Microsoft DirectStorage 1.1 will dramatically improve PC game load times – Microsoft

Following the launch of DirectStorage earlier this year, GPU decompression technology promises to be the next step in an ongoing effort to improve game load times on Windows PCs. Microsoft States It is “one of the most requested features” from game developers.

By decompressing the GPU, the core components of the game that are required to run on the graphics card, not the processor, will be decompressed. Modern games include huge amounts of data, such as characters, scenes, and objects, which are compressed to reduce the overall size of the game.

“Data decompression is usually done on the CPU because historically compression formats were only optimized for processors,” explains Cassie Hoef, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft. “We provide an alternative method with DirectStorage 1.1, to transfer the decompression of these game assets directly to the GPU.”

By shifting the workload to the GPU, load times can be greatly reduced in games, even in areas where you move from one world to another. Microsoft claims that the loading speed can be up to three times faster, freeing up the CPU to handle other gaming processes. “When DirectStorage 1.1 is released, a new journey begins for game developers to take full advantage of their game hardware and accelerate PC game load times in the coming years,” says Hof.

The new improvements will soon be available to developers on both Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft says there are “additional improvements in the IO stack, available exclusively to Windows 11 users,” so this would be the best option for GPU and DirectStorage decompression in general.

But the ball is also in the court of GPU manufacturers, such as Nvidia and AMD, who will have to release DirectStorage 1.1-compatible drivers, before Microsoft’s final release later in the year. While DirectStorage promises super-fast load times like those seen on the Xbox Series X, we haven’t seen many PC games adopt this technology yet. Forspoken was supposed to be the first major game to support DirectStorage, but the game’s release was pushed back to January 2023.