One of Microsoft’s most recent advancements in gaming, DirectStorage , is officially coming to PC. The feature, which was originally released with their Xbox Series X consoles, was revealed to be coming to PC 18 months ago. Now, Microsoft has announced that the feature has officially arrived.
For those unfamiliar with the technology, the “DirectStorage API” grants the ability to stream massive amounts of data from a lightning quick NVMe SSD directly to your GPU, rather than requiring CPU decompression. As a result, games are able to load worlds that are dramatically more detailed and much quicker than previously.
In a blog post, Microsoft stated that “Starting today, Windows games can ship with DirectStorage. This public SDK release begins a new era of fast load times and detailed worlds in PC games by allowing developers to more fully utilize the speed of the latest storage devices”.
While Microsoft have been pushing their new Windows 11 OS, particularly for gaming, the new advancement will work with Windows 10 as well.
However there is a catch; there are no games with this technology available yet. Developers have had access to the technology since July 2021, and one of the first showcase games to be released with DirectStorage will be Forspoken, by Luminous productions. While the game has been delayed last week and won’t see release until October 11th, March 23rd marks the start of the Game Developers Conference, where Luminous Productions and AMD will explain how the technology was implemented in Forspoken.
Another issue with this new technology is that many PC users still haven’t upgraded to NVMe SSDs. As a result, many developers will likely avoid implementing DirectStorage for now, until its worth their time.
That being said, this new technology is set to transform the future of PC gaming, allowing users to get way more out of their SSD’s and allow PC to catch up to the next-generation.
