Microsoft recently released the DirectStorage API for game developers, giving them access to the same technology that made Quick Resume one of the best features on Xbox Series X|S consoles. Theoretically, DirectStorage promises lightning-fast download speeds for PC games, and in practice it looks like it could be a major upgrade for this platform.
As PC Gamer noticed, the footage of the upcoming Forspoken role-playing game showed that the game loads in an astounding 1.9 seconds from an M.2 solid-state drive. When using a SATA solid-state drive, this time increased to a still impressive 3.7 seconds, and on a regular SATA solid-state drive, the game was ready to play in 21.5 seconds. The scenes used to demonstrate these speeds consisted of about 20,000 files with a total weight of 4.5 GB, while the DirectStorage API showed a file I/O speed of 4839 MB/s compared to the Win32 API on the same disk, which ran at a frequency of 2826. MB/s.
However, there is a caveat to this, since the technology is not exactly plug-and-play software. The developer of Luminous Productions had to optimize it for Forspoken, and the studio noted that improvements could be made to prevent data bottlenecks when unpacking graphics. Microsoft is working on fine-tuning the technology and improving it in the future.
As for how it works, DirectStorage allows the GPU to interact directly with the solid-state drive so that games and textures can be loaded without having to pre-check the processor and main memory. This potentially provides an almost instant download of the game, which has become a hallmark of current-generation console games with games such as Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Doom Eternal demonstrating incredible speed on their respective PS5 and Xbox solid-state drives. X|S series consoles.
Forspoken promises to be a beautiful demonstration of new technologies, as its design also includes the new AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution technology. However, the game has the story of the main character Frey Holland, which was revealed in more detail this week ahead of its upcoming launch on PC and PS5 in May this year.
