DirectStorage 1.1 uses GPUs to optimize decompression performance and lower game load...

[Shawn Knight]

In a nutshell: Microsoft is on track to release DirectStorage 1.1 with GPU decompression to developers by the end of 2022. It's unclear which games will be the first to take advantage of it, but Microsoft promises to provide more API specifics and documentation with the release coming soon.

For those needing a quick refresher, games require massive amounts of data to build their immersive worlds. Every object, character and landscape has assets attached that dictate various aspects like color, shape and lighting. Collectively, the assets amount to hundreds of gigabytes of data which gets compressed to reduce the overall size of the game.

When it comes time to utilize the assets, they must first be transferred to system memory where they are then decompressed by the CPU before being moved into GPU memory for use as needed.

DirectStorage 1.0 dealt with the transfer process. Combined with advances in Windows 11, systems equipped with NVMe drives could use DirectStorage 1.0 to speed up load times by as much as 40 percent in some cases. With DirectStorage 1.1, Microsoft is turning its attention to decompression performance.

Up to this point, asset decompression has typically been optimized for CPUs only. DirectStorage 1.1 moves the task to the GPU which frees up the CPU to perform other jobs.

In an optimized test to highlight performance benefits from the test, scenes were shown to load nearly three times faster. The compression format used was GDeflate, a novel lossless standard optimized for high-throughput decompression with deflate-like compression ratios that was developed by Nvidia and Microsoft. In the test, the CPU was nearly freed up entirely.

Microsoft said it is working with AMD, Intel and Nvidia on drivers tailored to the format.

The tech certainly sounds enticing, but Microsoft's announcement did leave us with more questions than answers. Moving decompression duties off the CPU will of course free it up, but what sort of impact will the extra load have on the GPU? Are we going to see frame rates take a substantial hit to make way for faster load times? If so, gamers will no doubt have to dial in the sweet spot for the optimal gaming experience.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/96324-directstorage-11-uses-gpus-optimize-decompression-performance-lower.html

 

[psycros]

A lot of media programs already use the GPU for compression so this is a logical next step. It makes sense for as many programs as possible to draw upon that extra processing power when its not being fully utilized.

 

[neeyik]

Moving decompression duties off the CPU will of course free it up, but what sort of impact will the extra load have on the GPU? Are we going to see frame rates take a substantial hit to make way for faster load times?

The shader load will be relatively light, as decompression is a task that scales well over GPU cores; low-end cards shouldn't struggle too much, despite their low core count. Even the bandwidth hit on the local memory isn't a huge concern - we can see in the Microsoft example that 7.08GB/s was required, which is something in the order of 3% of the total bandwidth a GeForce RTX 3050 has.

 

[passwordistaco]

How about getting 1.0 out the door before worrying about 1.1.

 

[hahahanoobs]

I heard DS 1.0 was rejected by developers because it lacked GPU decompression like it's done on consoles. Supposedly we have NVidia (and M$) to thank for getting there with 1.1, since the original compression algorithm was theirs (Deflate).

 

[Puiu]

I heard DS 1.0 was rejected by developers because it lacked GPU decompression like it's done on consoles. Supposedly we have NVidia (and M$) to thank for getting there with 1.1, since the original compression algorithm was theirs (Deflate).

I'm not sure why they picked Deflate, it's just not a modern compression algorithm. There are many much better ones. Was it because most tools have support for it? O_o

As far as I know they could have used Brotli if they wanted good support/performance and something like zstd would blow Deflate out of the water in terms of compression ratio.

 

[Stingy McDuck]

DirectX 12 was announced before the Xbox One launch, and I still feel that it isn't used to it's promised potential.

 

[Revolution 11]

I heard DS 1.0 was rejected by developers because it lacked GPU decompression like it's done on consoles. Supposedly we have NVidia (and M$) to thank for getting there with 1.1, since the original compression algorithm was theirs (Deflate).

So is Deflate still being used then? Or is it another algorithm?

 

[neeyik]

So is Deflate still being used then? Or is it another algorithm?

GDeflate is used:

GitHub - NVIDIA/nvcomp: A library for fast lossless compression/decompression on the GPU

A library for fast lossless compression/decompression on the GPU - GitHub - NVIDIA/nvcomp: A library for fast lossless compression/decompression on the GPU

github.com

 

[punctualturn]

So I have to ask, why is the thumbnail and the main photo using a pair of Nvidia RTX gpus?

Is this tech exclusive to Nvidia GPUS only? Because many less experienced people will simply assume that.

This is why I said on another thread that AMD simply has no chance, when every time that any of these media/Tubers post something , always have to push or place Nvidia photos even when the article/video is not directly about them.

 

[brucek]

DirectStorage 1.0 dealt with the transfer process. Combined with advances in Windows 11, systems equipped with NVMe drives could use DirectStorage 1.0 to speed up load times by as much as 40 percent in some cases

Which cases are those? I have a Win 11 system with an NVMe drive, I'd like to see this for myself.

 

[scavengerspc]

Which cases are those? I have a Win 11 system with an NVMe drive, I'd like to see this for myself.

If you have Win 11 and a NVMe drive it is already working. If you want to verify, just open game bar (WIN + G) and choose settings, then "Gaming Features".

After that, you need a Direct Storage compatible game.

 

[Geralt]

So I have to ask, why is the thumbnail and the main photo using a pair of Nvidia RTX gpus?

Is this tech exclusive to Nvidia GPUS only? Because many less experienced people will simply assume that.

This is why I said on another thread why AMD has no chance when every time that any of these media/Tubers post always have to push or place Nvidia photos even when the article/video is not directly about them.

I thought the same thing when I saw that picture. Kind of brain-washing by marketing.

 

[brucek]

After that, you need a Direct Storage compatible game.

That's kind of my point. Which game are we talking about that demonstrates this 40% bump?

 

[hahahanoobs]

So is Deflate still being used then? Or is it another algorithm?

DirectStorage 1.1 Coming Soon - DirectX Developer Blog

When we shared our first public release of DirectStorage on Windows to reduce CPU overhead and increase IO throughput, we also shared that GPU decompression was next on our roadmap. We are now in the final stretch of development and plan to release DirectStorage 1.1 with GPU Decompression to...

devblogs.microsoft.com

NVCOMP

High Speed Data Compression Using NVIDIA GPUs DOWNLOAD DOCUMENTATION EXAMPLES SUPPORT FEEDBACK The nvCOMP library provides fast lossless data compression and decompression using a GPU. It features generic compression interfaces to enable developers to use high-performance GPU compressors in...

developer.nvidia.com

 

[neeyik]

If you have Win 11 and a NVMe drive it is already working. If you want to verify, just open game bar (WIN + G) and choose settings, then "Gaming Features".

After that, you need a Direct Storage compatible game.

The NVMEe drivers also need to support it too and certain SSD drive modes are incompatible. For example, here's my setup with Rapid Mode enabled:



My C: and E: drives are both NVMe but the Samsung Rapid Mode drivers aren't BypassIO compatible. Disable Rapid Mode and bingo:

 

[neeyik]

So I have to ask, why is the thumbnail and the main photo using a pair of Nvidia RTX gpus?

Is this tech exclusive to Nvidia GPUS only? Because many less experienced people will simply assume that.

This is why I said on another thread that AMD simply has no chance, when every time that any of these media/Tubers post something , always have to push or place Nvidia photos even when the article/video is not directly about them.

Reason given here.

 

[Darth Shiv]

How about getting 1.0 out the door before worrying about 1.1.

Um... it is out the door?

 

[neeyik]

Um... it is out the door?

Yes. There are obviously no games using it right now, but the DirectStorage 1.0 SDK has been available for 7 months now.

 

[HardReset]

Reason given here.

Reason why not given there https://www.techspot.com/community/...-could-launch-in-december.277446/post-1991146

 

[punctualturn]

In the end @neeyik the reasons provided by you simply dont justify the actions that I described and instead you are doubling down as to why my original post is wrong.

As @HardReset said, the author should’ve and could’ve used a Xbox photo, a DirectX logo, a Windows logo or heck, an Office logo for all I care, instead of a photo of a 3090 and a 4090.

I said it before, writers, reviewers, sites, channels, etc have to show an impartial view so the people that rely on your so called expertise and dare say, trust, should be unbiased and truthful.

The results otherwise are like the incredible mindshare currently occupied by nvidia is affecting buying decisions in an unfair way.

What is unfair, you ask? Well, there is no way in hell that a gpu like the 3090ti launched at US$2,000 msrp price and its simply “ok” for us consumers.

But with the constant push by the media that only nvidia makes gpus, then we are truly screwed.

 

[Rq3EWAq]

So I have to ask, why is the thumbnail and the main photo using a pair of Nvidia RTX gpus?

Is this tech exclusive to Nvidia GPUS only? Because many less experienced people will simply assume that.

This is why I said on another thread that AMD simply has no chance, when every time that any of these media/Tubers post something , always have to push or place Nvidia photos even when the article/video is not directly about them.

"The compression format used was GDeflate, a novel lossless standard optimized for high-throughput decompression with deflate-like compression ratios that was developed by Nvidia and Microsoft."

Nvidia card picture is justified in my opinion, Nvidia is working with Microsoft on this.

 

[HardReset]

"The compression format used was GDeflate, a novel lossless standard optimized for high-throughput decompression with deflate-like compression ratios that was developed by Nvidia and Microsoft."

Nvidia card picture is justified in my opinion, Nvidia is working with Microsoft on this.

Like already said, better options for logo are at least: Microsoft, DirectX, AMD, XBox series X, Nvidia, Windows, NVMe and PCI-SIG. Heck, GDDR6 and even AMD APU logos are much better.

You do realize GDeflate is Software based compression algorithm. So when talking about software that works on almost any GPU there is, it's "best option" to put picture of GTX4090 and GTX3090 cards ""

 

[punctualturn]

Nvidia card picture is justified in my opinion, Nvidia is working with Microsoft on this.

No, incorrect.

But in an absolute worse case that the author had a gun to his head or perhaps a wad of cash, either one works in cases like this, the only acceptable Nvidia anything that should be used is the company logo.

 

[Rq3EWAq]

No, incorrect.

But in an absolute worse case that the author had a gun to his head or perhaps a wad of cash, either one works in cases like this, the only acceptable Nvidia anything that should be used is the company logo.

Why not? Microsoft logo would be acceptable? Yes. But they don't produce Graphics Cards. But Nvidia does, and they did participate in this project, so in my opinion their picture of graphics card is justified.