It was efficient for the disk, but terrible for the GPU. You were forcing your graphics card to carry a swiss army knife when it only needed a corkscrew.
For the last five years, most AAA titles relied on "Iteration 1.x" architecture. This relied on Uber-shaders: monolithic, gigantic pieces of code that handled every texture, every light, and every surface type in one file. iteration 3.0.0 shader download
If you are still running Iteration 2.0 or generic "SEUS" shaders, the answer is a resounding yes. It was efficient for the disk, but terrible for the GPU
Before downloading the shader, ensure you have the correct loader. It was efficient for the disk