WYP
News Guru
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Microsoft's DirectStorage API will make NVMe storage a must for gamers
- Thread starter WYP
- Start date
KingNosser
Well-known member
I only have 2 nvme drives 1tb each and while this is a good thing i'll be limited in space going forward, looks like a lot of my current VR and general games will be moved onto older drives to make space for new games that use direct storage 
15.25TB of space and never enough space for everything so sooner or later i'll run out and have to start uninstalling lol
15.25TB of space and never enough space for everything so sooner or later i'll run out and have to start uninstalling lol
WYP
News Guru
I only have 2 nvme drives 1tb each and while this is a good thing i'll be limited in space going forward, looks like a lot of my current VR and general games will be moved onto older drives to make space for new games that use direct storage
15.25TB of space and never enough space for everything so sooner or later i'll run out and have to start uninstalling lol
I don't even want to know how much SSD space I'd need to have my entire PC library stored on my PC.
KingNosser
Well-known member
I do have a hell of a lot of games really, but i've not got my whole collection installed I'd estimate i'd need around 30tb's to do that, but i keep most installed until i'm done playing or no desire to play again.
The biggest issue is the newer the game the more space it wants, atm GTA V is taking up more than double it's install size as i have a back up copy an a highly modded version, it's worth it
WYP
News Guru
I do have a hell of a lot of games really, but i've not got my whole collection installed I'd estimate i'd need around 30tb's to do that, but i keep most installed until i'm done playing or no desire to play again.
The biggest issue is the newer the game the more space it wants, atm GTA V is taking up more than double it's install size as i have a back up copy an a highly modded version, it's worth it
TBH, I think we will start to see new data compression techniques that will help to reduce game sizes in the future. There's a reason why Xbox Series and PS5 system have a big decompression chip between their SSDs and CPUs.
It's hard to know how these changes will impact the PC market, but I think that changes are coming.
After I got 1000/1000 internet i no longer have storage issues.
Most games install in 10 minutes, and the worst in about 20 or the time it take to have a meal. I just had to try it a few times because it felt Odd to remove something I might need. My fist modem was 14.4 kpbs so that is where that came from
Most games install in 10 minutes, and the worst in about 20 or the time it take to have a meal. I just had to try it a few times because it felt Odd to remove something I might need. My fist modem was 14.4 kpbs so that is where that came from
KingNosser
Well-known member
After I got 1000/1000 internet i no longer have storage issues.
Most games install in 10 minutes, and the worst in about 20 or the time it take to have a meal. I just had to try it a few times because it felt Odd to remove something I might need. My fist modem was 14.4 kpbs so that is where that came from
Nice speeds, for me even when i had fiber it was no where near that like 80/20 atm i'm just using 4g until i move then look for the best fiber deal going
it should get better on the compression side of things, but i still think were looking at large game sizes as they will be using higher end textures and such.
were still a year or so away from this direct storage being a big thing same as DXR is only starting to get going now, some good games coming thou might get bio mutant but resi village is a day one for me
NeverBackDown
AMD Enthusiast
Great write up WYP, do you know when this will be released or any PC games launch date with support for this?
I wonder if in the future MS could somehow use this for outside of gaming and say maybe, if beneficial, use Integrated graphics on CPU to handle decompression to speed up various tasks.
I wonder if in the future MS could somehow use this for outside of gaming and say maybe, if beneficial, use Integrated graphics on CPU to handle decompression to speed up various tasks.
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WYP
News Guru
TBH, I have no idea when games will use this. Hopefully we will start seeing PC games use it when Xbox games do.
This could lead to some dedicated decompression silicon on future CPUs and GPUs, which could then be used for various other applications.
WYP
News Guru
The big change will not necessarily be in load times, it will help new data load into a game while it is already running, which will allow for more variety and allow developers to change the data that they have in memory on the fly.
A big example will be those scene transitions that many games have, which are mostly added to give new areas more time to load in. An example is where Lara croft, or other characters, squeeze into a rocky crevice to transition to a new area within a cave. Or having characters stuck in an elevator.
When games are designed for HDDs, they need to have in memory everything that a player will need for the next 30ish seconds of gameplay. With fast SSDs, that time is shortened (as SSDs load data faster), which effectively gives developers more usable RAM.
With DirectStorage, developers will be able to play to the strengths of SSDs to get further benefits from the technology. Treating SSDs as fast HDDs will allow gamers to achieve faster loading times, but playing to the benefits of SSD storage will allow developers to achieve larger performance boosts.
With today's fastest SSDs, developers will soon be able to rewrite the entirety of a console's system memory within a couple of seconds, and that is a big deal. There's a reason why the new Ratchet and Clank has multi-dimensional portals etc.
NeverBackDown
AMD Enthusiast
As WYP said but to expand it basically allows for far more variety and complexity of game design.
Pretty difficult to make huge sprawling worlds with no loading scenes. It's doable and has been done, but this just make it easier for all platforms which allows more complexity in the game world as consoles are no longer hindering game design(or less so). If you always had the data ready to load, you basically only ever need a handful at a time the player can interact with and save the rest in memory, which means less data being processed which means more performance and only change data as needed instead of just dumping everything.
Pretty difficult to make huge sprawling worlds with no loading scenes. It's doable and has been done, but this just make it easier for all platforms which allows more complexity in the game world as consoles are no longer hindering game design(or less so). If you always had the data ready to load, you basically only ever need a handful at a time the player can interact with and save the rest in memory, which means less data being processed which means more performance and only change data as needed instead of just dumping everything.
AngryGoldfish
Old N Gold
The new Mass Effect Legendary Edition has similar improvements. They took out entire solid walls and replaced them with open glass, or removed them entirely. When they made the games initially, they couldn't stream everything all at once; it had to be scheduled and structured. Now they have more freedom to create open spaces and spend less time in elevators or boxy areas.
WYP
News Guru
That is a great example.
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