Microsoft is tackling one of PC gaming's most annoying wait times with its Advanced Shader Delivery technology. The company first introduced the feature in its SDK last September and demonstrated it on the ROG Xbox Ally handheld, where it reduced shader compilation launch times in games like Avowed by up to 85 percent.

Getting widespread adoption has proven challenging. While Nvidia plans to add Advanced Shader Delivery support to its GeForce RTX GPUs later this year, and Intel expects to release compatible drivers soon, game developers still need to integrate Microsoft's SODB APIs. Epic Games is currently testing the technology but hasn't committed to full implementation yet.

For now, Microsoft has updated its APIs to help developers create and test precompiled shader databases more easily. Starting in May, developers can upload these databases through the Xbox Partner Center, allowing some PC games downloaded through the Xbox app to skip the shader compilation step entirely. Microsoft emphasizes this isn't meant to be an Xbox-exclusive feature, stating that any storefront could eventually compile and distribute these precompiled shaders.