102
Do Vulkan shaders need to be processed before every game? (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago by ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
31 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Often when I launch a game through Steam that "processing Vulkan shaders" window appears and loads for a couple minutes. Sometimes it takes no time, sometimes it takes several minutes. But then, for larger games like Dune Awakening or Outer Worlds 2, the game needs to sit and process shaders for another couple minutes anyway. But for some games, like Enshrouded, I can skip the Vulkan processing with no problems in the game (I do that because the Vulkan processing doesn't go anywhere). So what is that Vulkan processing for?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] airbreather@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

If shaders don't get preprocessed, then a lot of the same work has to happen later, it just shows up as a seemingly random frame that takes particularly long to render.

(edit to add:) or a section where some of the rendering doesn't look quite right initially, if they do asynchronous rendering.

In the limit, the sum of all these delays can add up to the same amount of time that the preprocessing WOULD have taken, but you also don't necessarily use every shader every time you play every game, so YMMV.

this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2025
102 points (99.0% liked)

Linux Gaming

28090 readers
175 users here now

Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.

This page can be subscribed to via RSS.

Original /r/linux_gaming pengwing by uoou.

No memes/shitposts/low-effort posts, please.

That includes posts generated by LLMs. It doesn’t matter if you “don’t have the time” or “would’ve written the same anyway”, or if “everyone’s doing it geez get with the times”.

For now it’ll also include “AI”-assisted projects that haven't had at least two months of (public, verifiable) dev time behind them.

Resources

Help:

Launchers/Game Library Managers:

General:

Discord:

IRC:

Matrix:

Telegram:

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
monolalia@lemmy.world