This guide explains Dead Space building shaders, how long it takes, and how to fix it if it becomes stuck.
Fifteen years since the launch of the original game, the Dead Space remake has arrived on consoles and PC. The new game resurrects the series with modern graphics and refined gameplay.
Dead Space follows protagonist Isaac Clarke after he and his crew become stranded on the USG Ishimura while answering a distress call. Once onboard, they discover that murderous creatures – Necromorphs – have taken over the spaceship and are murdering the surviving crew.
In the game, Isaac must fight for survival and find a way off of the doomed ship. However, first he needs to find his girlfriend, Nicole, who happens to be the Ishimura’s chief medical officer.
PC players booting Dead Space up for the first time will be greeted by a loading screen that reads “Building Shaders”. This is leading players to believe there may be something wrong with their game or that it has become stuck.
But fear not! Allow us to explain what building shaders means in Dead Space, how long it can take, and how to fix it if gets stuck…
What Does Building Shaders Mean?
With video games continually pushing the boundaries of graphical fidelity, shaders are essential. In fact, they are one of the key elements that make games look realistic.
This is what building shaders means: Shaders are computer programs that render pixels in games for lighting, shadows, gradients, and textures. Building shaders is the process whereby a game configures shaders specific to your PC’s hardware.
Unlike consoles which have a fixed hardware architecture, PC hardware varies user to user. This means that games need to encode shaders for each different hardware configuration.
A game can build shaders at one of two times: before each shader is run OR when the game is loaded for the first time.
The former means the process of encoding shaders needs to be completed on-the-fly. This can be a significant performance burden that can lead to stuttering.
On the other hand, the latter option allows shaders to be pre-configured and cached for when they are needed thus saving processing power.
Dead Space Building Shaders: How Long Does It Take?
Like many modern games, Dead Space opts to cache shaders when the game is loaded for the first time. While this is tremendously advantageous later on, it can delay you jumping into the game.
Building shaders in Dead Space can take several minutes. Players just have to be patient and wait for the process to complete.
Unfortunately, Dead Space doesn’t provide a progress bar so you can’t see how long is left. This has led to many players thinking their game has become stuck while building shaders.
But don’t worry. Dead Space can take upwards of ten minutes to build shaders depending on your hardware configuration. So, before you start worrying, allow the game a good amount of time to do its thing.
Dead Space Building Shaders: How To Fix When Stuck
If a significant amount of time has passed – we’re talking more than 15 minutes – Dead Space may have become stuck while building shaders. One way to know for certain is if the screen has frozen.
Thankfully, there are a few things you can do to remedy the problem.
This is how to fix Dead Space building shaders if it gets stuck (try each method sequentially if the previous one fails):
- Restart the game and try again.
- Ensure your hardware meets the game’s minimum system requirements.
- Update your hardware drivers.
- Delete the Dead Space shader cache by navigating to /Steam/steamapps/shadercache in File Explorer and deleting the folder with Dead Space‘s ID “1693980”.
- Uninstall and reinstall the game.
If you have tried each of these methods and none have remedied the problem, contact EA via their Help site. Be sure to reference Dead Space building shaders in your support query.
It will then be a case of waiting for the developers to release a patch that allows Dead Space to build shaders successfully.
Have you encountered problems with Dead Space building shaders? Do you know of any other fixes? Let us know in the comment section below and don’t forget to check out our other gaming articles…
