How to clear the NVIDIA, AMD and DirectX shader cache (and is it safe?)

Updated November 2026 · 4 min read

Short answer

It's safe to clear. Games rebuild their shaders automatically; you may see some stutter the first time you launch each game afterwards. Clearing it can free several GB and fix some graphics glitches after driver updates.

Every time a game runs, your graphics driver compiles shaders, the small programs that draw lighting, shadows and effects, and saves them so the next launch is faster. That saved collection is the shader cache, and it can grow to several gigabytes, sometimes more than 10 GB with lots of games installed.

Is it safe to delete the shader cache?

Yes. Nothing is lost permanently. The trade-off is that each game rebuilds its shaders the next time you play, which can mean longer loading or a little stutter for the first few minutes. Clearing it is also a common fix for flickering or crashes after a driver update.

DirectX shader cache (all GPUs)

Open Settings → System → Storage → Temporary files, tick DirectX Shader Cache and click Remove files. The files live in %LOCALAPPDATA%\D3DSCache.

NVIDIA shader cache

  1. Close all games.
  2. Press Win + R, type %LOCALAPPDATA%\NVIDIA and press Enter.
  3. Open DXCache and GLCache and delete what's inside them. Skip files in use.

You can also cap its size in NVIDIA Control Panel → Manage 3D settings → Shader Cache Size.

AMD shader cache

Open AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition → Gaming → Graphics, open Advanced, and click Perform Reset next to Reset Shader Cache. The files are in %LOCALAPPDATA%\AMD\DxCache and DxcCache.

Steam's shader pre-caching

Steam keeps its own per-game shader cache in steamapps\shadercache inside each Steam library folder. It's safe to delete; Steam re-downloads or rebuilds it. You can turn the feature off under Steam → Settings → Downloads → Shader Pre-Caching, but it's usually worth keeping on.

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