What is DirectStorage, and what does it mean for your PC?

We use our laptops and personal computers for many things. Some of us use it to study. Some of us use it to do office work.

Some people use their laptops to play high end computer games.

These games come with rich graphics, lifelike movement, and quick response to the user’s input.

Obviously, all this needs computing resources – CPU power, memory, etc.

Most of these games are also played online and real time response is critical. If the player clicks a button now, it must register in the game within a few milliseconds.

Obviously, PCs that have this kind of computing power can also be used for other things – simulations, for instance, or high end design using computers, or art.

So, while the innovation we discuss here is being hailed by the gaming community, it is equally useful for all high end PC users.

Understanding Storage in Computers

In most laptops, we used something called a hard drive for storage. Hard Drives are magnetic, and slow.

Then, we got something called SSD – Solid State Drive.

Without going into details, we understand that SSDs were much smaller in size and much faster at retrieving information. Because of their high speed, SSDs are also called flash drives.

Today, most laptops offer either a pure SSD storage or a combination of hard drive and SSD.

Removing the magnetic hard drive also helped us reduce the size and weight of laptops.

What is DirectStorage

Modern flash drives can process data at the rate of gigabytes per second.

Playstation 5 can process up to 9 giagbytes per second. This is made possible by compression.

To compress something means to squeeze something to make it fit in a smaller container. That is exactly what compression does to data. This 9 GBPS (Gigabytes per second) means that the actual gigabyte weight that will be carried is the same 5 – 6 GB, but when decompressed (opened up) at the destination server, it occupies 9 GB of space. So, as far as the user is concerned, 9 GB of data has been transferred.

However, once this data is received by the computer, the CPU needs to decompress and present it to the user.

Most CPUs do not have the processing power to manage this much data in a second or less. So, while the flash drive is sending 9 GBPS, the CPU is decompressing it at a slightly slower pace. Since the data can only be presented to the user after decompression, the speed to reach the user is slowed down.

Microsoft shared this image to explain this to its users:

GPU stands for Graphical Processor Unit.

DirectStorage is basically an API (Application Programming Interface – a special kind of program that basically transfers data from one program to another, usually over the internet). What this API does is to take the data from the SSD and deliver it directly to the GPU instead of the CPU.

GPUs are designed to process image and media data much faster than CPUs. You can think of GPUs as processors specially for media. The CPU is a general processor that can process everything. Think of the CPU as a general practitioner and the GPU as the specialist cardiologist – they can cure only the heart, but that, they can do very well.

This image, also by Microsoft, explains how this will now work:

DirectStorage has both hardware and software requirements for it to work.

PC users running Windows 11 or Windows 10 must use an NVMe drive. That’s short for NVM Express or Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification.

This is a communication standard used by SSDs.

The other communication standard used is SATA.

How to check if I have NVMe

On a Windows 11 machine:

Go to Settings. Search for Disks and Drives.

Then, choose your SSD hard drive.

Click on properties.

Check the Bus Type. That is the communication standard being used by the SSD in your machine.

We also need a DirectX12 GPU to use DirectStorage.

How to turn on DirectStorage in my PC

You do not need to do anything to turn on DirectStorage.

If the following 3 conditions are met, DirectStorage will be used automatically:

A. NVMe Communication Protocol

B. DirectX 12 GPU

C. A game that is capable of using the DirectX12 GPU.

Conclusion

In the future, games will become faster, more complex, and more demanding of the infrastructure. The solutions we build for gaming will, hopefully be used in other areas like complex design and simulations.