I don't think that this person knows what he is talking about. There are multiple things he got completely wrong in his tweets, and the blanket statements like "I prefer to play on consoles" are essentially an agenda - consoles aren't free from stuttering issues either and there are many titles which still run considerably better on PC than on consoles even with compilation stutters. The recent example of Stray is a DX11 game with similar issues so it's not exactly a solution either.
The truth always usually lies somewhere in the middle. All developers have completely different perspectives on this stuff, and that's why it's hard to nail something down that works for everyone and they can agree upon to move forward with. It can completely depend on what type of engine those programmers work with, what type of rendering they're doing, what type of games they're making, how they author shaders in the first place.. ect ect
I think DX12 and Vulkan are great... and we know they CAN work extremely well without issues. There's things that can be done to pre-cache shaders within these APIs... I think the biggest thing is just getting developers to actually do them.
I know having a lengthy precompilation process isn't attractive... but we already know they can work wonders. If I was a developer making a game, I'd have this process upon boot and dress it up with aspects of the game, and integrate it as nicely as possible.
Something like Detroit for example
(grabbed pic from a search, not mine)
I think that's a nice way to integrate the process into the game. It's not some boring black screen with a bar that's not telling you anything about what it's doing. It clearly tells you that what it's doing is for the betterment of performance/visuals. It's a visually pleasing loading screen, it can give game relevant information, tips and tricks.. ect.
Games that can do it in the background during title screens and stuff like that is great as well.
Of course I'd like to see DirectX have a Fossilize equivalent and have this process happen during the Steam downloading process... but if you can't have that, make the best of it, and do a good job of making it feel part of the package.
I saw a post on Twitter from a developer from the game "A Hat in Time" which is a fun 3D platforming game. It's a great game, but unfortunately I stopped playing it part way through because the stuttering was just unacceptable. They said that they rewrote how the engine (Unreal Engine 3 I think) handles shader compilation, and that it was stutter free now. So the other day I downloaded it and tested it out. There's a new setting "Precache Shaders" and it precaches all shaders during the loading screen. Basically adds a few more seconds onto the loading screen times... but it's now completely stutter free. I'm really happy they fixed it because before it was quite terrible. I look forward to jumping back into that game and finally playing it through.
A lot of this stuff can be improved. We just need to see developers start doing it. Preferably giving us the option to choose. We also need MS to get off their butts and do something like Fossilize for DirectX. Give platform holders like Valve and Epic a way to integrate it into their clients so that the process can be done before the game is even finished downloading. Take as much of the onus off of developers as possible. Because things will only get more complex from here on out. We can't depend on every dev to give a damn.
Just like everything else in the PC space... we need to brute force a solution. I think we can do it.
