Microsoft has announced the public release of DirectStorage 1.4. This new version adds tools designed to solve data transfer bottlenecks and improve the performance of NVMe SSDs in games.
One of the most important changes in this update is native support for Zstandard (Zstd), a high-performance compression algorithm originally developed by Meta. Compared to older compression methods, Zstd offers a good balance between compression ratio and very fast decompression speeds.
Because of this, game files can become smaller, which saves disk space, while still allowing hardware to read them very quickly.
DirectStorage 1.4 Adds Support for Zstandard Compression
The addition of Zstandard support allows game developers to compress game assets more efficiently without slowing down loading speeds.
This means large game files can take up less storage space while still being streamed quickly from the SSD. As a result, games can load textures and other assets faster while maintaining smooth performance.
This technology helps remove one of the biggest problems players experience in large open-world games, where objects sometimes appear suddenly on screen because the data was not loaded fast enough.
Along with the new DirectStorage API, Microsoft has also introduced the Game Asset Conditioning Library (GACL). This library allows developers to prepare game assets before compressing them.
According to Microsoft’s shared data, using GACL can improve Zstd compression ratios by up to 50%. This means large games could take up much less storage space while still sending textures and models to the GPU almost instantly.
DirectStorage 1.4 is also flexible because it allows decompression to happen on either the CPU or the GPU. In addition, Microsoft is working with companies like NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel so future drivers can include specific optimizations for Zstandard.
Overall, this update helps prepare the ground for a new generation of games where loading times become much shorter, offering a smoother gaming experience on Windows systems.
