Nvidia's newest GeForce Game Ready Driver, version 621.01 WHQL, introduces support for Advanced Shader Delivery, a technology designed to pre-compile game shaders. This aims to eliminate the lengthy shader compilation process that players often encounter upon launching or updating games. Early reports suggest that this update leads to considerably lower system RAM usage in titles such as "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4" and "Gears of War: E-Day".
Journalist Sebastian Castellanos noted on X that RAM usage in "Gears of War: E-Day" was reduced by approximately 7-8 GB with the new driver, although CPU usage remained relatively high. Advanced Shader Delivery, a Microsoft technology, compiles a game's shaders before launch and distributes them during the download process. This feature is available for all RTX GPUs, from the 20-series to the 50-series, but its implementation is game-specific.
This driver update builds upon previous efforts, including a collaboration with AMD in May that integrated Advanced Shader Delivery into games downloaded via the Xbox app. Nvidia states that for supported titles purchased from the Microsoft Store, the pre-compiled shader database tailored to a user's specific hardware will be bundled with the download through the Xbox PC app, ensuring a smoother experience.
Nvidia explained that the necessity for shader compilation stems from modern games utilizing tens of thousands of complex shaders. These generic shader files must be compiled locally into instructions specific to a user's GPU and driver version, a CPU-intensive task that can lead to significant waiting times. Pre-compiling every possible shader combination on the developer's end would result in prohibitively large download sizes. Advanced Shader Delivery addresses this by offloading the compilation process to the cloud, managed via the Xbox PC app for supported titles.