Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta may have eradicated the annoying 'Compiling Shaders' wait PC players loathe

While sharing the remaining details about the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta scheduled for this weekend - such as pre-load information and PC specs - Infinity Ward and co-developer Beenox have revealed an unexpected PC gaming breakthrough.

The short version

• It's to do with eliminating elongated wait times associated with compiling a game's shaders.
• In a wide-ranging blog post , the Call of Duty developers discussed their solution to the 'Compiling Shaders' issue most PC players should be familiar with.
• This isn't isolated to just Call of Duty games; it's so widespread it's a surprise when a game doesn't have it.

What happened

To recap, modern games on PC require shaders to tell your graphics card how to render what you see on screen. By compiling shaders for things like effects, lighting, shadows and surfaces ahead of time, the game doesn't have to struggle in the moment when these are called on during play.

Why it matters

The problem is that compiling shaders can take time, and that it has to be done in full when you start a game for the first time, after you update your GPU drivers, and when major patches are released.

Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Eurogamer via the links above and below.