Current Events > PC gamers of old, inform me

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Was compiling shaders always an annoying process you had to do to run a game? Or is this something that's just gotten more frequent because games have gotten larger in scale?

Larger in scale, but also shaders have gotten a lot more complex. Not sure if the near-total abandonment of optimization is related.

Shaders are more complex, but it's also lazy programming. Some modern games compile shaders asynchronously on demand.

So basically, & correct me if this is wrong, but the graphical demand/scale of games today like Elden Ring, Forbidden West, Jedi Survivor, have necessitated that shader processes become more automated to initialize the games...But only because developers software side have off-loaded that task onto player's PCs so their GPU/CPU are responsible for finalizing the setup of the exe?

Bump

That qualifies as old now? I'm here like "We didn't have them newfangled shaders when I was young. We had software rendering at 320x200 with 256 colours and we were grateful for it dammit!".

hereforemnant posted...

Was compiling shaders always an annoying process you had to do to run a game? Or is this something that's just gotten more frequent because games have gotten larger in scale?

I was expecting some kind of question about boot disks and expanded memory or extended memory.

What the fuck is this shader shit

hereforemnant posted...

But only because developers software side have off-loaded that task onto player's PCs so their GPU/CPU are responsible for finalizing the setup of the exe?

This is sort of correct, but It's more like necessity rather than choice. There is so much variety in graphics cards (as well as updates to graphics drivers or to the games or etc etc) that they cannot reasonably provide pre-compiled shaders for everyone, it's just simpler and way more realistic to have the user compile it themselves.

As far as doing it at the start, that's sort of a "safety" measure to prevent you from having to compile mid-gameplay which might cause sudden fps drops or whatever

No because 20 years ago shaders didnt exist.

We did have to play mini games while we waiting for our collection of 4 discs to install on the HDD though lol

kirbymuncher posted...

This is sort of correct, but It's more like necessity rather than choice. There is so much variety in graphics cards (as well as updates to graphics drivers or to the games or etc etc) that they cannot reasonably provide pre-compiled shaders for everyone, it's just simpler and way more realistic to have the user compile it themselves.

As far as doing it at the start, that's sort of a "safety" measure to prevent you from having to compile mid-gameplay which might cause sudden fps drops or whatever

For graphics cards these days you have AMD, Radeon, Nvidia, probably others I'm missing. Is the market of cards really that varied? I know there's 3090s, 4090, different levels of graphical capability, but the market is pretty condensed isn't it? It's mostly one or two titans competing & then everything else is way down the ladder. In America you always have a Ford, or GMC. Coke, or Pepsi. AMD, or Nvidia.

To me it seems like just because there's a slight difference in the user-side hardware, software developers rely on those consumers always chasing FPS & higher graphical fidelity knowing they'll spend an arm & a leg having a good rig so that that hardware can brute force any inadequacies in the software. I see the same pattern in motorcycles with Harley Davidson.

The company knows there's a cult following with those bikes & that it's composed of hard fought red blooded Americans that will maintain & fix that bike up no matter what because it's how the company influenced them to behave. So Harley can put out lemons that require a ton more maintenance than Japanese or European brands to maintain, & the consumers will bear that burden because it's hardwired into them by that point.

I see a similar motivation from PC gamers, always chasing that 4K 60+ FPS

hereforemnant posted...

For graphics cards these days you have AMD, Radeon, Nvidia, probably others I'm missing. Is the market of cards really that varied?

In this sense, yes. It's not just about the vendor, it's also the hardware type, the driver versions, potentially individiual user settings or optimizations, etc etc. Like even just the nvidia RTX40 series (where that infamous 4090 is from) has 10 different graphics cards in it, all in the past 1.5 years so all actually cards real people might have. and then on top of that, they might have all sorts of driver versions depending on whether or not they're on top of updates, and so on. adds up fast

hereforemnant posted...

that hardware can brute force any inadequacies in the software.

I do agree with this in a lot of cases but I really don't think this is one of them. Well, sometimes it is, if they compile the shaders at poor times. But it's entirely possible just to compile them on first launch and keep them cached unless they need to be changed, and while that might make it take a while to launch every now and then it won't really impact the gameplay experience since by the time you're playing the compiling is finished

kirbymuncher posted...

In this sense, yes. It's not just about the vendor, it's also the hardware type, the driver versions, potentially individiual user settings or optimizations, etc etc. Like even just the nvidia RTX40 series (where that infamous 4090 is from) has 10 different graphics cards in it, all in the past 1.5 years so all actually cards real people might have. and then on top of that, they might have all sorts of driver versions depending on whether or not they're on top of updates, and so on. adds up fast

I do agree with this in a lot of cases but I really don't think this is one of them. Well, sometimes it is, if they compile the shaders at poor times. But it's entirely possible just to compile them on first launch and keep them cached unless they need to be changed, and while that might make it take a while to launch every now and then it won't really impact the gameplay experience since by the time you're playing the compiling is finished

Do you think there's too many graphics cards being produced & it's a rat race of diminishing returns by now? Or is there still a lot of value in producing so many because they all still have niches or markets that they fit into? It is a big thing that sometimes driver updates aren't sought out by people for sure.

On my emulation plays I just notice how frequent it is always caching shaders every single time I start something up. And especially when playing on steam that it doesn't matter how many times I cache shaders or finish the process that you're having to do it again the next startup. Do you think there's a better process that doesn't use too much hardware power & is more seamless in execution?