DirectStorage

It’s been a tough time for PC gamers in 2023, but Sony’s next major PC port could finally solve some problems. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, originally released for the PlayStation 5 over two years ago, is finally arriving on PC. It supports all of the latest PC bells and whistles, but also something completely new: DirectStorage 1.2. That may not seem like a big deal — after all, Forspoken arrived with DirectStorage and still had performance issues, while promises of a patch in Diablo IV have yet to manifest.…

The death of PC gaming. That’s been the topic at hand for the past several weeks, with port after port after port arriving on PC in disastrous states. PC gaming isn’t dead, but if this trend continues, it’s hard to recommend picking up any new release on PC, at least before it receives a string of inevitable patches. I wish I could provide a single solution for the problems PC games face, but I can’t. The list is massive. But there’s one area of focus that could help the situation a lot, and it’s where consoles…

Microsoft has released version 1.2 of its DirectStorage SDK and has a surprise addition that will help speed up old hard drives. While DirectStorage initially launched as a way to stream data from the latest speedy NVMe solid state drives to your GPU without a CPU slowing things down, Microsoft has heard from developers that improved support for legacy hard drives would also benefit games.Parts of DirectStorage have always worked on hard drives, but developers have had to use separate methods for NVMe devices and HDDs.…

Microsoft’s DirectStorage technology finally debuted with the release of Forspoken on PC, but you might not want to use it. According to some preliminary testing, DirectStorage causes upwards of a 10% drop in your average frame rate. German YouTube channel PC Games Hardware tested DirectStorage in Forspoken. Using an Intel Core i9-12900K and Nvidia RTX 4090, the channel ran the in-game benchmark from a PCIe 4.0 SSD, PCIe 3.0 SSD, and a SATA SSD. The SATA SSD, which doesn’t support DirectStorage, averaged 83.2 frames…

Microsoft is releasing DirectStorage 1.1 this week, and the biggest new addition is GPU decompression for Windows PC games. GPU decompression is the next natural step in an industry-wide effort to improve game load times on modern PCs. Microsoft originally launched DirectStorage earlier this year, but developers have been calling out for GPU decompression support, and it now arrives with DirectStorage 1.1 this week.GPU decompression works by offloading the work needed to decompress assets in games to the graphics card…

Microsoft’s DirectStorage 1.1 update is here, and it’s definitely one that gamers won’t want to miss. With the new version of the API, Microsoft promises up to 200% faster game load times — all thanks to GPU decompression. Here’s how you can try it out for yourself. Microsoft Microsoft announced DirectStorage 1.1 a while back, talking about GPU decompression at length. This new software utilizes NVMe SSDs in order to speed up loading times in games. We have a guide on it if you’d like to read more, but to give you a…

Much of the discourse on SSDs has recently been focused on the upcoming PCIe 5.0 spec, which has twice the bandwidth of PCIe 4.0 and will theoretically allow SSDs to hit even greater speeds, just as PCIe 4.0 did in 2019. But that doesn’t mean PCIe 4.0 SSDs are old hat now, as Samsung is launching its new 990 Pro SSD with older PCIe 4.0 technology. And it’s ready for Microsoft’s DirectStorage and PS5. Although Samsung has PCIe 5.0 SSDs for enterprise, which feature much faster sequential speeds and input/output…

Microsoft has just introduced GPU decompression to its new DirectStorage API, bringing it to version 1.1. GPU decompression can provide huge performance gains in gaming — Microsoft promises up to a 200% performance improvement in loading times. Unfortunately, it’s still much too early to get excited — we might not see DirectStorage for quite a while. Microsoft Microsoft’s DirectStorage is new software that will help games utilize the super-quick loading times on NVMe SSDs. You can read more about it in our in-depth…

Microsoft says the DirectStorage 1.1 API is coming soon to Windows PCs. With this release (opens in new tab), Microsoft will enable GPU Decompression on PCs per its previously shared roadmap (opens in new tab). The primary benefit of GPU Decompression is that PC gamers could see load times reduced by as much as 40% depending on the game and the PC hardware configuration.DirectStorage 1.0 was introduced for Windows (10 and 11) in March 2022. It was designed to bring speed, bandwidth and latency optimizations to the…

Microsoft is bringing GPU decompression to Windows PC games soon. After launching DirectStorage earlier this year, GPU decompression promises to be the next step in the ongoing effort to improve game load times on PCs. Microsoft says it’s “one of our most highly requested features” from game developers.GPU decompression works by offloading the work needed to decompress assets in games to the graphics card instead of the CPU. Modern games include massive amounts of assets like characters, landscapes, and objects that are…