Intel Arc GPUs Get Precompiled Shaders For Up To 3x Faster Game Loads

If there's one thing PC gamers universally despise, it's shader compilation stutters, but it's also a drag to launch a brand-new game, ready to play, only to be greeted by a "Compiling Shaders" progress bar slowly crawling across the screen. The end of the shader struggle is finally here, and it's being spearheaded by a massive industry push from Microsoft and, as of today, Intel.

The groundwork for this tech actually started with Microsoft's Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD). If that sounds familiar, it's because ASD made its grand debut on the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X handheld. Both NVIDIA and AMD are working on adding support too, but because of the way this tech works, it's going to remain game-specific.

Traditionally, your local CPU and GPU have to brute-force shader compilation, either the first time you enter a new area, or ideally, the ...