. That covers instruction, materials, and access to our lab equipment during scheduled times. Payment plans are available if needed.

It's not cheap, especially for this market. We're transparent about that. Whether it's worth it depends entirely on what you do with the knowledge afterward.

Do you help with job placement?

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We don't have formal placement services or partner studios. What we do is help you build a portfolio that shows actual skills, review your applications, and occasionally know about openings through our network.

Several local studios know our program and sometimes reach out when they're hiring. But job hunting is still mostly on you. We give you skills and examples of your work. The rest requires effort and probably some luck.

When does enrollment close?

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We cap enrollment at eighteen people to keep class sizes manageable. Applications for October 2025 open in June and typically fill by mid-September. If you're interested, don't wait until the last minute.

There's a short technical assessment as part of the application just to make sure the material matches your current level. It's not meant to be intimidating, just practical.