How to Disable Shader Pre-Caching on Steam

If you’re noticing a lot of extra downloads in your Steam library, it might be due to shader pre-caching. This feature is designed to reduce in-game stuttering and loading times by pre-downloading optimized shaders for your specific hardware. However, shader pre-caching can consume a surprising amount of bandwidth and disk space, especially if you have a large library of games. The good news? You can easily turn it off if it’s not a priority for you.

Here’s a quick guide on how to disable shader pre-caching in Steam:

Steps to Disable Shader Pre-Caching in Steam

1. Open Steam: Start up the Steam client on your PC or Mac.

2. Go to Settings:

   • Click on Steam in the top-left corner, then select Settings (or Preferences if you’re on macOS).

3. Locate Shader Pre-Caching:

   • In the Settings menu, find and click on Shader Pre-Caching from the options on the left.

4. Turn Off Shader Pre-Caching:

   • Uncheck Enable Shader Pre-Caching.
   • You may also see an option labeled Allow background processing of Vulkan shaders (this applies to Vulkan games). Uncheck this if you’d prefer no shader-related downloads at all.

5. Save and Restart Steam:

   • After unchecking these options, click OK to save, and restart Steam for the changes to take effect.

And that’s it! Steam should no longer download shader pre-caching files for your games, helping you save some bandwidth and disk space. If you notice increased stuttering or longer loading times in certain games, you can always re-enable it with these same steps.

Happy gaming, minus the downloads!