[SOLVED] What is a shader cache and why do I need it?

[imrazor]

I've been trying to move over to Linux for gaming, and one frustration I've faced is that after launching a Steam game I find myself staring at this window for several minutes:

Processing Vulkan shaders...

That raises three questions in my mind:

1. What exactly is a shader?
2. What is a shader cache and why do I need it?
3. Is it worth waiting several minutes to finish processing the shaders every time I play a game?

 

[ak47jar3d]

In my old game devs days, we used shader cache to apply post processing effects and cook the lighting of the levels. It's very useful to reduce loading times and reduces pops in low frames rates situations. The shader is typically responsible in applying textures to character models and all corresponding textures. Maybe one of the younger devs can jump as i haven't been in game dev since 2013. hope this helps.