Windows 11 and Windows 10 gaming laptops will receive new performance enhancements from Microsoftml2, support DirectStorage 1.1 in an upcoming update, and the SDK will open it to developers.
DirectStorage debuted in Xbox Series X|S, as a way to improve game loading time, Microsoft naturally also used it for Windows, with DirectStorage 1.0 first entering Windows 11 and then Windows 10 in March. The original method can reduce the load time of the game by up to 40% on laptops with NVMe-compatible drives, but DirectStorage 1.1 tripled load time (via Windows Central).
In the DirectX developer blog post, Microsoft showed an optimization example (as shown above) showing the potential benefits of GPU decompression and CPU decompression, with the loading time dropping from 2.36 seconds to just 0.8 seconds under DirectStorage 1.1.
DirectStorage 1.0 improves data transfer speed, thus reducing CPU overhead, while DirectStorage 1.1 focuses on GPU decompression. In the past, this task was done entirely on the CPU, but now it can be offloaded to the GPU and works in conjunction with high-speed NVMe drives, which enables near-instantaneous load times.
So what's the problem? In addition to having gaming laptops with NVMe drive and Shader Model 6.0-enabled DirectX 12 GPUs to achieve this, developers need to implement this feature in their games. So far this has proven that DirectStorage 1.0 is a challenge, so we have to see if the next leap is enough to get developers involved.
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