There seems to be a trend with gaming companies wishing to speed up the process of compiling shaders. It’s one of the biggest annoyances of modern gaming, especially when it means recompiling shaders every time there’s an update – or worse, every single launch. Intel is the latest company to tackle the problem with its recently announced ‘Intel Precompiled Shaders’ initiative.

We’ve already seen Microsoft implementing something similar on its Xbox Ally handhelds called ‘Advanced Shader Delivery’. Likewise, Nvidia recently teamed up with Microsoft to help reduce game stutters and speed up loading times on RTX GPUs through DirectX, announcing plans to deliver precompiled shaders during game downloads, rather than after game launch.

Intel Precompiled Shaders available on Arc graphics

Intel’s precompiled shaders are now available for gamers running modern Intel graphics hardware, including its current-gen discrete GPUs. Support is available for integrated graphics on Core Ultra 3/200V series processors, and the latest B-series (Battlemage) graphics cards, which currently consist of the Intel Arc B580 and Intel Arc B570.

To put it simply, Intel has been compiling and pre-loading shader files on its cloud infrastructure. When you install a (supported) game, Intel Graphics Software will automatically check for matching files. These files are then downloaded to your system and cached locally; supported games will automatically use these locally cached shaders once launched.

Gamers enjoy three main improvements when using Intel’s precompiled shaders: faster loading times, no more shader compilation-related stutters, and “immediate” performance gain. Precompiled shaders will deliver the benefits instantly without having to wait for the traditional shader method to kick in.

Intel says loading times are reduced “from 1.3x to over 5x depending on the game and system configuration”. So, while the impact this initiative actually makes varies quite a bit, it’s obviously a step in the right direction. Intel boasts more than 3x faster average loading times on a Core Ultra 9 288V laptop with an Arc 140V iGPU. As seen in the graph above, Intel’s current flagship graphics card, the Arc B580, averages more than 2x faster loading times.

Users can enable precompiled shaders by opening Intel Graphics Software, heading over to the Graphics > 3D Rendering > Precompiled Shaders, and toggling the option on.

God of War Ragnarök is a major outlier in the benchmarks – precompiled shaders speed up the process by a whopping 21x on the Arc B580. The game is pretty notorious for its painfully long shader compilation times on PC, particularly after you launch it for the first time. Along with Ragnarök, 12 other games have received precompiled shader support, seen below:

Supported games

• Black Myth: Wukong
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty®: Black Ops 6
• Call of Duty®: Black Ops 7
• Cyberpunk 2077
• God of War Ragnarök
• Gotham Knights
• Hogwarts Legacy
• NBA 2K26
• Starfield
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• The Outer Worlds 2

The feature is currently exclusive to games installed via Steam, and Intel says game support will continue to expand with future driver updates.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.