One of the staple features of the PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles is the full integration of PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs. Not only do these systems use SSDs to house data, the OS design takes full advantage of the SSD bandwidth, thus enabling rapid loading times; near instantaneous, in some games.
Although the PC market is no stranger to the world of SSDs, squeezing out such breakneck performance the way next-gen consoles do has not really happened yet. That is, until now with the arrival of DirectStorage. Microsoft has officially released its API for the new technology, and it will allow developers to implement it, thus giving PC players enhanced loading times.
Data speedway
How DirectStorage works is that it allows SSDs, specifically NVMe drives, to transfer several gigabytes of data per second. Due to the way that gaming workloads have changed over the years, the existing data transfer processes were not designed for how the workload flows now.
Think of it like a literal highway in…
