Gears Of War: E-Day Has A Clever Solution To One Of PC Gaming’s Biggest Annoyances

Early access for Gears of War: E-Day has kicked off for anyone who bought the Premium Edition, and if you're on PC, you're probably dreading the traditional shader compilation wait that comes with it. There's good news, as Gears of War: E-Day supports a neat feature on this platform that cuts down on that process significantly.

Called Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD), it addresses how modern games rely on shaders to calculate how light, shadows, reflections, and textures should look on screen. This usually involves you sitting for a while when you first boot up a game after installing it, resulting in the infamous "Compiling Shaders" loading bar. In comparison, ASD is like buying a Gundam model kit that's already assembled, right out of the box.

ASD pre-translates and delivers shader files directly to your device ahead of time, so you wait mere seconds. …