How DirectStorage 1.1 could make Windows 11 an essential upgrade for PC gamers
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Microsoft’s DirectStorage 1.1, a feature that uses the GPU to speed up load times, has just been tested comparing graphics cards from AMD, Intel and Nvidia – with some very interesting results. In short, the feature seems to seriously increase load times with NVMe SSDs.
As Tom’s hardware (opens in new tab) reports, Compose (opens in new tab) developed a benchmark test on that German tech site PC gaming hardware (opens in new tab) (PCGH) used to produce results for AMD’s RX 7900 XT versus Intel’s Arc A770 and also Nvidia’s RTX 4080.
All GPUs were tested in a PC with Intel’s Core i9-12900K (Alder Lake flagship CPU) running Windows 11.
First, a quick reminder about the technology to refresh your memory if needed: DirectStorage 1.1 comes with GPU decompression technology, so the GPU can handle decompression (of compressed game assets) at much greater speed and efficiency than the CPU.
This heralds faster loading times and quicker item loading when playing in large open-world games, meaning a smoother experience when you’re roaming those kinds of large environments.
During testing, PCGH found that Intel’s A770 GPU actually had the best performance in terms of achieving fast decompression of game assets, at 16.8 GB/s compared to 15.3 GB/s for the RTX 4080 and 14 .6 GB/s for AMD’s 7900 XT (for PCIe 4.0 testing – though Intel also took the lead for PCI 3.0, albeit by a slightly smaller margin).
While that was a somewhat eye-popping win for Intel Arc, it’s important to note that it didn’t translate to any real difference in load times between the GPUs, and they all delivered blazing fast speeds.
PCGH witnessed load times being reduced from 5 seconds to 0.5 seconds – essentially the blink of an eye – in all cases for these graphics cards from AMD, Intel and Nvidia, so they were all completely fine as far as actual end results .
Analysis: Seriously impressive results – but where are the games?
This is an exciting first glimpse of independent benchmarks showing just how fast DirectStorage will be for PC gamers, regardless of the flavor of (contemporary) GPU they use. Keep in mind that gamers should have an NVMe SSD and also use Windows 11 for best results.
While DirectStorage works with Windows 10 PCs, there are a ton of optimizations for Windows 11 in terms of storage, meaning it’s going to be a lot more of a boost. So it’s easy to see why, given the big impact DirectStorage appears to be making through these tests, it will make a compelling case for PC gamers to upgrade to Windows 11.
Mind you, it might not be an argument that applies in the real world for a while, simply because there aren’t any games using DirectStorage yet (at least not on PC). The only game we know of coming in and buzzing with DS support is Forspoken, and frustratingly, it’s now the victim of multiple delays.
Forspoken was expected in May 2022, then pushed back to October 2022, before being pushed back to January 24, 2023, which is now just over a week away. So hopefully – barring further last-minute delays – we should be able to see DirectStorage in action on PC very soon.
Still, one PC game is just a drop in the ocean, and it’s not clear when more titles that use this fast SSD boost technology will appear. That means it’ll be quite some time before PC gamers sticking with Windows 10 feel the real pull to upgrade to Windows 11, but judging by the early testing so far, it looks like that pull will be significant when it in Play.