Nvidia has a new way to reduce shader stutters after driver updates, but it's disabled by default

Published Nov 7, 2026, 12:00 PM EST Hamlin has been in the tech field for over nine years. Since 2017, his work has appeared on MakeUseOf, Android Police, OSXDaily, Beebom, and more. He served as the Senior Editor at Valnet's MakeUseOf for over two years before joining XDA. He uses a high-end gaming rig for desktop use and a MacBook for traveling, but dislikes some of the quirks of macOS. You're more likely to catch him at the gym or on a flight than anywhere else. Even though I'm usually quick to update my graphics drivers, the one thing I don't look forward to is what happens when I launch certain games. Sometimes, I'm greeted by a shader compilation screen that makes me wait a couple of minutes before I can start playing. Other times, the game launches just fine, except I have to deal with stutters for a while. Even with an RTX 4090 paired with a 9800X3D, I still can't avoid these occasional hiccups. When you upgrade your graphics drivers, previously compiled shaders can get invalidated, which means games will have to go through the process all over again. Depending on the game, that can mean a longer loading screen or annoying stutters during gameplay as shaders compile on the fly. But the good news is that the Nvidia App now includes a feature that makes this problem far less frequent, at least in DirectX 12 games. It's called Auto Shader Compilation, and for some reason, Nvidia doesn't enable it by default. Auto Shader Compilation does the work when your PC is idle So you're less likely to deal with stutters or shader compilation screens next time The way Auto Shader Compilation works is pretty simple. After you update your graphics drivers, it automatically recompiles previously cached shaders in the background while your PC is sitting idle. And since the newly compiled shaders are cached again, the game can reuse them the next time you launch it. This means no loading screens just to recompile those same shaders, and fewer chances of running into shader compilation stutters while you're playing. Of course, this doesn't mean every game will suddenly launch without a shader compilation screen, but I'll get to its limitations later. What I love about ASC is that it's one of those features you probably won't even notice when it's doing its job. Give it a few days, and you'll probably forget that you even have it enabled. After all, nobody pays attention to the stutters they don't experience or the loading screens they don't have to sit through. So, you'll probably end up taking this feature for granted down the line. Enable it once and forget about it But the setting is somewhat buried in the Nvidia App For a feature that Nvidia recently introduced, you'd think it would at least be easy to find in the app. It doesn't have its own dedicated section, so you need to know where to look. Just go to Graphics -> Global Settings and scroll down to Shader Cache. Click on the setting, and you'll see Automatic Shader Compilation. Set it to On and change the system utilization and cache size settings if you want to. I left those settings untouched, though. Now, you can't immediately launch a game after enabling it and expect ASC to have already recompiled everything. As I said earlier, it recompiles shaders when your PC is idle, so you need to give it some time to finish the job. But if you don't have the patience, Nvidia gives you the option to start compilation manually. Just click the three-dot button in the top-right corner and choose Compile Now. I think that's a nice addition, especially if you're someone like me who's in front of the PC almost all day. ASC isn't a flawless solution But it doesn't have to work in every instance to be worth using Remember, ASC only works if you've already compiled shaders for a game. That means you need to launch and play it at least once before ASC can do its job. I don't like that it needs idle time, though, and here's why. When I update my drivers, it's usually right before I launch a game, which means ASC doesn't get enough time to finish recompiling shaders unless I manually trigger it using Compile Now. Also, it only works with DirectX 12 titles, so games that use Vulkan and older DirectX 11 games won't benefit from this feature. And lastly, game updates can still force you to recompile shaders from scratch. But despite all these limitations, I don't see a reason to leave ASC disabled. Enabling it doesn't affect performance or create new problems. It just does the job when I'm away from my desk to make my experience slightly better when I'm gaming. Sure, I might not benefit from it every time, but considering almost all new releases I play use DirectX 12, compatibility isn't much of a concern for me. And even if it doesn't completely eliminate shader compilation stutters, reducing their frequency is enough to make ASC worth enabling. One less thing to worry about after driver updates I think Nvidia deserves some credit for finally addressing one of the many inconveniences we've all been putting up with for years. Of course, it's not going to make shader compilation stutters a thing of the past, but I don't think anyone should expect it to. At least we're finally getting a way to avoid some of that unnecessary recompilation after driver updates. And let's not forget that this feature is still in beta, so Nvidia could always improve it down the line and make it more seamless. But for now, I'm totally fine leaving it enabled and even manually triggering compilation before I launch a game if I have to. NVIDIA App The Nvidia app isn't just for updating your graphics drivers. You can use it to optimize games, tweak your DLSS settings, and even take advantage of experimental features like Automatic Shader Compilation.