Forza Horizon 6 ASD Loads in 4 Seconds, Leads the Pack

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Microsoft's DirectX blog announced today that its Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD) feature has graduated from preview to a full public release, now rolling out across the Xbox PC app. Case in point: Forza Horizon 6 loads in just 4 seconds with ASD enabled versus 90 seconds without—a 95% speedup. Official benchmarks cite up to 90% loading time reduction.

ASD tackles one of gaming's most persistent annoyances: loading screens. The technology works by pushing pre-compiled shaders from the cloud during game downloads, skipping the local compilation process entirely. Your hardware no longer has to compile shaders in real time.

The feature first launched on the ROG Xbox Ally handheld but has since expanded to cover all Windows 11 desktops and laptops. AMD has completed compatibility across the entire RDNA lineup, spanning RDNA1 through the latest RDNA4 graphics cards—meaning even owners of older AMD cards see the benefit.

Ten major titles currently support ASD, including Forza Horizon 6, Starfield, Stalker 2, and Silent Hill f. Enabling it requires Win11 24H2 or later, Xbox gaming services version 37.113.11003.0, and AMD Adrenalin driver 26.6.1 or higher. Most users will already have a compatible driver installed, though fresh system installs may need a manual update.

Microsoft plans to extend hardware support over the coming months, gradually opening up compatibility for NVIDIA and Intel graphics cards. For players who routinely squeeze gaming into short windows—waiting for a match to start, jumping into a quick race—90 seconds is a dealbreaker. Four seconds isn't. That's the kind of improvement you won't notice until it's gone—and then you won't go back.