What is DirectStorage Support and how does it work in Forspoken?

Forspoken, the latest in the long line-up of action role-playing games under Japanese video game publisher Square Enix's umbrella, has finally been released. Developed by Luminous Productions, Forspoken is one of the most highly anticipated releases of 2023, partly due to its breathtaking visuals courtesy of the studio's in-house Luminous Engine.

The multi-platform game engine was also used to power the studio's previous project, Final Fantasy XV, featuring state-of-the-art graphics, an advanced lighting model, texture work, and tesselation, creating truly awe-inspiring visuals.

Forspoken uses every advancement brought to the table with Final Fantasy XV but also features some noticeable improvements across the board.

Among the major new additions to the Luminous Engine is the implementation of DirectStorage tech from Microsoft, which not only boosts in-game texture streaming during gameplay but also massively reduces loading time on modern PC hardware and the PlayStation 5.

Here's everything players need to know about Microsoft's DirectStorage and how it improves the gameplay experience of Forspoken on PlayStation 5 and Windows PC.

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What is Microsoft DirectStorage?

Microsoft's DirectStorage tech boosts asset streaming by side-loading the majority of that task to GPU cores. The DirectStorage tech utilizes fast storage solutions, i.e., SSDs, that have become common on most modern PC hardware and have also been adopted on current-generation PlayStation and Xbox consoles.

DirectStorage is a low-level API that eliminates the need for time-consuming decompression of assets via the CPU. Compressed graphics data (textures and streaming data) is transferred directly from the storage media (preferably NVMe SSD) via RAM to the GPU.

Decompression happens within the VRAM of the GPU, which saves time and precious CPU resources for processing and transferring game data in real-time.

DirecStorage-supported games work on Windows 10 and 11. However, there are additional software optimizations in the IO stack available exclusively on the latter, making it an OS that players can use to witness the technology's full effects.

That said, games using DirectStorage will benefit from GPU decompression technology, regardless of the operating system players opt for.

Prerequisites for players to make use of the DirectStorage implementation in games include the following:

• An NVMe (or SATA3) SSD with at least 64 GB storage size
• A graphics card with support for DirectX 12 and Shader model 6.0.

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How does DirectStorage implementation benefit Forspoken?

According to Square Enix and Luminous Productions, by running the game from an NVMe SSD drive, players will see around 1-2 seconds of loading (thanks to DirectStorage), which is fast in terms of video game loading speeds.

Square Enix also stated that while Forspoken's DirectStorage implementation is perfectly compatible with SATA SSDs, players will see slightly higher loading times (up to 10 seconds) than the NVMe drives.

DirectStorage also assists in texture streaming, something that can be a major point of stress for most open-world games. The boost in asset loading and texture streaming results in a significant performance boost, which helps, especially in action-heavy games like Forspoken.