With its new DirectStorage API, Microsoft wants to significantly reduce the loading times of PC games.
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DirectStorage is said to greatly reduce the loading time in Windows games
© Youtube / Luminous Productions
By using the DirectStorage API, the loading times of games on the current Xbox are significantly lower than on the previous console. As early as September 2020, Microsoft announced that it wanted to integrate the API into DirectX in order to achieve significantly shorter loading times in PC games as well. In the interaction of a computer prepared for DirectStorage and a game that is also supported, significantly shorter loading times were promised. The API has been delivered to the developers for a few days ( we reported ).
Loading times of a few seconds
The developer of the game “Forspoken” now provides a solid foretaste of DirectStorage on the PC. DirectStorage is said to be used in the action-adventure game with an open game world from Luminous Productions, which is expected to be released in October 2022. The developers show on YouTube how much the loading times can be reduced with the new API.
Game world loaded in 1.9 seconds
An M.2 SSD, a SATA SSD and a classic hard drive are compared. In principle, all three storage solutions benefit from DirectStorage, but the result is very different: while the waiting time on the M.2 SSD is already over after 1.9 seconds, the SATA SSD takes almost twice as long at 3.7 seconds. With a classic hard drive, the loading process takes 21.5 seconds, ten times as long. The M.2 SSD can also clearly demonstrate its advantages when charging in the other areas. With a SATA SSD, the loading times are still manageable, but usually twice as long. The classic hard drive is lagging behind in third place and demands a lot of patience from the players.
Microsoft’s DirectStorage for Windows is ready – PC gaming will be drastically improved
