Spider-Man 2's PC launch woes are woe-ier than you think, as it looks like GPU-powered DirectStorage is hobbling performance
The newly released PC port of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 hasn't enjoyed the smoothest of launches, thanks to bugs and performance problems. And now it seems that one aspect of the conversion that is making things worse is the use of DirectStorage, with the system sucking up all-important GPU resources.
Spider-Man 2 was ported by Nixxes Software, which has a pretty stellar track record for converting Sony's best-sellers. Well, up until now, that is. The Dutch software company portfolio of…err…ports is second to none: Marvel's Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales; Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart; Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and Horizon Forbidden West. Oh, and the entire rebooted Tomb Raider trilogy.
Confirmed. DirectStorage in Spider-Man 2 uses GPU decompression, and as @Sebasti66855537 shows, it degrades performance when leaving it enabled. https://t.co/3wCrR1b3gy pic.twitter.com/kUnoCE5uNvFebruary 2, 2025
So what's gone wrong with Spider-Man 2? According to tech channelCompusemble on X, the issue seems to be the use of DirectStorage. This is a Microsoft API that's used to reduce the CPU overhead when transferring thousands of compressed files from an SSD to a graphics card's VRAM. Instead of handling each file serially, DirectStorage lets the CPU multitask the process and use system memory in a more efficient manner.
Nixxes has plenty of experience with DirectStorage as it's used this before in its other Sony ports. However, Compusemble points out one important difference: Spider-Man 2 is using the GPU decompression option in DirectStorage, something that most of the other ported games don't have enabled (the exception being Ratchet & Clank, at high graphics settings).
Many games store all the assets in a compressed format, to make it faster to download and to take up less space on the SSD or hard drive. However, for the GPU to use them, they need to be decompressed and that job is traditionally handled by the CPU. DirectStorage, though, has the option to let the GPU do
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