Within the DirectX 12 Ultimate API, one of its biggest new features is that it will play a key role in transitioning the use of conventional hard drives to NVMe SSDs for game storage. Well, finally, after a long wait and with the Xbox Series already having this feature, Microsoft has finally released the DirectStorage API for Windows 11.
In the hardware world, you will always see the following phrase repeated: “your system is as fast as its slowest component will allow”. For years, the hard drive wasn’t the biggest bottleneck in gaming, but as games became more complex, the need to transfer large volumes of data with as little latency as possible grew. more and more noticeable. Which completely left optical storage such as Blu-Ray and DVD as a game format out of circulation.
So, evolutionarily, the next format to disappear from our PCs will be the hard drive, and NVMe SSDs have several advantages. The first and most obvious is the ability to transfer data not just at several gigabytes per second, but at dozens with future interfaces. While HDD cannot even overwhelm SATA interface due to its physical nature.
DirectStorage API is now available on PC
After a long wait, app developers on Windows 11 can finally use the DirectStorage API, part of DirectX 12 Ultimate and it will become the main force of two phenomena that will occur in the next few years. The first is himthe transition to Windows 11 of the various games on the market, the second will be ditch HDD in games for NVMe SSDs. We already see this last point in the new gaming laptops that have been launched lately, as none of them come with a hard drive, but rather an NVMe SSD.
Although the DirectStorage API has a backward compatibility layer which allows the use SATA SSD and Windows 10, its full potential is achieved with NVMe SSDs connected via the PCI Express port. This allows the graphics card to directly access the contents of this drive. without having to be provided by the CPU. This means a considerable cut in access to game graphics data and, consequently, a performance gain. At this time, only GPUs that fully support DX12 Ultimate can use this feature. here are the NVIDIA RTX 20 and RTX 30 by the mechanism RTX I/O and the AMD RX 6000 from AMD.
Unfortunately, the hardware compression and decompression codecs included in next-gen consoles are unknown on PC. Since NVIDIA and AMD solutions work differently. However, this is completely normal, mainly for compatibility issues.
Not just for games
Although DirectStorage is an API closely related to games, as it is part of DirectX, it will actually power various multimedia applications. Clearest of all will be video editors who will see their speed of access to timeline and streaming platforms accelerated, whether for streaming audiovisual content or via Cloud Gaming. As for photo editing, it will allow us to access very large files at high speed and without performance problems.
In any case, and finally, it is expected that games via the obligation to use the SSD will eventually lead the change. At the same time, we must not forget the existence of other flash memory formats that adopt the PCIe interface and which will also benefit from the DirectStorage API. We are therefore not only faced with a change for PC Gaming, but for all ranges on the market.
The post The days of the hard disk are numbered: DirectStorage, finally on PC, appeared first on HardZone.
