How to use Dir­ect­Stor­age in Windows 11

From Xbox to Windows – Dir­ect­Stor­age is an API interface and gaming tech­no­logy that ac­cel­er­ates the load times of com­pu­ta­tion­ally intensive games and supports demanding graphics. Pre­requis­ites are hardware with NVMe-SSD and a graphics card with Dir­ect­Stor­age support.

Dir­ect­Stor­age is a tech­no­logy known from the Xbox console series X and S. It’s also supported by Play­Sta­tion 5. Dir­ect­Stor­age API lets game de­velopers integrate the function into games to speed up load times and display detail-rich game worlds. Because PC games are a major area of gaming and now that Windows 11 is the best Windows for gamers thanks to special gaming features, Dir­ect­Stor­age is now fully supported by Windows 11.

The advantage is that the pro­gram­ming interface reduces processor overhead when rendering complex game worlds. Graphics data is trans­ferred at a faster speed between SSD and graphics card thanks to Dir­ect­Stor­age, without com­pressed data needing to be de­com­pressed by the CPU. Gamers enjoy a better gaming ex­per­i­ence with detailed textures, large worlds and lots of action. From the per­spect­ive of game de­velopers, the API means they no longer have to adapt the graphics quality to hardware lim­it­a­tions and can use soph­ist­ic­ated graphics tech­no­lo­gies such as raytra­cing. However, one pre­requis­ite is that games are pro­grammed using an in­teg­rated Dir­ect­Stor­age feature and PC gamers use Windows 11 as well as the hardware to support Dir­ect­Stor­age.

The function of Dir­ect­Stor­age is closely connected to rendering of game graphics. Tra­di­tion­ally, com­pressed graphics data is de­com­pressed via detours. Game data stored on a SSD is trans­ferred to the main memory (RAM). To conserve memory the data is com­pressed. When you start a game, the API (Ap­plic­a­tion Pro­gram­ming Interface) retrieves the data from the SSD to RAM memory. This passes them to the CPU processor for de­com­pres­sion. Once de­com­pressed, they’re passed back to the RAM and from there to the video memory (VRAM) of the GPU for rendering.

Dir­ect­Stor­age is a low-level API that elim­in­ates the need for time-consuming de­com­pres­sion via the CPU. Com­pressed graphics data is trans­ferred directly from the SSD via RAM to the graphics card. De­com­pres­sion happens in the VRAM of the GPU in this way, saving time for pro­cessing and trans­fer­ring game data. YouTubers from Linus Tech Tips have tested just how much time is saved when rendering with and without Dir­ect­Stor­age. They rendered a 52.4 MB game scene which took 0.33 seconds to load without Dir­ect­Stor­age and just 0.08 seconds with it.

Now for the `but´. While Dir­ect­Stor­age comes pre-installed on Windows 11, its usage is only optimal if games were pro­grammed using Dir­ect­Stor­age and gamers own the necessary hardware such as SSDs with NVMe. The pre­requis­ites are:

• a NVMe SSD with at least 64 GB storage size
• a graphics card with support for DirectX 12 and Shader model 6.0.

Hardware was also the main reason why Dir­ect­Stor­age was available on Xbox consoles in 2020, while PC users had to wait longer. Consoles have a uniform hardware, but PCs come with different hardware com­pon­ents, graphics cards, SSD vs. HDD, pro­cessors, and RAM which make im­ple­ment­a­tion of Dir­ect­Stor­age a greater challenge. Until now, because with Windows 11 that’s changed.

Dir­ect­Stor­age moves com­pressed graphics data from the hard disk to the graphics card’s VRAM without a detour via the CPU. Since the graphics card de­com­presses data much faster, the load on the processor is reduced by 20 to 40 percent and game per­form­ance is ac­cel­er­ated. Game de­velopers using Dir­ect­Stor­age can offer sharper, more detailed textures and larger game worlds that can be rendered without judder, dropouts or glitches with the ap­pro­pri­ate hardware.

In­teg­rated Dir­ect­Stor­age also means that game de­velopers can add more elements, such as NPCs, or create open worlds like those in Final Fantasy XIV. Faster rendering means objects don’t suddenly appear but are com­pon­ents of the visible game world. One of the first PC games to offer support for Dir­ect­Stor­age is the fantasy action role-playing game Forespoken from renowned developer Square Enix. If gamers are to really benefit from the faster tech­no­logy, de­com­pres­sion and transfer of data needs to be con­sidered as early as the game de­vel­op­ment stage. Because without games with Dir­ect­Stor­age func­tion­al­ity, any hardware ad­vant­ages aren’t going to speed up load times all that much.

Generally, Dir­ect­Stor­age works on Windows 10, albeit with a few short­com­ings since the storage stack op­tim­isa­tions cannot be used. You’ll need to install Windows 11 to enjoy all the ad­vant­ages of Dir­ect­Stor­age. Nev­er­the­less, gaming per­form­ance should be somewhat better on Windows 10, at least to a certain extent.

Windows 11 users benefit from in­teg­rated Dir­ect­Stor­age func­tion­al­ity. As long as you’ve got the matching hardware such as a NVMe SSD and com­pat­ible graphics card, you can use Dir­ect­Stor­age for relevant games.