Stop preparing shaders...5...10..25

[Deleted member 38366]

The difference is just not communicated very well.

1st time : Actual building, optimizing and storage of pre-calculated Shader parameters into a Config XML File. Takes quite a while, depending on Hardware used.
2nd time : Shader Warmup. Looks the same but is much faster and now using the pre-determined Parameters.

After it was introduced, I also expected the process to be visible only on 1st start (or as mentioned any changes to the Config).
But since Shader Warmup can also take its due time on slower machines, I guess having it display the progress is useful.

So in essence, it seems a Wording thingy.
All follow-up starts should read "Warming up Shaders" or something. Just make it read a different Text to when it actually builds the Shader Cache for the 1st time.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Compute Shaders (the second round of them) occurs every time, and I have time to fetch snacks while it is loading.

My box and it's card have *not* changed in three years, BTW. So, I have to keep lowering my graphics settings, or spend half a months rent on a new graphics card.

 

[AstroCreep]

I run Elite on two PCs (Desktop & Laptop) both with nVidia, the longer shaders load up only ever happens after a driver update or patch to the game itself, the quicker shader loading happens every time but it's 2-3 seconds at most.

If it's happening every time and you've unchecked the in game setting then maybe you need a fresh driver install, something there may be funking around with it.

 

[shadragon]

Go into the games graphics settings and you can turn this off. That setting has been there since at least 2.0.

 

[crwth]

Shadragon, the point here is that it happens to some people anyway, despite having switched it off. On my desktop it doesn't, but on my laptop it happens every time. It takes more than a minute to start the game for me. My laptop is under-speced, though, so I don't complain. I'm happy the game runs at all on that one.

 

[thorn-]

It's not a bug! It recalculates every time it detects a different computer, driver, or game version. After the first time on each unique setup, it should whizz through.

It also calculates shaders when it's the same computer, same driver, and same game version.

(Not sure how fast "whizz" is.)

 

[JacoTheBad]

If you are on intel graphics, I'm really sorry for you.

...Finaly some sympathy!
When Horizons 1st released, it took 8 full minutes to compute shaders. Now only a minute or two, but yeah, the overall performance leaves a lot to be desired. Got an extra bump up still when 2.1 hit & the textures changed.... To be honest I am still just glad I was able to Bootcamp Windows 10 on my 2013 iMac & play Horizons at all.

Now my biggest worry is that season 3 will make me get a new computer. Would not be getting a dedicated Windows machine just for ED, and I would need to upgrade my work machine to a top of the line Mac in order to get the kind of performance I am looking for in ED... Cost will be through the roof... And I may need to resort to violence And that would be dangerous

 

[nats]

A far more annoying issue is the start up time for the game itself - the screen goes black and stays like that for several minutes until you get into the menu screen. That just looks like the game is not doing anything. They really need something put onto that loading screen it looks right amateurish.

 

[AstroCreep]

A far more annoying issue is the start up time for the game itself - the screen goes black and stays like that for several minutes until you get into the menu screen. That just looks like the game is not doing anything. They really need something put onto that loading screen it looks right amateurish.

That takes seconds for me,maybe you need a defrag?

edit: 34seconds from clicking Play to Menu screen on my Laptop

 

[kalniel]

A far more annoying issue is the start up time for the game itself - the screen goes black and stays like that for several minutes until you get into the menu screen. That just looks like the game is not doing anything. They really need something put onto that loading screen it looks right amateurish.

This is presumably computer specific, since I don't see any blank screen. What are your specifications?

 

[FiddenUK]

If you are on older AMD drivers (AFAIK the earliest drivers that support shader cache are the "Omega" releases), you need to manually create a profile for Elite Dangerous, and in there disable AMD-specific shader optimisation and enable shader cache. By now (drivers after mid-2015) that seems to work well automatically

Older AMD drivers were certainly making this Shader Preparation run a lot slower than it currently does. I also found upgrading gave me big benefits on the fan noise on my GPU, so worth exploring if you haven't done this already. It does run every time you start up, but the delay is pretty small.

 

[LionOfNarnia]

It's not a bug!

It recalculates every time it detects a different computer, driver, or game version. After the first time on each unique setup, it should whizz through.

So I need to report it as one on all 3 machines I've done clean installs on?

Sorry, I'm not buying that line.

...and it takes up to 3 minutes on my best rig, FX8350 32GB HD7950.

EVERY

SINGLE

TIME