My main drive has been running low on storage, so I checked it with a disk-usage tool and found that an NVIDIA folder called DXCache is using about 18 GB. I'm not very familiar with computer maintenance. Is this cache size normal, and can I safely delete it without causing problems?
3 Answers
You can clear the cache through Windows’ temporary-file cleanup options or by deleting the files in the NVIDIA DXCache folder. Avoid deleting unrelated NVIDIA folders or driver files. I wouldn’t disable shader caching unless you have a specific problem, since some games may stutter more without it.
Yes, that folder contains compiled DirectX shader files created by games and applications. You can delete the contents safely, but games may need to rebuild the shaders the next time they run. That can cause longer loading times or temporary stuttering until the cache is recreated.
18 GB is fairly large, but it can happen if you play a lot of different games. The cache is there to reduce repeated shader compilation, so deleting it usually won’t improve performance or permanently free the space—it will gradually grow again as you use your games. If you have enough free storage, leaving it alone is generally fine.
After clearing it, give each game a little time to rebuild its shaders. The first launch may be slower, but performance should settle once the cache is populated again.