NVIDIA Shader Cache
NVIDIA’s driver stores compiled GPU shader data on disk so games and graphics apps do not have to recompile the same OpenGL program binaries, DirectX pipeline state shader artifacts, and Vulkan shader cache blobs every launch. Those caches live in folders such as GLCache, DXCache, and NV_Cache and can become stale after driver updates, game patches, or API changes, leading to hitching, long shader compilation phases, or visual glitches. Kudu removes only these compiled shader cache files so the driver can rebuild fresh copies automatically, without touching saves, game settings, accounts, or personal files.
Why clean NVIDIA Shader Cache?
- Driver updates can invalidate previously compiled shader binaries, and stale entries in GLCache or NV_Cache often show up as stutter or brief freezes when a game reaches a menu, map, or effect for the first time
- After a major game patch, old DirectX shader cache data in DXCache may no longer match the game’s current pipeline state, causing longer-than-normal loading screens and repeated shader recompilation on every launch
- Corrupted shader cache blobs can trigger missing effects, black textures, flickering shadows, or broken post-processing until the driver rebuilds clean compiled shaders
- Oversized cache folders accumulate compiled variants from games you no longer play, wasting gigabytes of SSD space with no benefit and making disk usage appear unusually high in LocalAppData or ProgramData
- A bad cache entry can cause one specific game to hitch in the same spots every run because the driver keeps reusing the same broken compiled shader instead of generating a fresh one
- When the shader cache has grown through many driver and game revisions, startup can feel inconsistent as the driver spends extra time scanning obsolete entries before building the ones it actually needs
- As with many disk-backed caches, fragmentation inside the cache database and metadata files can increase overhead; rebuilding them is effectively a clean rewrite, similar in spirit to how SQLite VACUUM rewrites pages without deleting actual user data
Cache paths Kudu targets
Windows
%LocalAppData%/NVIDIA/GLCache |
%LocalAppData%/NVIDIA/DXCache |
%LocalAppData%/NVIDIA Corporation/NV_Cache |
%ProgramData%/NVIDIA Corporation/NV_Cache |
Common questions about NVIDIA Shader Cache
Download Kudu and reclaim your disk space.
Available on Windows, macOS, and Linux. No account required, no feature gates, no telemetry without consent. All cleaning targets are open source and community-auditable.