Microsoft releases DirectStorage API for Windows 10 and 11 PCs

Microsoft has released its DirectStorage API for PC game developers. The technology debuted as part of the Xbox Velocity Architecture for Xbox Series X and S in 2020.

The Redmond-based company had said it would be coming to Windows in the future. When Windows 11 was announced, Microsoft touted DirectStorage as one of its best features. However, it was not available when the operating system debuted, because the API was not stable, although a Preview had been released in July 2021.

The SDK for the runtime is finally here, so developers can make their games compatible with the new API. Microsoft will formally debut it next week, with a demo at GDC 2022.

What is DirectStorage and why is it important?

DirectStorage is a storage API for DirectX 12. Simply put, the technology can deliver faster load times in games. It does this by having the graphics card do the heavy lifting to load assets (GPU decompression), which in turn reduces the load on the CPU.

Most games, especially AAA titles, don’t load the game world instantly. Open world games like Red Dead Redemption 2, for example, take a long time to start, but it’s a one-time thing. Once the game world has been rendered, you can freely explore it without encountering any more loading screens. Other games, like Pillars of Eternity, are based on area maps that are represented by location. If you enter a building or dungeon, or move to a different map, the game loads the area as needed. Naturally, this slows down the game quite a bit.

DirectStorage could change this for the better, so we won’t have to watch loading screens as often, because games will switch between areas faster, render more complex worlds with NPCs, better animations, and richer visuals.

The good news is that it’s not exclusive to Windows 11, the API is also compatible with Windows 10. Microsoft says that DirectStorage will work better on Windows 11 due to storage stack optimizations in the new OS, but that could be a marketing jargon.

Here is an official video explaining more about DirectStorage on Windows.

Image courtesy: Microsoft.

Does this mean that games will run better on Windows 11?

Well yes and no. There are some hardware limitations for DirectStorage, a PCIe 3.0 or 4.0 NVMe SSD and DirectX 12 compatible graphics card with Shader Model 6.0 are required to use the optimizations. More specifically, you’ll need a GPU with DirextX 12 Ultimate, which means your computer must have an Nvidia RTX 2000/3000 or RDNA 2 card like AMD Radeon RX 6000 or better.

The other requirement is on the software side, that is, the games must support DirectStorage. Easier said than done, developers need to code their game for it. Not many older games have been updated to support DirectX 12. Adoption of the technology will take time, so we can expect future games to take advantage of the optimizations. Forspoken will be the first game to support DirectStorage on Windows, but Square Enix has delayed the game’s release from May 25 to October 11. There is a chance that another game that is released earlier may support the new technology before Forspoken.

Some users have been experimenting with DirectStorage on m.2 SATA SSDs, and while it seems to work normally, there doesn’t seem to be any viable proof that performance is better with hardware that doesn’t meet the minimum system requirements.

Do you choose to run games in Vulkan or DirectX?

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