Reduce shader compilation time
Is the extremely long shader compilation time an inherit flaw with this new game engine being developed? Will this remain when the game comes out of early access and is complete? I love the game for what it's becoming, but honestly, I just don't play it much because I never feel like waiting 45 minutes or longer for shaders every time I update my drivers.
This to me, is an extreme flaw with the game. It's like 1985 when you needed to load the game from your floppy drive for an hour before playing.
If this is just because the game is in development then I can understand this, but please share information. I really don't know why more people aren't complaining about it. Does this only happen with higher end hardware? I have a 5070ti in my desktop and 4080 in laptop. It's way too long in both. (It's still only at 25% after going online here and searching for answers to this and then making this long-winded post about it... )
Comments: 78
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17 May, '25
arvan MergedHighlighted comment
compiling shaders depens on CPU. You have a 6+4 Cores CPU (10 Threads). Do you have any programms running in the background? -
14 May, '25
Tangle MergedWith the recent update shader compilation on my gaming laptop is taking 45 minutes plus. This is with a 4070 (4gb)/Core i7-13620H, running on a 1tb NVMe SSD, 16gb RAM.
It is using 9/16 threads to compile while sitting on the starting menu. Surely this isnt correct? -
16 May, '25
Ziflin MergedIt took both my wife and I just about 45 minutes on our desktops to compile the shaders as well. And then 2 todays later there is a tiny patch and all of mine are recompiling again and it's going to take 45 minutes for me. For her it completed in about 30 seconds. What is going on? I would like to play the game instead of watching "Compiling Shaders" constantly..
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22 May, '25
SloppyShushi MergedIt's a near 10 MINUTE load time for shaders to compile on my system. Before you ask, no, I'm not running a potato for a computer. It's a fun game, but I am not going to start it 10 minutes early like a 52 Plymouth in the winter, in Duluth MN.
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22 May, '25
Toast System Merged"Fix Shaders" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-05-22), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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23 May, '25
Noodleman Jerry Mergedexperienced about the same, 3080ti, ryzen 7 3700x. Minimal background programs and I'm clocking in at about 20 minutes. mind you the shadows still experience bugs in game via artifacts/ blinking shadows
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25 May, '25
Tom Garden MergedThis takes over an hour for me prob closer to 1hr45min. Ive already had to do it 2 times. If I'm asked again, I will uninstall this game. This is not worth my time. (It doesnt work if my computer goes to sleep, plus my computer is almost unrunnable when it is compiling in the background).
Processor: 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13620H 2.40 GHz
Ram: 32GB -
06 Jun, '25
joey Mergedso i have to wait 20+ minutes for compiling shaders just to get into the game to see everything in my pack / action bar gone. sometimes if i relog several times it may come back or maybe not. i have been playing since release this is a new issue in the last month with me. so what changed the inventory?
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06 Jun, '25
Mattias MergedIt cannot require 30-40+ minutes to compile shaders before starting playing the game just because the shaders always needs to be compiled..
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06 Jun, '25
Toast System Merged"Fix shaders compilation" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-06-06), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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06 Jun, '25
Toast System Merged"more of a complaint than a suggestion" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-06-06), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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16 Jun, '25
richardxiv MergedShaders taking almost 1 1/2 - 2 hours to complete. Vostro 7620, 12 gen i7-12700h,24 ram, nvidia geforce rtx 3050Ti. Nothing else running.
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30 Jun, '25
Skyler MergedWe need a fix to compiling shaders asap, like make this a priority over content updates
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01 Jul, '25
S.Gergin MergedEvery time the graphics card drivers are updated or the game is updated, something called Shaders compilation is done. This takes 30-35 minutes. Do you think this makes sense?
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07 Jul, '25
Toast System Merged"Shaders shouldn't take this long to compile" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-07-01), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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07 Jul, '25
Toast System Merged"Compiling shaders" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-06-30), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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08 Jul, '25
Zanzo MergedDune Awakening compiling shaders take approximately 30 sec, Enshrouded 30 - 45 mins guess I'll be playing Dune
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16 Jul, '25
Toast System Merged"load" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-07-15), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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20 Jul, '25
Wormel1407 MergedThe problem that shader compilation takes so long has been reported for weeks, but support isn't helping! I'll quit the game soon if something doesn't fix this! Waiting an hour every time I start the game is a waste of time! PC HP Omen Gaming Laptop
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02 Aug, '25
MrGoodieNoogan MergedMake it faster please! My beefy rig took an HOUR AND A HALF to compile!
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02 Aug, '25
FoxLikeMad Mergedso i dont feel like i have a weak rig at all though my cpu is probably the weak link at this point with it being a r7 5800x but it is not a bad cpu either. plenty of ram and a 4090 for a gpu and yet it takes 30+ minutes every single time i fire up the game even if it was only a day ago? i am ready to uninstall this game and walk away as it is far to tedious. you know its bad when even the dumpster fire that is ark survival evolved doesnt give these kind of issues.
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04 Aug, '25
Toast System Merged"Compiling Shaders" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-08-02), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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07 Aug, '25
Mikey MergedI also have extremely long wait times for compiling shaders. Both on my home PC and gaming laptop. They are very high end machines, one a 5070ti and the other a 4080. Honestly, I just don't play the game much because I know it's going to be a long wait to get on so I just jump on a different game when I feel like playing something. I don't know if this is a limitation of the game engine or is this because of the early access nature of it?
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07 Aug, '25
E J Peterson MergedI'm guessing the upvote was closed because just about everybody would be voting this up?
It is a terrible design that allows stuff like this to go un-fixed?
Seriously get on the ball folks, like who is going to play a game were you have to wait over 45 mins just to load shaders? -
26 Aug, '25
Toast System"Shader Compilation Time" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-05-14), including upvotes (8) and comments (24), was merged into this suggestion.
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27 Aug, '25
Marc Charks MergedHow is this possible, that i played the game not even for a minute but i have 3x times a 10 min shader compilation time after each gamestart? This is rly annoying and i am not sure if i wanna play that game and in case i wanna refund it steam will say you played to much....So i better delete the game now so i can get back my money? Is this intended???
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27 Aug, '25
Toast System"Shader compilation!" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-08-27), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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28 Aug, '25
PaulJI don't have much of an issue with this happening after a graphics driver update or game patch, because those don't happen every day, but it is a legit issue and does need to be looked at.
However, it's clearly bugged worse for some people as they say this happens to them every time the game starts. That's definitely bad. Might want to include some opt-in telemetry for this thing or at least a startup log file that players can post to you on your discord. -
02 Sep, '25
Gary MergedWHY ... In the world do I have to run Compiling Shaders AGAIN after just playing over 100+ hours in the last 2 weeks including yesterday ... This is the worst thing about this game and really needs to be fixed ... And ... I'm at 15 minutes ATM still running 68%
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04 Sep, '25
Toast System"Compiling Shaders Again" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-09-02), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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05 Sep, '25
Jimithy MergedCompiling the shaders is taking longer than actually downloading the game.
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16 Sep, '25
Toast System"Why is compiling shaders so long?" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-09-05), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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02 Oct, '25
Not Needed MergedUse the GPU to compile shaders. I have several programs that use my GPU to compile things. My GPU is a CUDA core NVidia
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02 Oct, '25
Toast System"Use GPU to compile shaders" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-10-02), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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05 Oct, '25
brian Mergedshaders take way toooooooo looooong toooooo dooooownlooooad. you get the idea.
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06 Oct, '25
Toast System"shaders" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-10-05), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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07 Oct, '25
XanzjeAn hour later and shader compilation is only 65%. So much for playing the game today. NVIDEA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop
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31 Oct, '25
squishy Mergedtakes 1 hour to finish compiling 100% shaders. I have a 12 thread cpu, and it only uses 5.
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03 Nov, '25
Toast System"FIX SHADER COMPILING" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-10-31), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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11 Nov, '25
Bear MergedSo I start the game, it does compiling shaders but also has a note outdated video driver. So after compiling I exit and update those and restart. Only to compile shaders again... So perhaps do a test for that first and offer the user the option to exit and update before doing the compiling?
I really don't mind letting it do the compile once. Thanks! -
13 Nov, '25
Toast System"If Video Driver == Outdated, Then Dialog "Update Video driver before compiling shaders? [Yes] [No]"" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-11-11), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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15 Nov, '25
NotABotI'm not accustomed to games needing to recompile shaders after a major update or a GPU update; however, this game is slower than sloths at shader compiling. Fortunately, the process took just shy of 20 minutes for me; however, that wait time is absurd.
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17 Nov, '25
TimThis is still a big p.i.t.a. update takes 20 minutes, then this an additionall 15 minutes for shaders.. I might as well just go back to playing wow. My gaming time is very limited and this cuts into my payable time too much... this could be a deal breaker of not wanting to play
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01 Dec, '25
TheYear2525So, this is a general problem, I see now. I though it might be, because I'm on Linux, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
My 7950x3d took exactly 33 minutes with 97% load and all cores used to process these shaders. It was using 20 GB of RAM also. Darn ^^; . But it's strange that some systems with lower specs don't seem to take as long. -
24 Dec, '25
TaylaWas recommended the game by a family member - warned me about the long wait for shader compiling. Jumped on 1 hour early prior to us wanting to play to load it up just to be on the safe side. 2 hours in and only 72%... family member was shocked and definitely said it shouldn't be taking this long even if its the first time... what gives?
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26 Dec, '25
M MergedShader compiling time is nearly 45min-1hr and since the Water release, the game will crash with no error actually closing steam. I have a 16gb ram, 12th gen Intel core i7-12650H, GeForce RTX 3050 ti laptop (4gb dedicated).
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30 Dec, '25
ashkucIs it able to run shaders task without runnig the game? I' ve already spent 45 min for compilation, then updated gpu driver, now I'm waiting second time. So it is already 1.30 h "playing" without playing
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05 Jan
Paed MergedI play on a R7 9800X3D + 5070TI and Shader Compilation is hilarious (~40 Seconds for 1%)
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05 Jan
Toast System"Fix Shader Compilation" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2026-01-05), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.