Microsoft introduces Advanced Shader Delivery

GrayChild

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Advanced shader delivery addresses one of the most frustrating challenges for PC gamers today – long load times and disruptive stuttering during a game's first launch. These delays are caused by the need to compile graphics shaders and cache them for future use. For a deep-dive on this topic, we recommend reading Epic's article – "Game engines and shader stuttering." We have partnered with teams across Xbox and at AMD to precompile this data and distribute it at download time for key titles via the Xbox PC app This approach not only gets you into your games faster, but it also prevents most instances of stutter that cause performance issues.

As an example, in Obsidian Entertainment's Avowed, our engineering teams observed launch times reduced by as much as 85%. This not only means you're playing your game faster, but your battery life is spent on playtime, not compiling.

Our initial launch of advanced shader delivery requires no work from game studios to integrate. As we expand support across more games and devices, we will collaborate with game developers to integrate the capability directly into game engines — ensuring games can take advantage of advanced shader delivery on launch day.
 
requires no work from game studios to integrate
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Advanced shader delivery addresses one of the most frustrating challenges for PC gamers today – long load times and disruptive stuttering during a game's first launch. These delays are caused by the need to compile graphics shaders and cache them for future use. For a deep-dive on this topic, we recommend reading Epic's article – "Game engines and shader stuttering."We have partnered with teams across Xbox and at AMD to precompile this data
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and distribute it at download time for key titles via the Xbox PC app
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A similar feature already exists on Steam, to download pre compiled shaders.

This version from Microsoft has the major issue of being tied to the xbox app.

A better solution would be for the gpu driver, be it nvidia, amd or intel, to have this feature.
 
Microsoft promises a lot of things that 90% never get used. Nobody gives a shit about the xbox PC app and if they cared about gamers they'd improve windows gaming features for every single 3d application.
 
The best solution would be for this not to be an issue at all, I've never understood why it exists, I've been beaten with baseball bats with this issue and I can't wrap my head around it.
Better graphics = More complex shaders = Longer time to compile = Runtime stutter. It's very simple.
 
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The best solution would be for this not to be an issue at all, I've never understood why it exists, I've been beaten with baseball bats with this issue and I can't wrap my head around it.

A shader is just code for the gpu to process. But because each gpu brand and generation has a different architecture, its best to optimize that code for it. For performance and compatibility reasons.
So there is a need to compile this code for each gpu and driver version.

With games being more and more complex, there are more shaders and permutations to compile. And this is why it takes longer to compile it.

Consoles don't have to deal with this, because they have fixed hardware and the game runs it self on a target firmware version. This means a developer can compile the shaders and ship it with the game.
 
Nvidia doesn't collaborate with anybody but the banks.

Nvidia aren't exactly known for consumer friendly moves.
Does this mean the shader delivery wont work for people with Nvidia GPUs then? AFAIK the way each company computes shaders is different. Doesn't this mean the bulk of customers cant use this feature?
 
Yeah why dont you go fix your stupid Win 11 we dont need your advanced outsourced software.

Seems like they're trying to do that with the Ally X push.

They claim they're able to pull up to 2GB of memory just based on the OS level tweaks they've made for the Ally X, which will roll into other devices next year too.

Here's hoping it also rolls into the desktop versions.
 
Windows gaming issues these days seem to be beyond just shader compilation stuttering, I was about to refund Ratchet and Clank because on Windows it would stutter to death, microstutters, slower than expected performance seeing other benchmarks from 2 years ago or so, until I opened the game in Bazzite, it was smooth, even the infamous intro portal scene that made DF 4090 GPU get a small stuttering was smooth, I was left expecting it and it never happened.

Srsly Microsoft has shat the bed with Windows lately, they definitely need a "game mode" just like Linux with its Gamescope.
 
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Advanced shader delivery addresses one of the most frustrating challenges for PC gamers today – long load times and disruptive stuttering during a game's first launch. These delays are caused by the need to compile graphics shaders and cache them for future use. For a deep-dive on this topic, we recommend reading Epic's article – "Game engines and shader stuttering." We have partnered with teams across Xbox and at AMD to precompile this data and distribute it at download time for key titles via the Xbox PC app This approach not only gets you into your games faster, but it also prevents most instances of stutter that cause performance issues.

As an example, in Obsidian Entertainment's Avowed, our engineering teams observed launch times reduced by as much as 85%. This not only means you're playing your game faster, but your battery life is spent on playtime, not compiling.

Our initial launch of advanced shader delivery requires no work from game studios to integrate. As we expand support across more games and devices, we will collaborate with game developers to integrate the capability directly into game engines — ensuring games can take advantage of advanced shader delivery on launch day
I used to pray for times like this!!! 🚀🚀🚀
 
Sounded good until the Xbox App part.
>While we're currently focused on supporting the launch of the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X, we're excited to share that we're releasing an AgilitySDK in September. This will provide both developers and gaming storefronts with the initial set of tools and APIs needed to expand this functionality across the industry. At that time, we will also provide more details on how developers can engage with this feature for in-market titles.

>We're also continuing to collaborate with our hardware partners to grow the number of devices that will be able to support advanced shader delivery. Stay tuned for more details on device expansion in September.
 
Does this mean the shader delivery wont work for people with Nvidia GPUs then? AFAIK the way each company computes shaders is different. Doesn't this mean the bulk of customers cant use this feature?
They both use dx12, API should be all that matters, i think this will benefit all.
 
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As an example, in Obsidian Entertainment's Avowed, our engineering teams observed launch times reduced by as much as 85%. This not only means you're playing your game faster, but your battery life is spent on playtime, not compiling.
Wow! They're making it so us PC gamers can spend even more time playing Avowed. Be still my beating heart, for I love you Microsoft!
 
Better graphics = More complex shaders = Longer time to compile = Runtime stutter. It's very simple.

A shader is just code for the gpu to process. But because each gpu brand and generation has a different architecture, its best to optimize that code for it. For performance and compatibility reasons.
So there is a need to compile this code for each gpu and driver version.

With games being more and more complex, there are more shaders and permutations to compile. And this is why it takes longer to compile it.

Consoles don't have to deal with this, because they have fixed hardware and the game runs it self on a target firmware version. This means a developer can compile the shaders and ship it with the game.
Nope, I still don't get it. I need Pixar to explain using cute animated CGI characters, and release it on Youtube for free.
 
Does this mean the shader delivery wont work for people with Nvidia GPUs then? AFAIK the way each company computes shaders is different. Doesn't this mean the bulk of customers cant use this feature?
No clue really. It's clearly exclusive to the Xbox PC app but I don't think it's said whether it's hardware bound.

Everything is getting announced alongside more ROG Xbox Ally info so it could very well be a feature being introduced for that product.

Everyone keeps telling me that the next Xbox is just a pc, so why not wish for a more leaner and faster experience all around.
Oh this will absolutely be a positive thing for the next Xbox if it is indeed a Windows based PC. I'm actually very interested in whatever this product is so this feature is nothing but positive to me.

However the problem lies in that the Xbox PC app is or was (I very rarely use it because I got hit with the disappearing storage bug multiple times even to the point I bought an extra ssd for GP installs) hot fucking garbage and most people don't want to use it so the feature isn't something that's going to benefit a lot of people.

Combine that with the fact Microsoft also had DirectStorage which was supposed to revolutionize load times but turned out to be a whole lot of nothing.
 
Good stuff except the Xbox app. Garbage tier at times. Just make it system wide and find a delivery method that doesn't need that app. Steam is the platform of choice for PC.
 
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