Advanced Shader Delivery Adds Nvidia GPU Support Later This Month To Banish Shader Compilation Stutter
Microsoft’s Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD) service, which distributes pre-compiled shaders from the cloud to eliminate shader compilation stutter and accelerate initial game loading, is expanding its GPU support in October. The technology currently supports only AMD’s recent Radeon GPUs, including the RX 9000 series, but will soon become available for systems powered by Intel and Nvidia graphics cards, as well as Qualcomm devices.
The expansion was announced by Microsoft DirectX Program Manager Wendy Ho in an official blog post. ASD has gained prominence following the launch of Gears of War: E-Day on PC, a major release that already utilizes the shader caching system. Prior to this expansion, the inability to access pre-compiled shaders created extended shader compilation times on non-AMD hardware, causing noticeable stuttering during initial gameplay sessions.
By distributing compiled shader code from Microsoft’s cloud servers rather than requiring individual systems to compile them locally, ASD significantly reduces the first-boot performance penalties associated with DirectX games. The rollout of Nvidia and Intel GPU support later this month will bring these performance benefits to the majority of the PC gaming market, addressing what has been a persistent pain point for players on high-end gaming systems.