Microsoft is showing a new way to reduce one of PC gaming’s most frustrating delays: shader compilation. In a demo of Advanced Shader Delivery, the company said Forza Horizon 6 loading time on an AMD GPU could drop by as much as 95 percent.
That result matters because shader compilation does more than slow the first launch of a game. When the process is incomplete, games can also stutter later in a session as new shader variants are prepared on the fly.
A move to remove the wait before play
Microsoft’s approach is to download precompiled shaders immediately after a game finishes installing. That allows the game to skip the long shader compilation or loading step the first time it opens.
In Microsoft’s demonstration, Forza Horizon 6 loaded in just four seconds. Without Advanced Shader Delivery, the same process was said to take around one and a half minutes.
The company is targeting two pain points at once. It wants to shorten the time players spend waiting before entering a game, while also reducing the stutter that can appear during gameplay.
Why shader compilation has been such a problem
Shader compilation depends heavily on CPU capability, including core count and overall performance. Because of that, waiting times can vary widely from one PC to another.
On some systems, the process can feel especially long before the player even reaches the main menu. The issue does not end there, because many modern games still need to load compiled shaders again each time they run.
That creates a second layer of friction for players. If not every shader variant is processed during the first attempt, performance hiccups can still show up after the game has already started.
Preview support is now appearing on PC
Microsoft has been developing Advanced Shader Delivery for some time. The feature first arrived on the XBOX ROG Ally handheld, while broader PC availability has been limited until now.
The company is now showing the feature on PC in preview form. At this stage, support is limited to AMD Radeon RX 7000 and RX 9000 series GPUs, along with the latest Xbox Insider app.
When the feature is active in a game, an Advanced Shader Delivery indicator appears in the lower-left corner. That marker shows the game is using the prearranged shader delivery path instead of forcing users through a long local compilation process.
Limited scope, but broad implications
The preview still has clear limits. Advanced Shader Delivery is currently available only for certain games purchased through the Xbox app or accessed via Game Pass.
That means PC players cannot yet expect the feature across their full game libraries. Microsoft has said the technology will also come to other storefronts, including Steam, but it has not shared a launch timeline.
Hardware support is also still narrow. For now, the feature works only on AMD Radeon RX 7000 and 9000 series GPUs, while NVIDIA and Intel support is expected later when the technology leaves preview and gets a full release.
For now, the Forza Horizon 6 demo mainly serves as proof that the system is working. Even so, the loading reduction Microsoft showed points to a major possible shift in how PC games handle shaders.
If the approach expands, the long waits that often come before gameplay could shrink sharply. It may also reduce the in-session stutter that still affects many modern games when shader work is not fully prepared in advance.