Unreal Engine 5.8 Adopts Microsoft Tech To Slay PC Shader Stutter

Shader compilation stutter is one of the most notorious problems plaguing modern PC releases, but Epic just took a major step toward fixing it forever for Unreal Engine 5.8 with the addition of support for Microsoft’s DirectX Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD) feature. Most likely, this also means we can expect the feature in the next-generation Unreal Engine 6, too.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of shader compilation stutter, it’s the hitching that happens when a game loads a new asset or effect for the first time. It’s one of the main causes of distracting stuttering in PC games, although it’s important to distinguish it from other forms of stutter, like traversal or PSO creation stutter. These can also result in FPS drops, but those aren’t as easily solved.

On fixed hardware platforms like consoles, shader compilation stutter is no concern at…