Microsoft's Advanced Shader Delivery has officially left the Xbox Insider program and is now available through the Xbox PC app. The update also brings a significant expansion of AMD GPU support, with coverage now extending all the way back to RDNA 1, meaning every Radeon GPU since the RX 5000 series in 2019 is supported.
Advanced Shader Delivery delivers precompiled shaders with the game download, rather than forcing the CPU to compile them locally at launch or during gameplay. This eliminates the long initial load times and traversal stutters that have plagued PC gaming for years. Microsoft's showcase example is Forza Horizon 6, which now loads in around 4 seconds compared to nearly 1.5 minutes without the feature, a reduction of roughly 95%.
Popular Now: Xbox CEO Asha Sharma spends hours personally responding to support ticketsTo use Advanced Shader Delivery, users need Windows 11 24H2 or newer, Xbox Gaming Services version 37.113.11003.0 or newer, and AMD Adrenalin driver 26.6.1 or newer. The feature currently supports a substantial list of titles, including:
- Forza Horizon 5 and 6
- Forza Motorsport
- Avowed, Starfield
- Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2
- Silent Hill f
- The Outer Worlds 2
- Ninja Gaiden 4
- Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Clair Obscur
- Expedition 33 and many others
Advanced Shader Delivery currently only works through the Xbox PC app. Games purchased through Steam, the Epic Games Store, or any other launcher are not supported, which leaves out the majority of PC gamers for now. NVIDIA and Intel have outlined plans to support the feature, but neither has released public driver support yet.
NVIDIA's Xbox app currently offers a similar but more limited function called Auto Shader Compilation as a stopgap. Microsoft says it will continue expanding ASD support to more Windows devices and additional GPU vendors in the coming months.
