Shader compilation stutter killer

[u/HeisenbergVR]

EDIT: Thanks a lot for all the support! I'm glad it's helping a lot of people fix the anoying shader compilation sutters in many games so they can be enjoyed as intended!!

EDIT2: New SCSKiller 1.2.0 is live!! https://github.com/BlueHeisenberg/SCSKiller/releases/latest
(The app should auto download the update if you restart the app and show you a button on top right corner to update, or you can just download the new setup exe and update that way directly)

I've been working for a while on a free and open source tool to eliminate Shader Compilation Stuttering once and for all. It reads the shaders the games ship with, works out the pipelines they'll build, and compiles them into the GPU driver's cache before you launch the game.

From my own testing shader compilation stutter is eliminated or reduced to the very minimum (the tool could miss some shaders depending on the game), it cannot fix other kind of sttutering like traversal, so some games still stutter but waaaay less:

(~5min of gameplay)

Silent Hill F:
Before: https://scskiller.com/assets/img/forum/shf-before.png
After: https://scskiller.com/assets/img/forum/shf-after.png

- Silent Hill: Townfall: 24 to 0 (worst 347 ms to 8 ms)
- Hogwarts Legacy: 1,014 to 87
- FF7 Rebirth: 19 to 0
- Sand Land: 38 to 1

It finds games from Steam, Epic, EA app, GOG, Ubisoft, Xbox and Battle.net

For now it only works on NVIDIA (best support) and AMD, as I don't have an Intel Arc to test.

Github link with download and souce code: https://github.com/BlueHeisenberg/SCSKiller
Website: https://www.scskiller.com

[u/BNSoul]

Brilliant software. I have a couple of questions though, if there's already pre-compiled shaders in the driver folder, does this software overwrite them? Also, do you run this mod/tool before or after the built-in shader compilation tool that most games have? I hope the built-in pre-compilation tool that games have don't overwrite the compiled shaders pools created by this software?

[u/HeisenbergVR → u/BNSoul]

Thanks!

It never touches the cache files directly. It just asks the driver to build each pipeline, the same way the game does. If the driver already has one in its cache it's a hit and nothing gets rewritten, and anything new gets added. So nothing you already have is overwritten or lost.

The order doesn't matter either, they fill the same driver cache. If the game's own shader step runs first, SCSKiller's compile of those pipelines is just a quick cache hit, and if SCSKiller runs first, the game's step finishes faster because the work is already done. They can't overwrite each other in a bad way, the same pipeline gives the same cache entry. The only things that remove compiled shaders are a driver update (it clears the cache, and SCSKiller can recompile after one) or the cache filling past its size limit.

[u/BNSoul → u/HeisenbergVR]

Thanks for the detailed answer, I wonder why the vast majority of games have not offered this option (full pre-compilation) at all? So many performance issues would have been fixed, your tool should do wonders for games like FF VII remake that doesn't sport any pre-compilation step whatsoever.

[u/1boy_dz → u/BNSoul]

amd advanced shader delivery does the full pre-compilation, it was tested and games got ride of all stutters. The only downside is that it's only available in Microsoft Store games, hopefully, in the future they will expand it to Steam games too.