A Guide to Locate your Shaders folder in Prepar3D v2 & v3 & v4 

 

Your Shaders folder is located at the path below 

Local Disk (C:) ► Users ► You ► AppData ► Local ► Lockheed Martin ► Prepar3D ►  Shaders

 

To locate this folder, Insure the box is Ticked for  Show hidden files, folders and drives in File Explorer Options

Your Shaders folder (Graphical code) is a Generated folder,  Meaning if you delete this folder it will Generate again when you Launch Prepar3D.

The next time you launch Prepar3D the Shaders can take anything from 10 seconds to 2 \ 3 minutes to Generate again

 

It is Recommended but not required to Delete your Shaders folder when..............

 

(1)  You update Prepar3D v3 \ v4 using the Update Component Installers (Client) 

 

(2)  You update your Graphics Driver 

 

(3)   You Install a new Graphics Card 

 

(4)  Make Graphic changes to your Sim and or you install 3rd Party Software (Add On)  

 

(5)  Updates to your Windows operating system 

 

Note:  Deleting your Shades folder will Not effect any of your settings or 3rd Party Software (Add On's) 

 

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Right Click and Delete your Shaders folder,  When you Launch Prepar3D your Shaders folder will Generate again  

 

 

 

 

 

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There is an alternative way to find your Shaders folder   

 

Copy the Tex below and Paste it into your Windows search bar 

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D

 

 

Click on the folder and this will bring you directly to the location of your Shaders folder. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello Elaine,

 

Thank you so much for the tip.

Pretty newbie here with P3D after years of MSFS. May I ask you to quote/link some source for the recommendation above (delete shaders content)?

Cannot find any LM "official" info about the topic in http://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv3/LearningCenter/LearningCenter.php

 

Cheers,

Hello Elaine,

 

Thank you so much for the tip.

Pretty newbie here with P3D after years of MSFS. May I ask you to quote/link some source for the recommendation above (delete shaders content)?

Cannot find any LM "official" info about the topic in http://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv3/LearningCenter/LearningCenter.php

 

Cheers,

Shaders are part of Microsoft Direct 3D, in the case of P3D that is D3D11.

 

The Shaders folder, or any files within it, are created by the sim when it first runs, or when it runs and it finds any are not present.

 

So happily delete the Shaders folder, or any files within, especially after applying updates.

 

The sim uses internal programming code that makes those files. If any of those programs are changed, the shader associated with the code must be deleted, or the code won't be able to make the new shader.

 

A shader is a graphics program that programmatically paints the objects in the sim with the GPU. There are many shaders, for all the different types of drawing methods the graphics card uses to construct the scene.

 

WIth File Explorer, follow Elaine's instructions to find:

 

C:\Users\[you]\AppData\Local\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2 (or v3)

 

This usually lists two folders:

 

Effects

Shaders

 

Select the Shaders folder and delete it, or Move it to a safe location.

 

Now run the sim, and the folder and files should be reconstructed before the sim gets underway.

And for official confirmation - just read many of the threads in the LM forum where the Dev's instructions are to delete the shaders folder.

 

It is a common practice, especially after any driver change or graphic setting change.

 

 

Vic

Thank you guys for your response and information 

Great post!

 

Thank you,

 

Jos Denis

Thank you guys for the information.

 

I realized I've become too much conservative after my P3D migration  :wink:

 

Indeed, invaluable forum.

Could not deleting the contents of the shared folder possibly be the cause of my sudden, but completely random, ntdll.dll CTD's?

Could not deleting the contents of the shared folder possibly be the cause of my sudden, but completely random, ntdll.dll CTD's?

Wouldn't have thought so. Sudden? One way you can get these exceptions if you don't have the correct version of simconnect installed for the addon, or the simconnect environment is corrupt.

Wouldn't have thought so. Sudden? One way you can get these exceptions if you don't have the correct version of simconnect installed for the addon, or the simconnect environment is corrupt.

The only thing that changed on my system when these errors started was a Nvidia driver update, and installing the latest version of the Flysimware Lear 35A. This included manually adding an XMLTools dll for our payload manager feature.

 

Ever since then I will get random ntdll.dll CTD's. Anywhere from 10 min after starting P3D, or of course right at the end of a 4.5 hour flight. Happens with any plane I try. I am dumbfounded by these errors.

If any of those addons uses an FSX Simconnect component and you've not installed the three legacy simconnect .msi's, or if any of those addons write to a file in the P3D program files folder or subfolders, and there are no Write permissions for the Users group on that folder, then you might get ntdll.dll exceptions.

Good post. I understood you should let P3D rebuild the shader folder after a hardware or driver change. I never knew I should also remove the shader folder after installing new addons or a change in the graphics settings. Is this really necessary? If so, it would be nice if the P3D GUI would delete the shader files for you when you changed graphical settings that require this, ofcourse followed by a notification that a restart of the program is necessary.

If any of those addons uses an FSX Simconnect component and you've not installed the three legacy simconnect .msi's, or if any of those addons write to a file in the P3D program files folder or subfolders, and there are no Write permissions for the Users group on that folder, then you might get ntdll.dll exceptions.

My simconnects are all installed, and the Lear doesn't change anything. All the payload manager does is allow you to select from 3 different fuel loads, and change the amount/weight of passengers/cargo.

 

I reckon I'll try the shader folder clear and try again.

It's possible you could have trouble with them, but if there's a driver update that requires a Shader rebuild, you'll need an update from LM to go with it.

Good post. I understood you should let P3D rebuild the shader folder after a hardware or driver change. I never knew I should also remove the shader folder after installing new addons or a change in the graphics settings. Is this really necessary? If so, it would be nice if the P3D GUI would delete the shader files for you when you changed graphical settings that require this, ofcourse followed by a notification that a restart of the program is necessary.

It's been there for years -

 

SHADER_CACHE_VERSION=1

 

Non-Default entry. This entry will not exist in your Prepar3D.cfg file by default and must be added to the file.

 

Performance Tuning Tip:

 

Using this rebuilds your shader cache by incrementing the number each time you make a change to the Prepar3D.cfg.

 

Vic