GoKawiilMicrosoft launched Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD) last year as part of the DirectX SDK, but it was limited to only the ROG Xbox Ally devices at the time. The feature was always intended to eventually go mainstream — and Intel has just released a new graphics driver that brings a version of it to Arc GPUs. The company is calling it "Precompiled Shader Distribution" and it's available on select mobile and desktop chips.
Precompiled Shader Distribution downloads the shaders for a game ahead of time, so you don't have to wait for the shader cache to build up when you first open it. The process happens automatically in the background once the Intel Graphics app detects you have the game installed. Depending on your exact hardware config, it starts downloading shaders from Intel's cloud and loads them into a dedicated folder.
Intel told TechPowerUp it is "also working with Microsoft on launching Advanced Shader Delivery later this year," meaning that this is Intel's own implementation for now — it will only get better from here (hopefully). The feature is launching with 13 Steam games: They're all heavy-hitters and will offer some level of faster loading, while reducing shader stuttering mid-gameplay.
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