The size of the games and the content in the games are increasing. This increase leads to an increase in loading times. Both hardware and software manufacturers are looking for ways to increase the loading speed. One of the companies working for this purpose is Microsoft.
The DirectStorage feature, which Microsoft first used on Xboxes, helped games load faster. This feature also came to computers in March 2022. Now, the technology giant, which will renew the feature with a brand new approach, will also significantly reduce the loading times in games.
The GPU will work instead of the CPU.
With the system called DirectStorage 1.1, Microsoft will now decode compressed data that processors need to decode to graphics processors. In a sense, this approach, which is the work of the same logic as the loading of cryptocurrency miners on graphics processors, aims to use the ability of graphics processors to quickly perform repetitive tasks in parallel.
Microsoft previously stated that loading times were reduced by up to 40% on computers with Windows 11 operating system and NVMe SSDs. The new DirectStorage will decompress compressed files over the GPU. The part that requires almost brute force will be done by the graphics processor. This will cut load times by a third.
In the demo Microsoft presented, the CPU workload did not exceed 15% in scenarios where DS was running, while it increased to 100% when DS was disabled. In addition, the processor is free to do other game-related calculations.
Of course, this demo was a special choice to highlight DirectStorage’s features. This was clearly stated in Microsoft’s statements. There are not many systems or games that can use the DS feature at the moment, but everything continues to progress. It is noteworthy that this feature will be a must in the future.
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