DirectStorage is a technology that Microsoft has developed for the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X. The main goal of this technology is to reduce game loading times as much as possible.
Microsoft has also promised to introduce DirectStorage to PCs in the near future. They should because all current-generation consoles, including the PS5, use similar technology to improve the overall gaming experience.
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What is DirectStorage?
To understand DirectStorage and its breakthrough technology, you must first understand how games work and store their data. All games store their assets and textures and everything else that matters to them in a compressed format on your SSD/HDD, and whenever a traditional game needs those assets, it asks your SSD/HDD to send the data. The SSD sends the uncompressed data to system memory or RAM, and system memory sends the data to your CPU, which decompresses the data and sends it to system memory again before sending the uncompressed data to the GPU.
There’s nothing wrong with the whole process. After all, all games have been using the same traditional method for the last 25 years or so, but this approach takes a lot more time and could even cause you to leave significant performance on the table if you get bottlenecked by your storage, CPU, RAM, etc.
DirectStorage takes a different and better approach: instead of decompressing data on the CPU, it decompresses it on the GPU. This changes the entire data flow: data is sent from the SSD to system memory or RAM and then passed from RAM directly to the GPU, where the GPU decompresses the data and uses it directly. This makes the whole process much faster and more efficient.
Not only does this make rendering game graphics and rendering game worlds on your PC much faster, but you can also enjoy more performance and better loading times for games than ever before.
Prerequisites for using DirectStorage
Previously, DirectStorage was only for the Xbox Series S and X, but Microsoft has recently brought it to the PCMR. With the previous development of the DirectStorage API, DirctStorage 1.1 could run on fast SSDs, such as Gen 4 NVMe drives. This is great because, with a faster SSD, the tech could now work even better and make all the compression and decompression of data much faster, taking full advantage of the GPU’s processing power and the SSD’s speed.
While all of this is easy to do in a closed environment like a game console, it’s difficult even for a company as big as Microsoft to do all of this on a PC with other technologies to make gaming faster and snappier. This is because a PC uses different and very different components: RAM, SSD, CPU, and GPU come from different manufacturers. That’s why Microsoft initially decided that DirectStorage would only work with Gen 4 NVMe drives and brought it to the PC as DirectStorage 1.1.
But things changed very quickly with the introduction of DirectStorage 1.2. With DirectStorage 1.2, you can use old hardware like SATA SSDs and even old hard drives, which greatly improves DirectStorage’s compatibility for the average consumer.
With a storage medium, you also need a game that supports DX12. After all, DirectStorage is a DirectX API. As a result, many game developers have to add DirectStorage support to their old games via updates or to their new games. One such game is Forspoken, which is being developed by Square Enix. They are constantly adding support for new technologies and are the ones who have supported both DirectStorage and AMD’s FSR 3. Forspoken can now be played with DiectStorage support as well.
Performance Improvements and Hardware Requirments
When Microsoft introduced DirectStorage on the PC, it only worked on the faster Gen 4 SSDs, so many people were not able to use it even when gaming support was available. However, this was not Microsoft’s intention, as traditional HDDs or SATA SSDs are not as good as Gen 4 NVMe drives when it comes to sending frequent data requests. Traditional HDDs can send large amounts of data but not very frequently, while the new and faster Gen4 SSDs can do just the opposite, as SSDs are very efficient at sending small amounts of data very frequently. These data requests are also called IOPS or IO requests.
Since DirectStorage can take full advantage of the PCIe lanes, faster SSDs are the way to go because, in a modern video game where you load so many assets more frequently, it’s much easier for an SSD to perform better than an HDD.
But DirectStorage doesn’t just depend on faster SSDs. The whole paradigm of using it for better gaming performance also depends on the most important component for gaming, the GPU. While all GPUs are great at decompressing data because of the many cores, the question is whether depending on the GPU to decompress data is as simple as you might think.
GPUs are good at decompressing data, but we also need to consider what kind of data and assets are being used. As games get bigger, it’s good to know that all assets for games are stored in an archived and compressed format. Traditionally, they are sent to the CPU for compression, but with the current version of DirectStorage on the PC, it is not possible for the GPUs to decompress such large amounts of data.
However, this is possible with technologies like Nvidia RTX IO, which uses dedicated hardware for these tasks in the GPU. The biggest advantage is that decompressing data with RTX IO is much faster than decompressing data through the CPU. And the best part is that the data is decompressed directly into the GPU’s video memory.
Game Support for DirectStorage
While DirectStorage is a great technology for the PC and will make a lasting improvement to the PC gaming experience, game support for this technology is not as extensive as one would think when Microsoft announced DirectStorage for the PC. As of October 2023, there is only one game that supports this technology, Square Enix’s Forspoken, which was announced in 2022, exactly one year earlier, and so far, there is only one other game that will add support for Direct Storage with a software update in the future, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart.
This is both sad and somewhat obvious news for PCMR because a PC is an open system, and implementing a full-fledged API in an open environment is as difficult as it seems. Also, you have to keep in mind that Microsoft was able to implement Direct Storage in both Windows 10 and Windows 11, and it will work better in Windows 11 because of the better storage subsystem.
In the meantime, you can try Direct Storage on Forspoken. Kudos to the developers who are introducing such new technologies for the average gamer to enjoy a better gaming experience on their PC.
FAQs about DirectStorage Support for PCs
1. What is the use of DirectStorage on PCs?
DirectStorage was developed for the Xbox Series X and S and has significantly reduced game times and improved game graphics. It was designed for NVMe SSDs but can now be used on HDDs as well. In 2022, Microsoft introduced DirectStorage for Windows PCs as well.
2. Is DirectStorage hardware or software?
DirectStorage is software, or more precisely, an API, based on Microsoft’s Direct X 12. It uses hardware such as memory and the GPU to provide a better gaming experience by reducing a game’s load times and increasing a game’s visual fidelity.
3. What is DirectStorage SSD?
DirectStorage is software that was originally developed to reduce game load times on consoles and then enabled for the PC. This technology can improve the loading times and visual details of a video game and works especially well on an SSD with a Gne 4 PCIe interface.
4. Does Windows offer other gaming features like Direct storage?
Yes, Windows offers a whole host of gaming-oriented features that can greatly enhance your gaming experience, such as DirectX 12 Ultimate, Game Bar, Game Pass Ultimate, and many more. If you want to know more about Windows gaming features, you can check out our article, Windows 11 Gaming Features.
5. What are the requirements of DirectStorage?
To use this technology on your PC, you need to have an HDD or SSD and a GPU that supports Direct X 12. Also, DirectStorage works best in conjunction with a Gen 4 NVMe SSD, it works on both Windows 10 and Windows 11, although results might be better on Windows 11, and most importantly, you need a game that supports DirectStorage. Currently, there is only one game that supports the feature, which is Forspoken.
6. Will Direct Storage work on HDD as well?
Yes, with the new 1.2 updates, DirectStorage also works on HDDs, but keep in mind that using DirectStorage on an SSD won’t bring big performance improvements compared to an NVME SSD. Your game load times might improve, but not as drastically as you think.
7. Will I be able to use DirectStorage on Windows 10?
Yes, as long as you have the right hardware, you can use DirectStorage on Windows 10. However, the performance increase may not be as great compared to Windows 11 since Windows 11 uses a more modern and improved storage subsystem. In practice, however, the difference should be very small as long as you use the right hardware.
8. Will a smaller SSD size work for DirectStorage?
With DirectStorage, it doesn’t matter what size SSD you use. The most important thing with DirectStorage is the speed of your SSD or HDD. If you have a 256 gig NVME Gen 4 SSD, it should perform better than a 2TB Gen 3 or a SATA SSD. Storage speed and PCIe lanes are the most important factors you need to consider here. The more bandwidth you have, the better it will theoretically work.
9. Will DirectStorage work better with a faster RAM?
Faster RAM is not directly related to DirectStorage. It is only used to pass data to the GPU. It doesn’t matter if a game uses DirectStorage or not. Faster memory is more important for a better gaming experience than any other software feature because better hardware directly leads to better game performance. If you have a PC and you want better game performance, you’d better use faster memory than any other software.
