Microsoft announced broad availability of Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD) across Windows devices with supported AMD, Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm hardware on October 21, 2026. To use it, a PC needs Windows 11 24H2 or later, a listed graphics device and driver, a participating game, and a supported download route.
What Advanced Shader Delivery does
ASD is a Windows 11 Direct3D 12 technology that delivers precompiled shaders with supported game downloads. Shaders are small programs used to render graphics; preparing them before they reach a player can reduce the compilation work done on the player’s PC.
In Microsoft’s developer pipeline, a game’s State Object Database (SODB) is compiled into a Precompiled Shader Database (PSDB), which is then delivered with the game. Microsoft also says the shader cache updates automatically when a graphics driver changes.
Windows, graphics hardware, and driver requirements
Microsoft’s minimum operating-system requirement is Windows 11 version 24H2. The listed graphics hardware and minimum drivers depend on the vendor:
| Vendor | Supported hardware | Minimum graphics driver |
| AMD | RDNA 1, RDNA 2, RDNA 3, RDNA 3.5 and RDNA 4 | Adrenalin 26.6.1 or later |
| Intel | Arc B-Series B570 or B580; Core Ultra Series 2 or Series 3 | 32.0.101.9150 or later |
| Nvidia | All RTX GPUs and RTX Spark | 621.01 or later |
| Qualcomm | Snapdragon X2 Series | 2026.08.3 or later |
Meeting the OS and hardware requirements is not enough by itself: the game must also support ASD, and its download must use a supported route.
Where supported game downloads come from
Microsoft names the Xbox PC app and Microsoft Store as current ASD download routes. For Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, Microsoft said to install the Xbox PC app before downloading the game. Microsoft’s October 21 announcement described direct ASD integration with Steam and Epic Games Store as planned, and said Fortnite would receive support in a future update.
Supported games and the launch-screen status
Microsoft’s June 11, 2026 list included Forza Horizon 6, Forza Motorsport, Gears of War: Reloaded, Starfield and Control Standard Edition, among other titles. Its October 21 announcement separately named Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 as an ASD example.
On a supported game’s launch screen, Microsoft identifies the words “Precompiled shaders installed” as the visible ASD indicator. One commenter, Michał Jakubowski, reported seeing that message for Gears of War: E-Day on Game Pass with Nvidia driver 621.01 while shader compilation still took as long as before. The status identifies ASD installation, but it does not mean every shader wait disappears.
What the reported performance examples show
Microsoft said first-launch shader compilation in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 takes a few seconds with ASD, compared with several minutes on a typical PC without it. In an earlier Forza Horizon 6 example, Microsoft reported 4 seconds with ASD versus almost 1.5 minutes without it, on a system with an AMD Radeon RX 7600 and AMD Ryzen 7 5800.
A separate Gears of War: E-Day comparison by Mostly Positive Reviews used an RTX 5070 Ti. The creator reported somewhat smoother frame times and fewer stutters with ASD enabled, while noting that some stutters remained. That is one creator’s result for one game and graphics card.
