Microsoft today finally launched a new Windows feature that promises to speed up and even eliminate load times for PC games.
With the software developer’s kit for DirectStorage, game companies can begin incorporating the tech into their latest titles. “Starting today, Windows games can ship with DirectStorage,” Microsoft says. “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.”
The feature is based on Microsoft’s game-loading Velocity Architecture technology found in the Xbox Series X. DirectStorage is designed to fully leverage the higher bandwidth on today’s NVME SSD drives, which have become common across consumer PCs.
According to Microsoft, the existing storage APIs for PCs are outdated and can create bottlenecks in the loading experience, even if the game is installed on an NVME SSD drive. As a result, the company created a new DirectStorage API, which has been optimized to streamline the data processing for faster load times while also freeing up the CPU.
Microsoft adds that DirectStorage can accelerate the load time potentially over “any kind of storage device,” such as an HDD. But the biggest improvements will occur when the applicable game is installed on NVME SSDs starting with PCIe Gen 3.0.
Microsoft also notes DirectStorage works better on Windows 11 than on Windows 10 due to “legacy storage stacks” in the older OS. “Stay tuned to learn about games that will be shipping with DirectStorage in the future!” the company added. In the meantime, the upcoming Square Enix title Forspoken has already tipped it’ll use the API.
Interested software developers can download the DirectStorage SDK from Microsoft’s website. As for the future, Microsoft adds: “GPU decompression is next on our roadmap, a feature that will give developers more control over resources and how hardware is leveraged.” The company is also working on more ways to offload resources to free up the CPU during gaming sessions.
