We’ve discussed DirectStorage in length and why its a vital next-step for modern-gen games with expanding asset sizes not only to increase load times but also to increase performance. With Windows 11 formally being announced, DirectStorage was suspected to be a Windows 11 exclusive feature. Microsoft is now clarifying on its Developer Blog that this is not the case and DirectStorage will be compatible with Windows 10 (version 1909 onwards) so developers can explore the technology and include it in their projects.
For those unfamiliar, DirectStorage is a part of the DirectX 12 Ultimate API family and utilizes the GPU to directly manage and stream data from an NVMe SSD. This reduces system resources greatly by reducing the CPU’s participation in the data handling of in-game assets including large texture files, amongst others. Technologies like Xbox Velocity and NVIDIA’s RTX IO are reliant on DirectStorage but so far only Xbox Series X|S has it.
