Microsoft’s DirectStorage 1.1 will quickly increase PC recreation load instances with GPU decompression

Microsoft is bringing GPU decompression to Windows PC video games quickly. After launching DirectStorage earlier this yr, GPU decompression guarantees to be the subsequent step within the ongoing effort to enhance recreation load instances on PCs. Microsoft says it’s “one of our most highly requested features” from recreation builders.

GPU decompression works by offloading the work wanted to decompress property in video games to the graphics card as an alternative of the CPU. Modern video games embody large quantities of property like characters, landscapes, and objects which might be all compressed to cut back the entire measurement of a recreation.

“Typically, decompression work is done on the CPU because compression formats have historically been optimized for CPUs only,” explains Cassie Hoef, a senior program supervisor at Microsoft. “We are offering an alternative method in DirectStorage 1.1 by moving the decompression of those assets to the GPU instead — known as GPU decompression.”

By transferring this workload to a GPU, load instances can dramatically lower in video games, even in areas the place you’re transferring from one world to a different. Microsoft claims this may be as a lot as 3 times quicker, liberating up the CPU to deal with different recreation processes. “When DirectStorage 1.1 [is] released, it kicks off a new journey for game developers to make full use of gaming hardware and speed up load times for PC games over the next few years,” says Hoef.

These new enhancements are coming quickly for builders, and will probably be obtainable in each Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft says there are “additional optimizations in the IO stack available to Windows 11 users,” in order that would be the most suitable option for GPU decompression and DirectStorage on the whole.

GPU makers like Nvidia and AMD may even have to launch suitable DirectStorage 1.1 drivers forward of Microsoft’s closing launch later this yr. While DirectStorage has the promise of blazing-fast load instances that we’re seeing on Xbox Series X consoles, we haven’t seen many PC video games undertake this expertise but. Forspoken was purported to be the primary huge recreation with DirectStorage help, however the title bought delayed to January 2023.