Microsoft brings DirectStorage APIs to Windows PCs

mood · Sep 2, 2020

Microsoft brings DirectStorage APIs to Windows PCs
September 1, 2020
https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-brings-directstorage-apis-to-windows-pcs/

Back in March, Microsoft revealed Xbox Velocity Architecture, a new architecture that brings advanced capabilities to Xbox Series X game console. Xbox Velocity Architecture consists of four components: a custom NVMe SSD, a dedicated hardware decompression block, the all new DirectStorage API, and Sampler Feedback Streaming (SFS). All these four components work together to improve available memory and asset streaming for developers.

Microsoft today announced that DirectStorage APIs are coming to Windows PCs. With this availability, DirectStorage enables best-in-class IO tech to both PC and console. Just like in Xbox Series X, games in DirectStorage supported PCs will have vastly reduced load times.

There are two primary areas this new API is going to improve: reducing frustratingly long load times of the past and enabling games to be more detailed and expansive than ever.
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Microsoft is planning to bring development preview of DirectStorage for game developers next year and it is already working with partners right now to finish designing/building the API and its supporting components.
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Microsoft: DirectStorage is coming to PC

We’re excited to bring DirectStorage, an API in the DirectX family originally designed for the Velocity Architecture to Windows PCs! DirectStorage will bring best-in-class IO tech to both PC and console just as DirectX 12 Ultimate does with rendering tech.

In this blog post, we’re going to give gaming enthusiasts more details on how it’s going to work and how it will revolutionize PC gaming. [...]
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Why NVMe?
An NVMe device can have multiple queues and each queue can contain many requests at a time. This is a perfect match to the parallel and batched nature of modern gaming workloads. The DirectStorage programming model essentially gives developers direct control over that highly optimized hardware.

With a supported NVMe drive and properly configured gaming machine, DirectStorage will be able to detect up front that these extra steps are not required and skip all the necessary checks/operations making every IO request cheaper to fulfill.
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xxJackxx · Sep 2, 2020

Sounds good but I am assuming that proprietary hardware will be required.

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Microsoft brings DirectStorage APIs to Windows PCs

mood Updates Team

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Microsoft brings DirectStorage APIs to Windows PCs

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