Directstorage is a new technology for games on Windows that Microsoft first introduced in 2020. A trial version was released in the summer of 2021. Testing has dragged on, but now the company is finally launching the feature for all game developers.
A similar or identical technology is already used on the Xbox Series X, where it enables, among other things, the console’s extremely fast “keep playing” function.
Directstorage involves loading textures and other data to be used by the graphics card directly from the ssd to the video card’s video memory instead of taking the detour of the processor and the usual working memory. Together with a fast nvme-ssd, it shortens charging times considerably and can be very useful in open world games that constantly load new textures as the player moves in the world.
I guess some game developers who were involved during the test period will release updates with support for the technology soon, but Microsoft has not yet revealed which games will be released first. Games with Directstorage will work on Windows 10 version 1909 and later.
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