“ Microsoft is delighted to partner with NVIDIA to bring the benefits of next generation I/O to Windows gamers. DirectStorage for Windows will let games leverage NVIDIA’s cutting-edge RTX IO and provide game developers with a highly efficient and standard way to get the best possible performance from the GPU and I/O system. With DirectStorage, game sizes are minimized, load times reduced, and virtual worlds are free to become more expansive and detailed, with smooth & seamless streaming. ” - Bryan Langley - Group Program Manager for Windows Graphics and Gaming
How NVIDIA RTX IO Works
NVIDIA RTX IO plugs into Microsoft’s upcoming DirectStorage API, which is a next-generation storage architecture designed specifically for gaming PCs equipped with state-of-the-art NVMe SSDs, and the complex workloads that modern games require. Together, the streamlined and parallelized APIs, specifically tailored for games, allow dramatically reduced IO overhead and maximize performance/bandwidth from NVMe SSD to your RTX IO-enabled GPU.
Specifically, NVIDIA RTX IO brings GPU-based lossless decompression, allowing reads through DirectStorage to remain compressed while being delivered to the GPU for decompression. This removes the load from the CPU, moving the data from storage to the GPU in its more efficient, compressed form, and improving I/O performance by a factor of 2.
GeForce RTX GPUs are capable of decompression performance beyond the limits of even Gen4 SSDs, offloading dozens of CPU cores’ worth of work to deliver maximum overall system performance for next generation games.
Is this the part we’re suppose to brag about how XSX tech is being added in these high end Nvidia GPU’s like MS is helping them, RDNA3 claims about PS5 haha.
It’s cool this tech is being added to PC’s too, more features is always a good thing. Not only does this mean devs will be optimising this for XSX/XSS they will be also doing it for PC users too so it’ll probably be utilised so much more than if it was Xbox a exclusive feature.
It’s always weird seeing MS on both sides with Nvidia and AMD, I wonder if someday we could see a Nvidia console. Can’t tell me they could make a bigger XSX box and fit one of these nice GPU’s in there, might be a bit of a crazy ask but would be cool haha.
Maybe they could stick 2 XSX boxes to eachother and it might just work I seriously think MS should to a Surface branded gaming PC that would be pretty cool.
Lol remember MS is partner with both in a lot of various areas so it was pretty obvious to see such collaboration. 2 XSX would give you the mid gen refresh that I would call XSX Elite lol.
Anyway, it is gonna impact a lot of big open world projects coming later on next gen. Seamless transitions denser and richer worlds full of details, less pop in, higher fidelity etc it is exciting
The takeaway here is that Nvidia and probably amd will be using this API for decompression for their upcoming graphics cards. This will make PC/Xbox series X co-developement for games easier. Also interesting to note, at least on paper, the series x decompression architecture is superior to the PS5s.
I think this is going to be a huge thing for Series X because if a dev makes a game for PC and try to use the excuse that it’s too hard to port to Xbox, that comment would be a bit iffy tech/dev wise. If you’re building for PC you are indirectly building for Xbox so it should come to Xbox if there isn’t any politics/money hatting or costs are too much to get it on that platform fees and such.
Devs shouldn’t be able to use the excuse that it’s to hard to port to Xbox, or at least use it much less considering how similar they are.
I seriously think MS should to a Surface branded gaming PC that would be pretty cool.