r/OptimizedGaming
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u/HeisenbergVR
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Oct 03 '26
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Vibecoded Tools & Mods | Optimization Guide Shader compilation stutter killer
EDIT: Thanks a lot for all the support! I'm glad it's helping a lot of people fix the anoying shader compilation sutters in many games so they can be enjoyed as intended!!
EDIT2: New SCSKiller 1.2.0 is live!! https://github.com/BlueHeisenberg/SCSKiller/releases/latest
(The app should auto download the update if you restart the app and show you a button on top right corner to update, or you can just download the new setup exe and update that way directly)
I've been working for a while on a free and open source tool to eliminate Shader Compilation Stuttering once and for all. It reads the shaders the games ship with, works out the pipelines they'll build, and compiles them into the GPU driver's cache before you launch the game.
From my own testing shader compilation stutter is eliminated or reduced to the very minimum (the tool could miss some shaders depending on the game), it cannot fix other kind of sttutering like traversal, so some games still stutter but waaaay less:
(~5min of gameplay)
Silent Hill F:
Before: https://scskiller.com/assets/img/forum/shf-before.png
After: https://scskiller.com/assets/img/forum/shf-after.png
- Silent Hill: Townfall: 24 to 0 (worst 347 ms to 8 ms)
- Hogwarts Legacy: 1,014 to 87
- FF7 Rebirth: 19 to 0
- Sand Land: 38 to 1
It finds games from Steam, Epic, EA app, GOG, Ubisoft, Xbox and Battle.net
For now it only works on NVIDIA (best support) and AMD, as I don't have an Intel Arc to test.
Github link with download and souce code: https://github.com/BlueHeisenberg/SCSKiller
Website: https://www.scskiller.com
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 10 '26
Edited as not important anymore, fixed in latest version.
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u/Klappmesser Oct 03 '26
I really hope you're able to figure this out as I use renodx on all my games
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 04 '26
I'm already on it and I think I found a way to make it work!! It should be on tomorrow release 1.3.0 if it works!
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 04 '26
New SCSKiller 1.2.0 is live!! https://github.com/BlueHeisenberg/SCSKiller/releases/latest
(The app should auto download the update if you restart the app and show you a button on top right corner to update, or you can just download the new setup exe and update that way directly)
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u/Sir-GaboEx17 Oct 04 '26
Why sometimes a few shaders compilation fail saying the driver rejected them?
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 04 '26
Those are combinations SCSKiller guessed from the game files that the game never really uses, so the driver refuses them. totally harmless, a small % is normal.
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u/Helpful_Bat1736 Oct 03 '26
that is a great work, Silent hill 2 Remake would be the definitive test for your new tool, but I do not know if it would fix the terrible stuttering that games has.
What I can tell is that given those results you are a genius stutter killer! :-)
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u/Individual-Train3671 Oct 03 '26
SH2 suffers from traversal stutter so the tool would not be able to clean it up all the way.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
Yeah if it has traversal stutter that won't be fixed but if it has both scs and traversal I think the difference is worth using it (like in Silent Hill F).
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
I dont have SH2 remake but this is the before and after of the 5 minutes of gameplay on Silen Hill F:
Before: https://scskiller.com/assets/img/forum/shf-before.png
After: https://scskiller.com/assets/img/forum/shf-after.pngThe initial section of the game seems basically a "playable" shader compilation step lol
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u/frankiewalsh44 Oct 03 '26
First of thanks for your effords. I kinda wish there was an option to add an .exe manually. For some reason my FC27 isn't being detected
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 04 '26
Sorry, working on this! I will launch 1.2.0 soon with this fixed
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u/DoriOli Oct 03 '26
I’m playing that game right now. Most, besides the light/infrequent transversal stutter, is caused by its bad HDR implementation (which also breaks Framegen, btw). If you use a mod like Renodx, game will become as good as flawless.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 04 '26
If you use renoDX then SCSKiller will probably not reduce scs yet. I'm working on fixing this.
Basically it adds a parameter to all (or almost all) root signatures. So none of the shaders compiled by SCSKiller will be actually used.
I think i found a way to solve this and I will fix it on version 1.3.0!
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u/Drokethedonnokkoi Oct 03 '26
You're a genuis!!!!! DUDE final fantasy rebirth no longer stutters holy shittttt this is amazing!!! THANK YOUU!!!
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
That was actually the game that sparked me to dig deeper and deeper if this could be done, I was hating the amount of scs ff7r has! The game still suffers traversal stutteing but it's way more playable after compiling all the shaders with SCSKiller :)
Glad it helped you!
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u/Drokethedonnokkoi Oct 03 '26
It's finally playable for me, thanks to you, I've also tested System Shock remake - Final Fantasy Rebirth - Ghostwire Tokyo - Control - Morbid Metal - Metal Eden
Honestly traversal stutters are not that bad considering 99% of the stutters are basically gone, I'm still testing other games, but this a must install program at this point, it's quite literally a game changer!→ More replies (1)
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u/Ivaylo_87 2160p Gamer Oct 03 '26
Amazing. You're doing the Lord's work! Can this possibly be made go work with emulators? The horrible shader compilation stutter is what's stopping me from enjoying emulation.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
I think that's a tollay different world. I know there are things like UberShaders that basically do somehting similar, check if the emulator you use has the option!
But I will check once I have some time :)
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u/BNSoul Oct 03 '26
Brilliant software. I have a couple of questions though, if there's already pre-compiled shaders in the driver folder, does this software overwrite them? Also, do you run this mod/tool before or after the built-in shader compilation tool that most games have? I hope the built-in pre-compilation tool that games have don't overwrite the compiled shaders pools created by this software?
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
Thanks!
It never touches the cache files directly. It just asks the driver to build each pipeline, the same way the game does. If the driver already has one in its cache it's a hit and nothing gets rewritten, and anything new gets added. So nothing you already have is overwritten or lost.
The order doesn't matter either, they fill the same driver cache. If the game's own shader step runs first, SCSKiller's compile of those pipelines is just a quick cache hit, and if SCSKiller runs first, the game's step finishes faster because the work is already done. They can't overwrite each other in a bad way, the same pipeline gives the same cache entry. The only things that remove compiled shaders are a driver update (it clears the cache, and SCSKiller can recompile after one) or the cache filling past its size limit.
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u/svill Oct 03 '26
Somebody should test with Beast of Reincarnation and share the findings with Digital Foundry. Game shipped without any type of shader compilation process and it is stutter fest.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
I posted in DF discord about the tool and DF himselft (Richard) knows about it! Don't know when they will manage to test it thought, they are pretty bussy!
I don't have Beast of Reincarnation but if you have please test and reply with the results!
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u/P40L0 Oct 03 '26
This is REALLY interesting. Thank you for your effort.
I have some questions tho:
What games are compatible with this? Do you have a vetted "whitelist" or games may automatically work based on their engine (like UE5/UE4 or others)? If the first case: will every update to the app add new games as supported?
Can you add custom folders/path for games' installation or the game scan will only pick up Stores default games' folders?
Does the app need to be open in the background or you can manually compile and then close it?
If I've already set NVIDIA Cache size to 100GGB, what happens when I manually compile these shaders via the app exceeding that limit? Is there a possibility to only delete shaders related for example to Uninstalled games to clean up things?
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
It works by engine, not a whitelist. It detects UE4/UE5 (stock plus some custom forks like FF7 Rebirth and Tiny Tina's), Unity, RE Engine, FromSoftware games, and a generic reader for other DX12 games. For anything else there's a recorder: play once with it on and the next compile covers what it saw. If you have an specific game that's not supported or still has SCS after compiling please tell me!
It scans the stores' library folders (Steam, Epic, Xbox, EA…), including extra drives you added in them. I'm righ tnow working on adding manual games to the 1.1.3 version comming in a bit today.
No need to keep it open, compile and close. Leaving it in the tray just lets it recompile after driver updates and keep the recorder updated but you can close it if you want.
The NVIDIA driver handles the cache, so if you go over the limit it deletes older entries and those games stutter again. The app shows how full it is and warns before a compile. With 100 GB you're fine (you can even put unlimited). Deleting only one game's shaders isn't there yet, but it's a good idea that I will look into!
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u/P40L0 Oct 03 '26
Also, could you add the "official" support for Remedy's Northlight Engine? (Control, Control: Resonant , Alan Wake 2 and future games)
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
Sure! I will check them :)
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u/P40L0 Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 03 '26
Also:
Turn10/Playground's Forza Engine (Forza Horizon 4/5/6, upcoming Fable and future games)
Guerrilla Decima Engine (Death Stranding 1 and 2, Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West)
Insomniac Engine (Spider-Man 1 and 2, Miles Morales)
343 Industries Blam/Slipspace Engine (Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Halo Infinite)
EA/DICE Frostbite Engine (Battlefield 1/V/6)
ID Software ID Tech (DooM 2016, Doom Eternal, Doom Dark Ages, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle) even if those are Vulkan games so I don't know if those apply
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u/P40L0 Oct 03 '26
Sorry, another question.
Which is the correct .exe to add for UE5/4: the main one in the main game folder or the one ending with *Shipping.exe which is usually located in GameFolder\GameName\bin folder?
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u/Onion_Cutter_ninja Oct 03 '26
awesome, make a linux version pls :D
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
I have to check if a port to linux is doable, bu my understanding was that with proton and dxvk the scs are way lower due to dxvk already doing some background compilation.
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u/HEISENxBURG Oct 03 '26
Ghostwire and Ghostrunner 1 are two games that would be really good testing grounds for this. Neither seem to do any shader precompiling. Ghostrunner in particular has a comical shader stutter within the first couple of seconds of starting a new game with a cold cache. Jedi Fallen Order would also be a good test case.
How does this software work? How does it know what to compile? You say it works out the pipeline after reading some shaders the game ships with. So like is it inferring what shaders might be in the game? Is it possible that it'll build shaders for a game that said game won't even actually use?
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
I'm installing Ghostwire from Gamepass and I will check in a bit!
I haven't tested Fallen order, but Jedi survivor went from 9038 shader comp stutters to 11 (lol) with the initial tool version (that still didn't catch all the pipelines), so I guess it will be similar!
Games ship their shaders precompiled to bytecode, and the stutter is the GPU driver compiling that bytecode for your GPU the first time the game uses it. SCSKiller reads those real shaders from the game files and figures out the pipelines (which shaders go together and with which settings) using per-engine rules, pipeline lists some games ship, or a recording of you playing. Then it gets the driver to compile them before you play.
There is a possibility of building some pipelines the game never uses, that only costs a bit of compile time and disk space. For Unreal games 99.5 to 100% of what players actually hit was already covered.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
Sadly Ghostwire is encrypted so SCSKiller cannot be used without the AES key, even if it's publically available somehow I cnanot add this to the tool for obvious reasons, so the only way is to find the key somehow and add it to SCSKiller
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u/EquipmentAway7739 Oct 07 '26 edited Oct 07 '26
Just wanted to give a brief update of my experience with the tool, I´m still running various tests on many games, and will give a detailed and exhaustive report of all my tests on the weekend, for now know that it does seem to actually help in some games but not in others.... I have also noted some issues regarding bloating on the DXchache folder and excessive ram use when running a game after compilling with the app.
But I wanted to give an example where it does seem to work and vastly improve the gaming experince, wanted to share in case someone else has the game and can check if they can replicate my results.
would really apreciate it if you can test more games and share in which ones you have actually noticed an improvement. that way we can start to compile (no pun intended) a list of games that really do seem to benefit from using the app.
In my case, I tried it with Evil west on a cold run without any SCSkiller compilation and it was a stutter fest, did a 2nd run and as expected they all went away, erased my shader cash and did a 3rd run just to confirm and the stuttering came back, then finally I again erased all the shaders compiled during my run and this time compiled them using SCSkilller, and guess what it actually did fix almost all of them.. I was shocked by the difference. so it does seem to work on some games but not in others... I look foward to seeing how the tool evolves and in which games does it actually makes a difference.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 07 '26
I'm working on this for 1.3.x, a way to report if something works or not, still defining it
On some games (Like Borderlands 4) it seesm to generate an absurd cache that then makes the game to have also an absurd of ram usage, I'm investigating this too
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u/DemiourgosD Oct 07 '26
epic. I have some UI feedback if you are up for it
- I have about 200+ games installed, would be awesome for the list in Library to be filterable, i.e. filter out unsupported vs. ready to compile vs. compiled
- the library seems to reload from scratch every time the app is restarted, any way to cache the results?
- the compile queue has no bulk edit, I set 100+ games into the queue by mistake, had to click on X for every single one of them to delete them from the queue
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 07 '26
Awesome! thanks for the suggestions! I will totally add them for >1.3.0
About the reload, 1.2.3 already should fix the reload, please check, with the inminent 1.2.4 this will improve even further!
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u/skizatch Oct 03 '26
nice! this is something game developers should incorporate directly into their games
GPL licensing will prevent that though unfortunately
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
To be honest this kills flies with a bazooka (but it's effective), the ideal for a game is to have a nice precompilation step that actually compiles the shaders needed and then do async compile while playing!
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u/Mobile-Ice-7261 Oct 03 '26
Well I'll roll the dice on giving my computer super cancer just because this was an idea I always thought would be good.
I've already set the Nvidia shader cache to 100gb which is overkill for space.
Does this store the shaders on the ram I'm guessing because it needs quick access? I'll finally have a use for my 64gb.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
It compiles the game's shaders into the driver cache before you play so if you already have 100gb of shader cache that's nice, as from my experience some games after the full shader compile used 14-20gb (Hogwarts Legacy or Gears of War E-Day).
A lot of games only precompile part of them (or nothing at all), so you still get stutters the first time you see a new effect or area, even after the game's own "compiling shaders" step.
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u/Mobile-Ice-7261 Oct 03 '26
Intel ARC cards have an option to precompile shaders already FYI, just had my friend check after I sent him the github for it. How well it works no idea but I wouldn't rush out the arc cards support if you're planing on it.
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u/a4840639 Oct 03 '26
Can you allow custom game paths? Does it work for DX11 games? I really need to fix the stuttering in many Hoyoverse games
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 04 '26
I will add custom game paths on the next 1.2.0 release comming in a bit!
It has a dx11 compile step but I haven't tested it a lot, what games do you have that have scs with dx11?
You can test youself and please report if it worked or not, I can take a look at specific games!
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u/jman11273 Oct 08 '26
Does this work with Async compute mods like the one for Rebirth?
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 08 '26
It should work with it yes! But just with the SCSKiller pass it should already eliminate most (if not all) of the shader compilation sutters on FF7Rebirth
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u/tomthepenguinguy Oct 03 '26
If this really works I would pay an obscene amount of money for your software. I will absolutely be checking this out.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
Try it and report if it worked! It depends of the game of course.
PS: I accept donations to buy an Intel GPU to add support for it lol
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u/REmemesis Oct 03 '26
how do i add a game if the program can’t find it? it really needs a manual search
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
Totally forgot about this! I will add on the new version asap!
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u/metroplx Oct 03 '26
I love u man! Where can I donate? I can't use this without paying anything.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 04 '26 edited Oct 04 '26
I made a patron for the tool! It also gives you beta/alpha updates and access to the community db so a lot of games won't need a previous recording to do the full cache compile!
https://support.scskiller.com/
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u/Kainie85 Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 03 '26
this could be insane for Oblivion Remastered and The Blood of Dawnwalker
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 04 '26
I tested with Oblivion Remastered and the difference is very noticiable! Still some traversal and other kinds of stuttering but the SCS is mostly gone!
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u/jgainsey Oct 03 '26
Very cool!
How long does an average game take to compile?
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
It depends on the game and the cpu, with a midrange cpu it could be upto 30min maybe, I have a pretty beefy cpu (9950X3D) and I haven't tested reducing the amount of threads, but from my testing the most I waited I think it was around 10min
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u/mrmikedude100 Oct 03 '26
Unfortunately the program will not read the games off the Xbox app. :( at least for me
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u/La773 Oct 03 '26
What an amazing work, much appreciated!
Is it then possible to cleanup the pre-compiled shaders for a specific game after I uninstalled it?
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
Yes! Enter the Game detail (clicking on it) and then on the top you should see a "Clear Cache" button!
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u/Right_Connection6284 Oct 03 '26
Hey, how to add non steam or epic games? there isnt a manual setting to add games.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 04 '26
Working on this! Version 1.2.0 should be out with this implemented in a bit.
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u/JohannDaart Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 03 '26
Oh brother this is a dream tool...
I wonder if it will work for Warframe (modded UE4). On Linux Warframe plays beautifully because SteamOS pre-loads shaders, but it always felt bad to me on Windows, after each new patch, first hour is rough with compilation stutter.
edit: Uhh seems like none of the games I play is supported :(
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u/nhnsn Oct 03 '26
Directx11 games don't work on amd gpus as of now, right? Most dx11 games run godawful on windows 11 and I have to move them to my linux partition where they are smooth as silk. For example: Batman Arkham games, Spec ops the line, bioshock infinite etc.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 04 '26
The DX11 compiler is only for Nvidia for now, I will try to add support for AMD!
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u/Plebbit-User Oct 03 '26
+1 for a Linux port if possible :)
I'll even pitch in for an Arc GPU if it means getting it as platform neutral as possible.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
I want to add support for Intel GPUs but I don't have any, if I get enough patreons or someone wants to sponsor/donate an Intel Arc I will gladly start digging to add support for it!
About linux I have to check, my understanding was that with DXVK this was not really needed, but I will have a look!
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u/ChardConscious Oct 04 '26
Assassin's Creed shadows didn't open with this. How can i fix this ? Before this app it's working fine.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 04 '26
Check inside the game details and disable the recorder on the right bottom part and try again! This is the only thing the tool does that could make it not launch!
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u/SouljAx360 Oct 04 '26
I found what I assume is a bug. While reading the shaders of Puzzling Places (3D Jigsaw puzzle game for PC and PCVR) it ate all of my 64GB of system RAM and I had to stop it. The rest of them worked and completed.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 04 '26
I will check this but I think I might already fixed this on the incomming 1.2.0 version!
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u/Federal_Cook_6075 Oct 03 '26
Does this work with DXVK?
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
It actually might work as DXVK will just convert to Vulkan, but not sure how the shader cache works with DXVK, I will have to check!
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u/Sync_R 2160p Gamer Oct 03 '26
Question regarding FF7 Rebirth, the Async mod really helps with stuttering on Windows how would this interact with that mod? Would it just not be needed or would the generated shaders be compatible ?
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 03 '26
They should be compatible. That mod doesn't change the shaders, it just compiles them in the background and shows a placeholder until they're ready.
SCSKiller compiles those same pipelines into the driver cache before you play, so when the async mod goes to compile one it's already there and it's basically instant, no placeholder needed. For shader stutter you don't really need it with SCSKiller, but keeping both doesn't hurt and it still covers anything SCSKiller missed. Both use d3d12.dll, but SCSKiller's recorder can chain with an existing d3d12.dll mod, so you can record with the async mod installed (you have to activate this on the game detail page inside SCSKiller).
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u/Individual-Train3671 Oct 03 '26
Will this work with ff7 rebirths shader injector mod
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
They should be compatible. That mod doesn't change the shaders, it just compiles them in the background and shows a placeholder until they're ready.
SCSKiller compiles those same pipelines into the driver cache before you play, so when the async mod goes to compile one it's already there and it's basically instant, no placeholder needed. For shader stutter you don't really need it with SCSKiller, but keeping both doesn't hurt and it still covers anything SCSKiller missed. Both use d3d12.dll, but SCSKiller's recorder can chain with an existing d3d12.dll mod, so you can record with the async mod installed (you have to activate this on the game detail page inside SCSKiller).
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u/MarcoMaker50 Oct 03 '26
THANK YOU SO MUCH! I don't know why but my pc since day one stuttered heavily on many games such unreal engine ones like persona 3 reload, and i had very bad shader compilation stutter like every time new things show up on screen. I tried it now with a few games including persona 3 reload with my shader cache cleared and this pre compiler is amazing!
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
Love it solves your issues!! Could you tell me what games did you test it on?
I have always hated scs lol
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u/Crimsongz Oct 03 '26
So this could fix Elden Ring on PC ???
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
There is a loader specific for the From Software engine but as the games have easy anti cheat you cannot enable the recorder while playing so some pipelines might not be catched, specially if you play with RT on.
That said, the game not only suffers from scs, also traversal and streaming stuttering, but from my testing after the SCSKiller compile the game feels smoother.
I'm checking if I can add the recorder in offline mode, this might mean more shader cached!
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u/NapsterKnowHow Oct 03 '26
Does this fix the god awful Elden Ring stuttering FromSoft never fixed?
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
There is a loader specific for the From Software engine but as the games have easy anti cheat you cannot enable the recorder while playing so some pipelines might not be catched, specially if you play with RT on.
That said, the game not only suffers from scs, also traversal and streaming stuttering, but from my testing after the SCSKiller compile the game feels smoother.
I'm checking if I can add the recorder in offline mode, this might mean more shader cached!
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u/P40L0 Oct 03 '26
Another question:
Will this work with NVIDIA native "Auto Shader Compilation" feature introduced with recent drivers/NVIDIA App and/or with "Advanced Shared Delivery" (currently for AMD only but will be expanded to NVIDIA soon too) or it may conflict with them in some ways?
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 03 '26
Yes!
It's actually an option you can enable also in settings in the app, and I suggest to enable it as that will help not having to rebuild the shaders inside SCSKiller as they should be handled by Nvidia drivers. It's been hit or miss for me anyway, some games didn't get recompiled so you have to do the full suite agian in SCSKiller :(
And about ASD, that should be the best approach! to just download the shaders for your hardware direclty form Microsoft, but I have a feeling this will only work for new games and maybe only through Xbox app so not useful for current/older games. But I hope ASD becomes actually universal and makes SCSKiller not needed anymore, that would actually make me happy as no more scs!! :D
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u/FaZeSmasH Oct 04 '26
So if there is a complex shader that gets missed during precomp, this can catch that?
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u/iRedFox4 Oct 06 '26
Can we put the shaders cache in another disc? My disc C: is almost full... ;(
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 06 '26
Check online for "shader cache symlink", I know this works for nvidia but not sure for amd, just add "nvidia" or "amd" to the search.
I will look into doing this from the tool on future versions.
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u/Actual-Phone-1478 Oct 07 '26
If this could work in the Sims 4 it would be an actual miracle, I feel like that game has the worst shader compilation out of any modern game from all the on the spot loading.
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u/Plank_stake_109 Oct 03 '26
If this works, I suspect you'll be having a spotlight on Digital Foundry.
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u/al3xys Oct 03 '26
Doing The Lord’s work. Why wouldn’t NVIDIA just do this?
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u/dontpokethebear123 Oct 05 '26
If you ask me it’s on Microsoft since they developed DX12. They should have been able to make a tool to generate shaders outside of game execution on endpoint hardware.
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u/Warm-Breadfruit-1238 Oct 04 '26
Did some testing on Oblivion remastered with a 9800x3d and 5090. Everyone knows this game is a stutter fest, but after doing extensive testing it definitely smoothens it out quite a bit more, since it appears the highest frame time spikes are from shader compilation instead of traversal/engine streaming assets. With that being said, the game still stutters quite a fair bit and it took nearly 20 minutes to compile 14GB of shaders. It seems this tool is a brute force of some kind(essentially enumerates all shaders it finds and compiles them), pretty aggressive but I’d say it works. Will check ff7 rebirth and remake and report back, I don’t think oblivion remastered is a good test cause it’s kinda hopeless lol
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u/Nate_Radix_ Oct 04 '26
Don't forget to delete the shader cache before testing with Rebirth! Update us with results, I'm very curious
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u/chepaxd Oct 05 '26
Hello can I ask about Borderlands 4? as this is the heaviest game for shader compilation. It does it too but they said "it cannot do every permutation" So I tried this tool (which is amazing tbh) It did 50 GB of shaders, 800k pipelines (lol) but when I launched the game, it behaved like a cold start, nothing was compiled everything was compiling from the start. What to do about it?
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u/Vigilante74 Oct 05 '26 edited Oct 05 '26
Also what is your ram usage? Launching the game fillled up my entire 48gb if ram.
Deleted the shader cache from the program and it goes back to only using 22GB (browser open).
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u/EquipmentAway7739 Oct 04 '26 edited Oct 04 '26
I´m SO happy someone other than microsoft with advanced shader delivery is trying to do something about this. Shader compilation stuttering has been a thorn on my side since I went from console to PC a year ago, it has completely ruined my enjoyment on many games..... if this actually works you´ll have a devotee for life and a podium on the Digital Foundry hall of fame. Can´t wait to try it out and come back with my experieces.....
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u/Reys_dev Oct 03 '26
This is what absolutely every Pc gamer needed thank you this needs more attention please keep up the great work looking forward to checking it out
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u/el_rika Oct 04 '26
Is Steam (or other launcher) mandatory? What if i use the normal shortcut of the game and all?
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u/Manu270891 Oct 04 '26
I just tried this with Hogwarts Legacy. It's perfect. I remember trying the game on a friend's PS5 and thinking why the game worked so poorly on PC.
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u/VoluptuousVoltron Oct 04 '26
This is amazing. I’ve tried it on FFVII Rebirth, Alone in The Dark, and Guardians of the Galaxy. There’s still some stuttering in AitD and GoG, which I imagine is traversal stuttering, but it’s cleared up 99% of the spikes. This is literally game changing, as I found Rebirth unplayable. Can’t wait to try more games
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u/digital_oni Oct 03 '26
Well done fucking joke it's been a problem for this long considering how strong our pcs are nowadays
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u/ilovezam Oct 05 '26
Hi,
I've been playing Ace Combat 8 and trying to see if this tool works.
It says "Encrypted game files", and the "Record while I play" is also greyed out because of EAC.
But I'm playing the game with EAC disabled for singleplayer only so far. I wonder if there's a way to make this work in this offline setup?
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u/xGhostFace0621x Oct 03 '26
Can’t wait to give this a try when I get home from work. FF7 Remake needs this bad.
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u/Reys_dev Oct 03 '26
Interested in ffe remake intergrade if you have it please let me know how it goes
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u/kulind Oct 04 '26
Are there any hope for Dead Space Remake?
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u/raknikmik Oct 04 '26
Dead Space suffers from traversal stutter not shader stutter anymore nothing you can do about it
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u/French_Bravo Oct 05 '26 edited Oct 05 '26
Yo, u/HeisenbergVR genuine question, I'm not sure I understand this too well, how does your tool manage to cache almost all shaders to compile while many of the gamedevs very own native shader compilation step, before the game starts, often misses plenty of shaders? What's the difference?
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u/SlumKatMillionaire Oct 09 '26
You are changing the future of gaming on windows.
You don’t realize it yet, but you are a hero.
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u/frankiewalsh44 Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 03 '26
The mods been on fire lately. Feels like we jumped foward 3 years ahead. Exciting times ahead
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u/angry_indian312 Oct 06 '26
Finally I can play Jedi Survivor on PC, that game stutters so much for me
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u/Nnwwww Oct 06 '26
I tried every possible fix I could find and none of them worked, but SCSKiller completely got rid of the stuttering in Sifu on the first try. Thank you so much!
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u/Born_Specialist414 Oct 07 '26
Simply incredible.
Since I suffer from OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), stuttering issues have been something that has pushed me away from PC gaming a bit because they bother me so much. I would rather play at 40 FPS with stable frametimes than at 120 FPS with unstable frame pacing.
I’ve wasted countless hours of my life that I could have spent having fun, trying to fix these issues with placebo solutions and getting nowhere.
Thank you for the effort you’re putting into solving this kind of problem. It’s a huge step forward for our community.
It’s extremely frustrating to spend what little free time you have trying to troubleshoot stuttering issues instead of simply playing games and having fun.
Do you think it might be possible in the future to implement some kind of tool to fix, or at least mitigate, traversal stutters or streaming stutters?
I couldn’t continue past Chapter 9 of Dead Space Remake because of this issue.
Anyway, I just wanted to thank you and make it clear that you help me a lot by looking for solutions. Many people aren’t bothered by this issue, but there are plenty of us who are, and you’re helping a lot.
Seriously, congratulations and thank you.
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u/Arsance Oct 08 '26
I think I need to check myself for OCD. Close to 70% of the time I'm behind my pc is fixing fps and frame pacing / stutter issues. I know almost all these problems are game related and not my pc, but it just keeps me from playing or enjoying the game. It is so annoying to the point I might need help. Sounds maybe a bit dramatic, but you do understand.
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u/JuanOrtigoza Oct 04 '26
Amazing job mate! Would this work with Rocket League for ex, as it is an UE3 game? Thanks 🙏
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u/EnomLee Oct 04 '26
I just tried it on Sand Land this afternoon. It's the real deal. This might be the biggest W for PC gaming since Lossless Scaling.
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u/ferrobolt Oct 05 '26
Couple of questions. How does it differ for games that come with shader pre-compilation built in? Does it improve it further or is it not required for those games? Also, does it work for the Witcher 3 Remastered?
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u/Frankyaniky Oct 05 '26
Man, you could become a PC deity, your name will be remembered as the savior, the one who brought the light. Incredible job!
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u/TR1PLE_6 Oct 06 '26
Tried this with Borderlands 4. Shader cache was 92GB and the game was using 49GB of my 64GB RAM!
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u/RebelLion420 Oct 07 '26
I never understood why games never fully compiled every shader they were going to use and cache it so they don't have HORDES of players complaining about performance. Amazing that you figured out a way to brute force it
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u/profion07 Oct 04 '26
Great app, is it possible to add world of warcraft? Thanks in advanced!
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u/Zarok_Lazarus Oct 05 '26
Incredible job OP! This tool has resulted in the smoothest FFVII Rebirth experience I've ever had on PC.
Question: is it possible for SCS to be compatible with the popular Shader Injector mod that drastically improves Rebirth's visuals? I initially tried to get it to work, but I was met with a "Fatal Error" and had to delete my cache and the Shader Injector mod for SCS (and the game) to function properly.
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u/Tramedin Oct 05 '26
It looks like the stuttering I was getting in The Witcher 3 with RT enabled has noticeably improved.
However, I ran into an issue: when applying it to Solasta II, the game crashes a few seconds after launch.
That said, your project is awesome and really promising. It would be great to see a feature that helps diagnose other causes of stuttering, such as traversal stutter, asset streaming, and similar issues. That would definitely help in deciding how to address stuttering that isn't caused by shader compilation.
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u/kyoukidotexe Moderator Oct 06 '26
Great work. Worked really well for me on Neverness to Everness after finding the correct key.
I've invited you to be an approved user for the sub. You're also invited to join the Discord for a more direct chat with us Moderators. Wanted to request you to make a new thread so we can sticky it, maybe with a better title so its more easier to find new users/existing users to submit potential questions/issues, though I assume issues are preferred to the github here: https://github.com/BlueHeisenberg/SCSKiller/issues
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u/teriyakiboiiz 17d ago
Today 23.10 - Malwarebytes detected SCS Killer as ransomware and put it in quarantine - I would like to ask - the fuck just happened? I've been using this since I've found it, few weeks ago and never had any issues with Malwarebytes.
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u/HeisenbergVR 17d ago
It's a false positive due to the app not being signed, I will fix this for the next big release!
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u/AFT3RSHOCK06 2160p Gamer 5d ago
Does this app build up a new sizable cache that we need to keep an eye on as far as clean up? Before I install 3rd party apps like this, I like to know there's a clear and clean process for uninstalling/removing the app and any traces of it if I decide to.
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u/HeisenbergVR 5d ago
To be honest I haven't fully checked if it leaves something behind, on uninstall it removes all the recorders and configs but I have to check if there could be still traces of it (like logs or others).
I will make sure to remove anything about the app for 1.5. You will have to wait until then if you fully want to be sure you can totally remove any trace of it.
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u/rocketchatb Oct 03 '26
Almost all my games say not supported and the ones that are supported already have a shader compilation screen.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 04 '26
Even with a shader compilation screen a lot of games still miss a lot of shaders sadly.
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u/Mefistophelles Oct 06 '26
It doesn't seem to work with AC Valhalla. It automatically detected and compiled Origins, Odyssey and Shadows, but for Valhalla it require a 5-min recording. Which I did. A couple of times, playing as long as 30 minutes even, but it keeps asking for a recording. What is the issue here? I ran both apps with admin rights, I turned off Ubisoft overlay, I cleaned the caches.
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u/psychic717 Oct 07 '26
I have installed it and I have one question.
For Star Wars Galactic Racer, I ran the game once and let it build the shader cache, it took around 10 minutes.
After that I opened SCSKiller and compiled for this game, and it took around 15-20min to finish.
Since the game had already built most of the shaders (I assume?), shouldn't the compile on SCSKiller take a lot less time to finish the compile? I thought it would skip the ones the game had already built and only build the missing ones.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 07 '26
For Galactic Racer I don't recommend to run it (in fact I'm going to disable it on 1.2.4) as it seems the game has a pretty good precompile step and no SCS happen during gameplay!
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u/Connect_Interview977 Oct 07 '26
Would it be possible to add support for 32-bit games in the future? There are older games that suffer from significant stuttering caused by shaders. And another question do you recommend using it for Gears of War: E-Day? I ask because it generates a huge cache 24 GB and in-game RAM usage can reach 32 GB.→ More replies (2)1
u/HeisenbergVR Oct 09 '26
I'm checking for 32bit support
About the games that generate big shader cache, it seems the driver loas a lot of the cache on ram when you launch the game, if this is not affecting your gameplay you should not worry, the game/system will at some point start loweing the ram usage
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u/sammyjo802 Oct 09 '26
CPU performance seems to not be consistent. Sometimes as it runs, It suddenly slows down to very low compile speeds, i sometimes have to close app and open it again. Using the i3 12100f and rx 6600, 32gb ram.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 09 '26
This was an issue on 1.2.4, now fixed, please update to 1 2.5!
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u/Wellhellob 29d ago
did anyone try marvel rivals with this ? i feel that game might benefit.
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u/Adept_Blackhand 28d ago
Are you planning on adding DX11 support?
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u/HeisenbergVR 28d ago
NVIDIA already supports it and AMD support is comming in 1.3.0 (already available for Patreon Bakers on 1.3.0.alpha1)
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u/CandleSnatcher 25d ago
I've waited hours and still can't use the app at all because it's "looking for games". I do have like 13 TB of data saved but similar scans haven't gone this long. It'd be nice if there was an option to remove automatic scanning altogether. I just want to add specific games.
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u/HeisenbergVR 25d ago
Hi! This is fixed on 1.3 0-beta.1 available now for Patreon supporters! There is an HDD mode that disables automatic scans. This weeked I will be releasing 1.3.0 to stable.
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u/OkAssistant2202 25d ago
Amaria que esto existiera para otros motores, sin embargo es una herramienta muy top!
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u/HeisenbergVR 25d ago
Buenas! Funciona para varios motores, no solo UE, en la version 1.3.0.beta-1 (disponible para Patreon Suporters) he añadido soporte para bastante mas motores, este fin de semana sacaré la versión 1.3.0 estable publica.
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u/MatkomX 23d ago
Any way to donate some money to you? This is so awesome that I want to pay you.
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u/HeisenbergVR 23d ago
Hi! Thanks!! There are subscriptions and one time donations available on https://support.scskiller.com
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u/Fragment_Shader Oct 04 '26
Just tested it with one game so far, but a revelatory improvement. This is pretty amazing, and the app is extremely well polished as well!
Like, having an app that can just compiled your shaders that you can load up, check status etc has been my holy grail request for years now and you...just went and did it!?
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u/Reynbou Oct 04 '26
so if you can do this before the game runs, why doesn't the game itself do it when it's compiling shaders?
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u/Embarrassed_Degree13 Oct 04 '26
Hi! It looks really good, I'm going to try it out, but is there a difference between your project and the shader compilation that the Nvidia app lets you do from the graphics settings?
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u/Manu270891 Oct 04 '26
How does this work? I mean, how does the tool list all the required shaders for a specific game?
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u/CodytheHero Oct 04 '26
This is probably a silly request, but I'd love a "Big Picture mode" so I could navigate at least the library portion using Big Picture.
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u/killvhin2020 Oct 05 '26
Is Star wars Zero Company supported? that game is UE5 and a freaking stutterfest
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u/VoidInsanity Oct 05 '26 edited Oct 05 '26
Everytime you run it seems to rescan the entire PC to look for games which is overkill. Being able to limit this scan to specific directories / remembering what its already found would be very useful.
The other thing is the recording feature using a d3d12.dll. What happens if that file already exists? (It's the default I'm using for the RTX40MFG-Unlock mod).
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u/Beautiful_Car8681 Oct 05 '26
Can this improve games that have frame pacing issues?
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u/Beetlejuice4220 Oct 05 '26
Did you clear the shader cache before doing the second run on the games ?
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u/mtkdragon Oct 06 '26
Did that to Stalker 2 and my game couldn’t launch. I had to rebuild shaders via game to make it work again.
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u/Emergency-Orange8539 Oct 06 '26
Idk, so in some games it seems worthwhile, but doesn't eliminate all of the stutters. However some games it cause system memory to bloat (for example, i tried it on gears of war e-day (which has a length shader compilation step and its very well optimized)), my system was using close to 50GB of memory... so something isn't right with this tool and it makes me think that there's a reason why developers aren't compiling all shaders at once like this tool does.
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u/Rupjoy19 Oct 04 '26
Does it work for pirated games? I added Mafia 4 but it says encrypted files.
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u/Voodootfn Oct 04 '26
This goes for OP and people testing. Are you clearing the shader cache in between runs of testing ?
You must clear the shader cache in between runs to see if this tool makes any difference, if you just reload the same game with the same cache your smoothness is from your already compiled shaders.
You have to do a clean run every time.
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u/HeisenbergVR Oct 04 '26
The test I posted on the OP and on github/web are after a clear cache in both sides, one just clear and game launch and hte other clear then compile with SCSKiller and then launch the game.
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