Currently making a report from PC Games Hardware to negative effects of the new Windows technology DirectStorage the round, among other things Videocardz and Wccftech. More specifically, it is about decreasing FPS in Forspoken.
The PCGH article initially spoke of measured values that attested fast NVMe SSDs with PCI Express 4.0 or 3.0 about ten percent lower FPS than a slow SATA SSD that is not suitable for DirectStorage.
The original source has since been corrected, but we have already measured it ourselves. Since the basic question about the FPS influence of DirectStorage is quite interesting, we briefly summarize the events and our measurements for you. All information about the gaming quality of Forspoken and the PC version can be found in our detailed test:
Forspoken Test: Since Valhalla, there hasn’t been such an argument about an open world
What makes DirectStorage so important? Extremely short loading times, which let us jump right into the game, are just one aspect of the high data rates that are possible with DirectStorage. The structure and course of games could also change significantly as a result. We have already described what exactly that means in the GamePro with a view to the comparable SSD technology of the Playstation 5. You can find out more about this in the article How games could radically change thanks to SSD without us noticing
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The original suspicion of the PCGH: Because the graphics card also plays an important role in DirectStorage through techniques such as Nvidia’s RTX IO, the FPS decrease with the technology. In the meantime, however, the report has been adjusted because there was probably a measurement error.
The tests were based on the game’s internal benchmark. The FPS values, on the other hand, come from the CapFrameX tool, which was used in the background for the measurement.
The suspected problem: The benchmark uses different scenes and also measures the loading times in between. During these loading times, which are clearly higher with a SATA SSD, there are high FPS values, which according to PCGH probably falsified the measurements with CapFrameX.
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What do we measure ourselves?
In our own measurements comparing an older SATA SSD with a current NVMe SSD with PCI Express 4.0, we can only determine significant differences in the loading times, but not in the frames per second. You can find out more about loading times in our Forspoken tech check.
In addition to the measurements in the tech check, we also let the SATA model Samsung SSD 830 compete against the NVMe SSD Western Digital Black SN850X in terms of FPS, both in the internal benchmark and in the game itself.
No differences to be found: In both cases, we achieve an average of 76 FPS in the internal benchmark (test result according to Forspoken) and about 63 frames per second in the game itself (measured with CapFrameX) at 4K resolution with maximum details and without upsampling. The minimum FPS in the form of the 99th percentile are practically identical at 53.5 and 52.7 respectively.
So far, at least in Forspoken and our test scenarios, we haven’t seen any negative effects of DirectStorage on the FPS. In principle, this should only be the case if the technology in the game is actually used to load assets quickly. However, this does not only have to be the case when loading a saved game.
Exactly how and when DirectStorage is used varies by title. In this respect, too, it will be exciting to take a closer look at other games with the new technology. However, not many titles of this type have been announced for the PC yet. The example of God of War proves that other measured values apart from the FPS and the loading time in games can be very impressive:
God of War on the PC: The download inspires me more than the great technology
Do you think DirectStorage can have a significant impact on FPS in games? And would you accept very low loading times for some FPS loss? Feel free to write it in the comments!