Windows 11 gets big gaming boost from Microsoft – but still has a major problem

techradar.com:

Microsoft is readying the launch of DirectStorage 1.1, its exciting tool for Windows 11 that could drastically improve load times for the best PC games.

DirectStorage uses GPU decompression, rather than using the PC’s CPU for decompressing game assets, such as textures and other graphics. With modern PC games becoming ever more ambitious, the traditional CPU decompression can cause performance bottlenecks. Removing that bottleneck by moving decompression to the graphics card of a gaming PC (or the best gaming laptops) means games could load up a lot faster – especially when installed in the latest generation of Gen4 NVMe SSDs.

This could lead to PC games starting up almost instantly, while load times between levels, game-over screens and cut scenes could one day be a thing of the past. With both the Xbox Series X (which uses similar tech to the PC version of DirectStorage, being a Microsoft product) and Sony’s PlayStation 5 going hard on near-instant load times, it looks like PC gamers will also benefit – but there’s a problem.

As The Verge reports(opens in new tab), DirectStorage 1.1 isn’t something that Microsoft can implement alone. First, it needs the support of graphics card makers to ensure that their GPUs can do the essential decompressing. The good news is that Nvidia’s latest Game Ready Driver 526.47(opens in new tab) includes support for DirectStorage 1.1, as does Intel’s Arc graphics driver 101.3793(opens in new tab). Meanwhile, AMD is reportedly finalizing its drivers to support DirectStorage 1.1.

While that bodes well for the new technology, it also needs to be supported by the games themselves, and that in turn requires game developers including support while making the game – and so far, the number of PC games