The first two bytes are the size of the fragment shader path that I use to when I read the file while running the game. This helps me figure out where the vertex path starts.

The next two objects are the fragment and vertex paths.

I attach substring "data/" as a prefix to paths before writing to a binary file in order to avoid doing this at runtime.

• Doing this will help reduce the runtime cost. That means my loading of binary files and creating effect will be faster, saving lot of runtime costs in case of larger systems.​

• The disadvantage of this is having a larger binary file, which also can be an issue if I have more objects like shaders on a bigger effect file.

• At this point, I couldn't think of any clear reason and I had to sacrifice one so I choose to go with this option.