Microsoft DirectStorage

A few years back, games were not difficult and complex. The playable levels were small, characters were fewer. The gaming texture was simple. With time and advancement in technology, games adopted modern technology and features.

Modern games need too many gigabytes of data for rendering. To show us beautiful characters, environments, and textures. Some game developer tools are not enough to play these heavy games with smoothness.

Windows games can work effectively with DirectStorage. Microsoft has announced that DirectStorage is the fastest and most modern gaming technology. DirectStorage was introduced with the Xbox series in September 2020.

According to Microsoft, they will also make the Direct Storage API compatible with windows. DirectStorage will be compatible with PC games as well.

Today’s article will explore everything you need to learn about Microsoft DirectStorage.

Microsoft DirectStorage

DirectStorage helps to increase the speed of modern SSDs. That can deliver many gigabytes per second. Due to this, games will load faster than before. Current APIs are not completely suitable for modern and complex games. Moreover, modern and complex games need to decompress data before rendering.

Microsoft released the preview developer for the Direct Storage technology. According to reports, there is no built game on direct Storage yet.

Square Enix will soon take advantage of the latest technology by releasing this in Windows and PS 5 in October.

Why Do We Need Microsoft DirectStorage?

We need to discuss the current method of data streaming before knowing why we need Direct Storage.

You need data like texture, characters, models, and audio sound to present this on-screen while launching the game. Storage devices like a hard drive store this data. Through application programming interference, games request data. After that API, bring the data from the hard drive and place it into system RAM before passing it for rendering on GPU.

As we download the game, all the data is compressed and stored as much as possible. We send data to the CPU for decompression as it comes into RAM.

Finally, the GPU renders the data, and we see a beautiful picture and characters on the display screen.
There are two drawbacks of data streaming:

1. Data takes a lot of time to decompress. The game load increases and makes the CPU unavailable for the rendering tasks. Due to the unavailability of the CPU, it cannot fulfill the GPU demand, and we see low frames as a result.
2. The API cannot take full advantage of modern hardware. For example, previously, storage devices were slow mechanical hard drives. Those were not able to transfer the fast gigabytes per second. So, the limited data is written on API.

Developers who use these old APIs must stop this limited streaming data budget. They can avoid this by using complex scenes and minimizing extra assets.

These techniques work more accurately in theory than in practice. Games take a long time to load with fast storage devices available.

With the help of Direct Storage and a better data streaming process, developers can solve these issues.

How Does It Work?

Microsoft DirectStorage is the part or set of storage API that helps to stop doing anything wrong with current APIs. When a developer calls direct Storage to request data from a hard drive or any storage device. The two major differences appear, but the remaining process is almost the same.

First, when data is copied into RAM. No CPU decompression process happens. It means data is not compressed and copied. Unlike old APIs, GPU receives this compressed data.

Second, APIs take advantage of super-fast SSD hardware. Direct Storage works with the help of SSD. SSDs are more powerful and efficient than mechanical hard drives. Direct Storage takes the largest data from these SSDs, which reads a lot of data at once. This is not like the previous APIs that read data slowly in order of MB/s.

How Does It Help to Improve Games?

Direct Storage is very important for getting an incredible gaming experience. It provides a lot of incredible data to your GPU. Direct Storage can revolutionize your gaming experience.

If developers build games on Microsoft DirectStorage, it will not take too much loading time. So, you need to jump to another folder or screen while loading your favorite game.

Furthermore, Direct Storage helps the GPU to perform many tasks and increases speed. In simple words, you will get better frames and a visual experience without upgrading your hardware.

Finally, with the help of Microsoft DirectStorage, games will be entered into a more complex world with minimal texture pop-in.

What Can We Expect?

If we talk about numbers and other technical things. Micro direct Storage has its unique presence in the future. In upcoming days video games can use over 7000 MBPs SSDs. Direct Storage can handle this and provide good quality in the shape of smooth loading and characters.

Texture quality would be more efficient with this technology which means texture pop-in issues have gone. Microsoft direct storage will be compatible with Windows 10, 11, and all upcoming versions.

Does Direct Storage Work On SATA SSD?

Well, SSDs will take the largest benefit from direct Storage. But, don’t worry, it works fine on SATA SSDs. According to reports, this will increase 18% the speed of SATA SSDs.

Direct Storage and SATA together can kill the loading time of games.

Conclusion

Micro direct Storage is a modern technology for gamers. This can completely revolutionize the gaming industry. Direct Storage can solve many issues which gamers have been facing for a long time.

This will increase the gaming experience, like the quality, texture, and characters. This is useful for killing the loading time of the game. You don’t have to wait longer for your favorite games to load.

You don’t have to wait longer for your favorite games to load.

Micro Direct Storage is perfect for complex and difficult games. I hope this information is helpful for you. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below. Our team will get back to you at their earliest.

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