3DMark introduces a new DirectStorage SSD benchmark for modern SSDs and games

Microsoft's DirectStorage technology is designed to help games load faster, reducing the time it takes to get into the action to a handful of seconds. It works by cutting out the middleman, so to speak, by allowing game file access and decompression to be handled directly by the GPU. It's a technology designed for NVMe SSD storage with at least PCIe Gen4 speeds.

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It's been talked about for a few years as a game-changer; however, only a handful of titles support the technology compared to other gaming technologies like DLSS. This week, UL Solutions announced that it has updated its popular 3DMark benchmark suite with a new 3DMark DirectStorage feature test as part of its Storage Benchmark DLC.

The 3DMark DirectStorage benchmark captures the speed of decompression and gives a detailed breakdown of the difference DirectStorage makes and how well it runs on your current hardware configuration.

The 3DMark benchmark test limits the GPU to performing DirectStorage tasks to showcase the technology's "potential performance benefits." Measuring DirectStorage in a real-world gaming scenario can be very difficult, and "many factors" can limit its overall benefit.

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DirectStorage is a Microsoft technology for Windows PCs with PCIe SSDs that reduces the overhead when loading game data. DirectStorage can be used to reduce game loading times when paired with other technologies such as GDeflate, where the GPU can be used to decompress certain game assets instead of the CPU. On systems running Windows 11, DirectStorage can bring further benefits with BypassIO, lowering a game's CPU overhead by reducing the CPU workload when transferring data.

It can be difficult to accurately measure the performance benefits of DirectStorage in a typical game scene, as the engine is performing many other tasks in addition to loading game assets, such as rendering geometry. As no game is the same it can be very difficult to measure the benefits DirectStorage has, as there are often many other factors in a game that limit its benefits.

This test simulates a near-best-case scenario for a DirectStorage implementation, where asset loading is not impacted by other variables such as the game's asset management system or other tasks being performed by the GPU. This means you can see a demonstration of the near-maximum potential performance benefits enabling DirectStorage could have for a system.

DirectStorage is a feature we don't hear about very often when it comes to game integration, including NVIDIA's version of the tech, RTX IO. Outside of Square Enix's Forspoken and Sony's Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, there aren't many DirectStorage or RTX IO games.