When launching Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, players are always greeted with the message, “Compiling Shaders, please wait…” But what does this mean, why does it take so long, and is it even necessary ...

As an Unreal Engine 5 game, compiling your Stalker 2 shaders on initial launch is just something that you need to do, and there is no way around it. How fast it takes will depend entirely upon your PC ...