Forza recently launched with Advanced Shader Delivery support. Both the Forza Horizon and Forza Motorsport series are known for having lengthy pre-compilation steps. As such, it is no surprise that ASD dramatically reduces the initial game load time.
From 48 seconds down to just 2 seconds. That’s a whopping 96% improvement in load time.
Not only did we see a reduction in load time, but gameplay performance was also smoother.
During the first stage of the prologue, there is a nasty shader compilation stutter on the very first run of the game with ASD disabled. With ASD enabled, that stutter is no longer present.
Below you can see a comparison between our test system paired with an RTX 5090 vs an RX 9070 XT with ASD enabled. This is not a comparison between the two GPUs, as the 5090 is far more powerful, which is evident from the average framerate. Indeed, NVIDIA GPUs will also support this feature in the near future. Rather, it serves as an illustration that highlights how shader compilation stutter can bring even the most powerful system to its knees.
Both of the runs shown above were performed with the same settings. With the 5090 (top) plugged into our system, we experienced a massive stutter on the first run, that brings the 1% low to 3 FPS at this particular point of the scene. Meanwhile, the 9070 XT (bottom) cruises past this point with a smooth frametime on the very first run.
The Outer Worlds 2 has a very long shader pre-compilation step that takes almost 3 minutes, so it is a very good candidate for our testing.
From 2 minutes and 52 seconds down to just 9 seconds. That’s a 95% improvement, but more crucially, it cuts down your waiting time by an incredible 2 minutes and 43 seconds.
We did not experience any shader compilation stutter in our run with ASD disabled, so there was no improvement in performance here.
Ninja Gaiden 4 does not have a pre-compilation step with ASD disabled, so there is no improvement in load time.
However, we did experience a couple of minor stutters with ASD disabled in our first run that were no longer there in the second run. These are shader compilation-related stutters.
The game was mostly smooth during our runs, but those two minor dips were enough to give ASD about a 10% edge in 1% lows. This is important, because those dips came during combat.
Avowed is another game that has a lengthy pre-compilation process of almost 3 minutes.
This is a 78% improvement in initial load time. While not as dramatic as what we saw in Forza Horizon 6 and The Outer Worlds, it still cuts your initial waiting time by 2 minutes and 16 seconds.
There were no shader compilation stutters here with ASD on or off, so the performance remains the same.
Hogwarts Legacy’s pre-compilation is not as long as others we have seen, but it does take over a minute.
We see a 56% reduction in load time. Quite a bit lower than the previous games we tested, but it is nothing to sneeze at.
Performance remains the same whether you enable or disable ASD as we encountered no shader compilation related stuttering.
Silent Hill f does not have a pre-compilation phase, so there is no improvement in initial load time.
However, the game does have some rather significant shader compilation stutters in the town area at the beginning of the game, as seen below.
We were hoping that ASD would entirely eliminate those stutters, but unfortunately, that is not the case.
Unlike Forza Horizon 6 and Ninja Gaiden 4, Silent Hill f’s shader stutters are not eliminated by ASD, and performance remains the same.
It's unclear whether this stems from an API limitation or the developer failing to supply all shaders to the SODB. Either way, it serves as an example that – while the technology is genuinely impressive – it still needs some work to completely eliminate shader compilation stutter.
Our testing shows that Advanced Shader Delivery can significantly improve the player experience. A gamer’s first impression is critical, and nothing sours it faster than technical issues. Being able to load right into a game without waiting several minutes and having smooth performance unencumbered by intrusive shader compilation stutter should be the standard.
Advanced Shader Delivery delivered this experience in most of the titles we tested. However, there is still work to be done – whether by Microsoft, game developers, or both – to make the feature consistently reliable across all games.
Dan Mateescu is a PC enthusiast with many years of experience benchmarking PC hardware. In 2021, he started his own YouTube channel called 'Compusemble' where he benchmarks hardware in video games and the latest tech demos. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-23/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Dan Mateescu Social Links Navigation Contributor Dan Mateescu is a PC enthusiast with many years of experience benchmarking PC hardware. In 2021, he started his own YouTube channel called 'Compusemble' where he benchmarks hardware in video games and the latest tech demos.
Math Geek My question is how much space is used/downloaded for this feature? Is it a stable % of install size? Dependent on resolution played? Anything consistent where one can plan ahead for space management? Just wondering since we're already very often well over 100 GB before now downloading even more data. Reply
jeremyj_83 Math Geek said: My question is how much space is used/downloaded for this feature? Is it a stable % of install size? Dependent on resolution played? Anything consistent where one can plan ahead for space management? Just wondering since we're already very often well over 100 GB already before downloading even more data. If you look at the screenshot you see the shaders total size was about 350MB. Reply
waltc3 Longest shader compilation I've ever seen in a game is the one in Stalker 2 . It's so bad–~10+ minutes every time you run the game–that I put off playing the game because of it. You might see if you could find and test that game. Also, TOW2 actually has two shader comp methods, the first one–the one that takes a minute or two–is the initial compilation when first running the game, or immediately after you have deleted the D3d shader cache; the second one is the one that runs every time you start the game after your initial install–that compilation takes ~10 seconds, or so. It's much faster–unless you delete the shader cache, and then it has to recalculate the long way around again. Nice article , and I hope they will bring this feature to fruition!–I'm running a 9070 XT I'm very happy with at 4k, 7800x3D + 32GBs 6400mt/s Gskill ram, btw. Reply
Jabberwocky79 Maybe I missed it, but I'm not seeing any info on how to get this feature – Is it opt-in somewhere? Just something in a future update? Or what? Reply
deesider Jabberwocky79 said: Maybe I missed it, but I'm not seeing any info on how to get this feature – Is it opt-in somewhere? Just something in a future update? Or what? It seems from the article that currently it is only available for games purchased from the Xbox store. – I didn't realise that there even was an Xbox Store on PC! Reply
Air2004 How about test Msfs 2024 and 2k25 PGA Reply
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- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/we-tested-advanced-shader-delivery-on-the-rx-9070-xt#main
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