Building shaders still takes 2 HOURS even after all the patches

[Sledge Hammer!]

Did we ever get an explanation why such an average looking game has the longest shader compilation in the gaming industry?

I made the mistake of updating my Nvidia drivers to the newest, knowing the game would rebuild shaders again, but crossed my fingers that the patches would speed up the shader compilation process. Unfortunately it took just as long as it did on release day.

I can't help but feel that there has to be some programming misfeasance going on, that every other game on the market compiles shaders in minutes, while TLOU1 takes hours. Even games that look much more visually complex can handle shader building far better. Taking into account CPU differences, TLOU1 has to be doing something wrong that every other major game is doing right. Is it because it's a Playstation port? Do Playstation games that are ported just generally perform in an inferior fashion to games built from the ground up for PC's?

[Radioactive Gary]

What specs you have? I rebuilt my shaders a few days back and took maybe 40 mins at most from scratch. Game still runs like ass though.

[SpielSatzFail]

The other PS ports like Uncharted or Horizon Zero Dawn did fine, shader compilation took around five minutes. I will not consider buying TloU unless this issue is gone once and for all.

[sonic16]

Originally posted by Sledge Hammer!:

Originally posted by Dreschmaschine:

What specs you have? I rebuilt my shaders a few days back and took maybe 40 mins at most from scratch. Game still runs like ass though.

I have an i7-6700 with 16gb of system RAM. That's better than minimum specs but less than recommended specs on the store page. I understand that shader building is primarily CPU intensive, but every other AAA game on the Steam bestseller list is able to handle compilation easily in minutes, while TLOU1 struggles for hours.

Your CPU is outdated man. I don't trust even the recommended specs. Building shaders doesn't take too long with 32 threads. It uses all CPU resources available. Plus, your CPU's going to bottleneck your game hard.
I've tested my 10900k @5.1Ghz and it was awful, switched to 13900ks stock with ddr5 7200cl34 and no more bottlenecks, now the GPU is the limiting factor once the game's past 120fps+ which is OK for me cause I limit my games at 120fps.

[Valentine Kiss]

In theory the Core i7 6700 should be okay regarding the minimum requirements, a good example for "don't believe these informations and focus more on the recommended ones".

[Sledge Hammer!]

Originally posted by sonic16:

Originally posted by Sledge Hammer!:

I have an i7-6700 with 16gb of system RAM.

Your CPU is outdated man. I don't trust even the recommended specs.

Sure, a newer CPU is better, but you missed my point. Every other game compiles shaders without a problem, regardless of my CPU. Uncharted and Horizon Zero Dawn didn't have this problem. TLOU1 is the ONLY game Steam sells that takes hours to start up. And there's no excuse why such an average looking game can't perform at the same level as far more graphically complex ones.

[Blacksmith77K]

Originally posted by Sledge Hammer!:

Sure, a newer CPU is better,

Devinitive... On a 5800x "building-shader" needs less then 12 minutes


https://youtu.be/1bjX7wsPkDA

[FeilDOW]

Originally posted by Sledge Hammer!:

Originally posted by sonic16:

Your CPU is outdated man. I don't trust even the recommended specs.

Sure, a newer CPU is better, but you missed my point. Every other game compiles shaders without a problem, regardless of my CPU. Uncharted and Horizon Zero Dawn didn't have this problem. TLOU1 is the ONLY game Steam sells that takes hours to start up. And there's no excuse why such an average looking game can't perform at the same level as far more graphically complex ones.

I understand you likely have to run it at low settings, but at ultra it's a well above average looking game.

[C1REX]

It takes 45 minutes on my 16 cores CPU. It takes very long.
If it's so much shaders then so be it.
BUT....
It seems to be ultra stupid that you compile shaders while looking at a main menu with just a window that is already taxing your PC to the limit.
Why don't do that with a black screen and a progress bar? You are literally running the game and compiling shaders at the same time. Why?
Even Returnal that takes 30seconds to pre-compile shaders do a black screen with progress bar.

[Arc]

Originally posted by Sledge Hammer!:

I have an i7-6700 with 16gb of system RAM. That's better than minimum specs but less than recommended specs on the store page. I understand that shader building is primarily CPU intensive, but every other AAA game on the Steam bestseller list is able to handle compilation easily in minutes, while TLOU1 struggles for hours.

That's 5-10% above minspec, which is still practically speaking minspec (That's Intel for ya)

Is the CPU throttling frequency by any chance ?
Are you running out of memory ?

[RaWrAgExLOL]

Shaders installed from 0% to 100% within 10 mins for me on steam deck literally just now lol

[Mágganon]

Originally posted by Sledge Hammer!:

Originally posted by sonic16:

Your CPU is outdated man. I don't trust even the recommended specs.

Sure, a newer CPU is better, but you missed my point. Every other game compiles shaders without a problem, regardless of my CPU. Uncharted and Horizon Zero Dawn didn't have this problem. TLOU1 is the ONLY game Steam sells that takes hours to start up. And there's no excuse why such an average looking game can't perform at the same level as far more graphically complex ones.

I'm actually curious, what's a game that you consider more graphically complex than this one?

[Unfit]

Building shaders every new driver release. A few minutes to build is fine. almost an hour is absolutely unacceptable. especially since the game is installed on a decent spec nvme with decent modern cpu/gpu.

Originally posted by Mágganon:

Originally posted by Sledge Hammer!:

Sure, a newer CPU is better, but you missed my point. Every other game compiles shaders without a problem, regardless of my CPU. Uncharted and Horizon Zero Dawn didn't have this problem. TLOU1 is the ONLY game Steam sells that takes hours to start up. And there's no excuse why such an average looking game can't perform at the same level as far more graphically complex ones.

I'm actually curious, what's a game that you consider more graphically complex than this one?

CYBERPUNK?

[TotesBreakfast]

It's not taking 2 hours but I'm having to rebuild shaders tonight and it's taking longer than it ever has before (3080ti, 5800x, 32GB ram, NVME drive). This release is ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[Sledge Hammer!]

Originally posted by ...:

Originally posted by Mágganon:

I'm actually curious, what's a game that you consider more graphically complex than this one?

CYBERPUNK?

+1 👍

[a.]

I have a similar CPU but the 35W T-version from the following gen (i7-7700T) and it took me 5h20min to compile shaders. The game itself actually runs fine but the shader compilation was crazy