Microsoft Introduces Advanced Shader Delivery to Reduce Game Loading Times on Windows 11

PC gamers who use Nvidia graphics cards will soon be able to skip the long shader compilation screen that appears when launching a game for the first time. Microsoft announced on its DirectX blog on October 1st that a new technology called Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD) will be available during the month for all RTX graphics cards. In Gears of War: E-Day, which was released on the same day in early access, the compilation process has been reduced from several minutes to just a few seconds, cutting loading times by up to 20 times. Shaders are small programs that tell a graphics card how to calculate light, shadows, or materials in a game. These programs need to be compiled, or translated, for each player's specific graphics card. This process can be resource-intensive and often causes stutters during gameplay when it occurs in the background. With ASD, shaders are pre-compiled when the game is downloaded, significantly reducing the time needed for this task. Microsoft claims that this technology can reduce compilation time by about 95 percent. It was first introduced in March in collaboration with Nvidia, Intel, and AMD. AMD Radeon cards, spanning from the RDNA 1 to RDNA 4 architectures, have been testing a public beta version of ASD since May. Forza Horizon 6 was the first game to use this technology on Windows 11. Intel will also support ASD with its Arc B570 and B580 graphics cards and its Core Ultra Series 2 and 3 processors. However, the number of games that support ASD is still limited. Microsoft highlights Gears of War: E-Day as the first game compatible with all major graphics card manufacturers and mentions Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 as another title in development, though no release date has been provided. To use ASD, users need Windows 11 version 24H2 or newer and updated graphics drivers. For Gears of War: E-Day, players must first install the Xbox app for PC before downloading the game. Microsoft has not yet provided a specific date for when ASD will be activated for Nvidia cards or the required driver version.