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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
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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?

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[-] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 7 points 11 months ago

Any idea why this happens constantly without driver updates?

I ended up turning off shader-preprocessing because some games would sit and cook shaders for 10 minutes every time I boot them up, update or no.

[-] CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I dont know the specific answer unfortunately, I suspect there is another layer to the caching story with Proton/Wine Prefixes/DXVK in Linux. If the translation layer gets an update independent of the graphics driver, that could maybe also cause a cache invalidation to occur. I notice that behavior more often when I'm using Proton Experimental.

[-] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 months ago

Huh, that could be exactly it, actually. Experimental is usually my default Proton fork that I try first. Makes sense that it would catch frequent updates and then invalidate the cache. I'll try this again with GE-Proton and report back later if I remember to.

[-] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 months ago

Experimental gets updated waaay more often than the other, stable branches, they don't push out a whole announcement every time.

So, every time one of those updates comes in, even if its just like 2.6 mb?

Time to potentially recompile all your shaders, for potentially everything.

I also use Experimental, but you gotta realize that by using it, ... you're a guinea pig.

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

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