Advanced Shader Delivery expands with AMD Public Preview
Microsoft partners with AMD to expand its Advanced Shader Delivery Preview
Microsoft has expanded its Public Preview of Advanced Shader Delivery to cover AMD’s RDNA 3, RDNA 3.5, and RDNA 4 graphics cards. With supported games, precompiled shaders will be downloaded onto systems to eliminate long initial load times and disruptive stuttering when a game launches.
Xbox Insiders could already use this feature on ASUS ROG Xbox Ally devices. Now, this feature is open for modern AMD discrete GPUs and integrated GPUs. Better still, Advanced Shader Delivery comes with day-1 support for Forza Horizon 6.
For Forza Horizon 6, Microsoft claims the initial load time is 95% faster on a Radeon RX 9060 GPU when precompiled shaders are used. That’s a huge time saving for PC gamers.
Since the launch of the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, we’ve partnered with AMD to invest in and improve the experience of players on PC. Today, Advanced Shader Delivery expands beyond ROG Xbox Ally handhelds to Windows 11 PCs with discrete GPUs and gaming laptop integrated GPUs from AMD. Players can take advantage of this preview by joining Xbox Insiders.
This expansion includes Forza Horizon 6, which showcases the advantage of ASD by dramatically improving loading times by 95%. We partnered closely with the team behind Forza Horizon 6 to give more players the advantage of ASD on day one.
– Microsoft
Microsoft has also tested this on a PC with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800 8-c0re CPU and a Radeon RX 7600 GPU. It also saw initial loading times decrease by 95%. This shortened a 1.5-minute loading time to just four seconds.
Today marks the release of Forza Horizon 6. With advanced shader delivery, Forza Horizon 6 loads in 4 seconds, as compared to almost 1.5 minutes – that’s an overall 95% time savings! This measurement was taken on an AMD Radeon RX 7600 GPU and an AMD Ryzen ™ 7 5800 8-Core processor CPU. ASD also reduces shader stutter when playing the title by circumventing just in time compilation of shaders during gameplay.
– Microsoft
Right now, this feature is only available to Xbox Insiders on the “PC Gaming Preview”. Note that this feature requires AMD Software 26.5.2 or newer to work. Older AMD GPU drivers are not supported.
Device Requirements:
To experience Advanced Shader Delivery at launch, you need the following minimum specs:
- OS: Windows 11 24H2 or higher
- Xbox Gaming Services: 37.113.11003.0 or higher (Microsoft Store > Library > Update Gaming Services)
- Xbox Insider Hub: Open Xbox Insider Hub > Select Previews > PC Gaming Preview
- GPU: AMD RDNA 3, RDNA 3.5, RDNA 4 architectures
- Driver: Adrenalin 26.5.2 or higher
With Advanced Shader Delivery, Microsoft aims to end shader compilation stutters on PC. By downloading precompiled shaders, games can load faster and run stutter-free, giving gamers a much smoother, more seamless experience. This could be a vital part of Xbox’s “Project Helix”, which is an Xbox console that supports PC games. After all, if Project Helix is to be successful as a console-PC hybrid, it needs to be stutter-free.
You can join the discussion on Microsoft’s Advanced Shader Delivery expansion with AMD on the OC3D Forums.
