Microsoft’s DirectStorage is a technology that uses solid-state drives (SSD) to improve the performance of Windows games, but currently only one PC game “Forspoken” supports this technology. However, according to the PC Gamer website, Blizzard’s popular action role-playing game “Diablo 4” also plans to add support for DirectStorage in the future.
The site quotes an anonymous member of the Diablo 4 development team as saying: “MS DirectStorage is not currently enabled, but we plan to enable it in the future.” A Windows feature that borrows technology from Microsoft’s Xbox game console that uses SSD storage. This technology allows Windows game developers to take advantage of SSDs on PCs, resulting in faster load times, higher frame rates, and better performance.
Currently, the only PC game to support DirectStorage is Square Enix’s Forspoken, which launches in January 2023 on a Windows 11-only PC at a lower 1080p resolution using a DirectStorage-capable PC When running the game, the frame rate is much higher than on a PC that does not support this technology.
Recently, Microsoft released the DirectStorage 1.2 version, adding new features such as buffered input and output modes, which means that games that support DirectStorage can use traditional mechanical hard drives (HDDs) and SSDs to improve game performance. Hopefully, when Diablo 4 adds support for DirectStorage in a future update, it will be able to take advantage of the new 1.2 feature to benefit a wider variety of PCs, and hopefully, more games will support this feature.
Besides Diablo 4, the only other game that says it will support DirectStorage in a future update is Crytek’s Hunt: Showdown, as that game will be upgraded to the CryEngine 5.11 engine, which will also add support for DirectX 12 Support for other features.
It is worth mentioning that in March this year, netizens dug into the beta version of Diablo 4 and found files related to Microsoft DirectStorage, suggesting that the game will support DirectStorage.
