Microsoft’s DirectStorage API was one of the main reasons for Square Enix. Spoken One such highly anticipated game was on PC. The new storage API was built on the Xbox Velocity architecture and is designed to revolutionize gaming. Early demos showed very promising results and third-party testing on compatible hardware was equally impressive. The official system requirements for the title on PC were shared this past week and confirmed that Windows 11 was necessary for DirectStorage support.
Earlier today, Square Enix’s Senior Social Media Manager, Sunil Godhania, published some expected performance numbers when DirectStorage is used. Goodhania says NVMe drives should reduce load times to about a few seconds. SATA SSDs on the other hand will be able to do the same thing in about 10 seconds. They writes:
This title uses direct storage.[sic] By running the technology NVMe SSD drive, the loading time can be completed in 1~2 seconds. With a SATA SSD this can take about 10 seconds.
*Loading time may vary depending on other hardware configurations and storage devices used.
Twitter user @JJDizz1L noted load times where the game surfaced in the blink of an eye when clicking the “Continue” option. You can watch the video below:
Another Twitter user, Blu, posted screenshots of various loading times in various benchmark scenes, all of which were under two seconds.
However, not every scene can produce brilliant results. Wccftech notes that their loading times were very long, with some scenes taking more than six seconds, even on the WD_BLACK SN850 Gen4 NVMe SSD. However, we have to keep in mind that this is a brand new release which means that the future looks very bright for DirectStorage and gaming overall on NVMe SSDs.
