Windows 11 is on its way and Microsoft recently released the first beta version of it. The operating system has a new design and offers a variety of features to users. One of these features is called Direct Storage , which dramatically improves the loading speed of games. In this article, we want to take a closer look at the direct Storage feature for computers equipped with Windows 11.
This is probably not the first time direct Storage has been mentioned, as this technology is now available to users with Xbox X Series and S series gaming consoles. This technology is part of the Xbox Velocity architecture system and its performance in Windows 11 is no different from the game consoles.
The main goal of Direct Storage feature development is one thing: faster reading of information from storage space and faster data writing.
What is Direct Storage capability?
Direct Storage is actually a technology related to the gaming world, which has significantly increased the volume of games in recent years. Games have a lot more detail than ever before and should be loaded into memory as quickly as possible, and old solutions are limited in this regard.
In fact, we all encountered a loading screen at the time of the game, or we didn’t have a scene properly displayed when we played the game. Direct Storage wants to make these problems less. What is age?
Technically, Direct Storage is part of DirectX 12 capabilities that cover media protocols. This feature is an API or a tool that developers can access hardware using. This tool leads to better access of game makers to storage space and reduces the waiting time for loading games. These can be applied during game performances or between scenes.
Direct Storage Storage Space Required
Direct Storage feature in Windows 11 requires a specific type of SSD memory: NVMe Explaining exactly what NMVe requires a separate article, so it’s enough to know that NVMe memory speeds up communications between the computer’s permanent storage space and other parts of the system.
Direct Storage technology has been developed to benefit from the same speed and wants to fix any potential problems that arise when transmitting data between drives and other parts of the computer. Simply put, this feature allows the SSD NVMe to showcase its highest performance.
Direct Storage affects system performance
There are several ways to improve system performance via Direct Storage. One of these methods is to band up incoming and outgoing requests, meaning operations become more efficient.
With the increase in the power of GPUs in recent years, the direct Storage feature in Windows 11 makes the graphics card performance not reduced due to the low speed of data transfer and loading information from the internal storage space without problems.
The number of requests that can be processed simultaneously is also important, as developers often split their games into several very small pieces of code. Such an approach helps the system’s resources, but the length of time it takes to access the disk increases dramatically. Direct Storage fixes such a problem.
Another task of Direct Storage is to reduce cpu conflict to load game data and can be taken directly from the NVMe drive. So less pressure is put on the CPU and can make other things easier.
In fact, this new feature directly accesses the NMVe SSD memory for the GPU and removes the processing load from the CPU. That’s why it’s called Direct Storage. The API of this technology decompresses files when removing from storage memory without pressurizing the CPU.
According to a Microsoft employee named Andrew Young with this technology, developers are achieving an incredibly efficient way to register and manage requests. As a result, the waiting time to enter the game reaches the lowest possible time and you can quickly and easily control the characters in the games .
The direct Storage feature of Windows 11 is flexible enough and developers can use it differently. So its hardware and software ability can vary in each game.
Direct Storage for Windows 10
Although Microsoft had initially said this technology is specific to Windows 11, but after a while the possibility of benefiting systems equipped with Windows 10 announced it. However, direct Storage performance in Windows 11 will be better, so running games on the new operating system Redmonds will be more enjoyable than Windows 10.
Direct Storage compatible graphics cards
To use this technology alongside Windows 11 or Windows 10 and SSD NVMe memory, you must also have a compatible GPU. Nvidia’s RTX 2000 and RTX 3000 series graphics cards and AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture-based graphics cards are compatible with this technology
If you don’t have such a system, don’t worry because new games will still run on it, but there won’t be any direct Storage improvements and you’ll have to wait almost a long time to load them as before.
In the end, if you have a system that has the facilities that Direct Storage needs, in the future, current games will also be updated to benefit from new technology to give you a more enjoyable experience.
