Microsoft released ‘DirectStorage’ version 1.1 for PC on October 14th and announced that it is possible to apply DirectStorage to Windows PC games from now on.
Direct Storage is the first API introduced by Microsoft in the game console (game console) ‘Xbox Series X|S’ released in 2020. The NVMe SSD, which is the primary storage of the Xbox Series X|S, was newly designed because the existing API designed for HDDs might not show the maximum data I/O performance.
The existing data input/output API is used to read data stored in storage during game execution. [스토리지 -> 시스템 메모리 -> CPU -> 시스템 메모리 -> GPU 메모리(VRAM) -> GPU] You have to go through several steps in sequence, but with Direct Storage, data in the storage can go directly to the GPU memory, which speeds up the loading speed.
In order to provide such an advantage in the PC environment, Microsoft has been developing Direct Storage for PC, but on October 14th, version 1.1 was released.
According to the announcement on Microsoft’s developer blog, Direct Storage for PC uses a new compression format called ‘GDeflate’ provided by NVIDIA, and through this, it is possible to improve the loading speed by 3 times compared to the existing one. Also, since the process of decompressing data with the CPU is omitted, CPU usage is greatly reduced from 100% to 15%.
Direct Storage for PC can work in Windows 10 and Windows 11, but in Windows 11, additional optimization of the IO stack can be made to achieve slightly higher efficiency. And Microsoft is currently working with GPU makers AMD, Nvidia and Intel to provide DirectStorage drivers.
Meanwhile, since game software that officially supports Direct Storage for PC has not yet been released, it will take more time for general PC users to actually enjoy the benefits of Direct Storage. ‘Forspoken’, known as the first direct storage-enabled game for PC, is scheduled to be released on January 24, 2023.