{"id":4797,"date":"2021-07-16T15:00:17","date_gmt":"2021-07-16T22:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/?p=4797"},"modified":"2021-07-16T15:00:17","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T22:00:17","slug":"directstorage-developer-preview-now-available","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/directstorage-developer-preview-now-available\/","title":{"rendered":"DirectStorage Developer Preview now available!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Late last year,\u00a0we announced\u00a0that we would be\u00a0bringing<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/directstorage-is-coming-to-pc\/\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"none\">DirectStorage to Windows PCs<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">,\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"none\">and in June,\u00a0we\u00a0told the world how\u00a0DirectStorage\u00a0would improve the\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/news.xbox.com\/en-us\/2021\/06\/24\/windows-11-the-best-windows-ever-for-gaming\/\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">gaming experience on Windows 11<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">. Since then, the DirectX team has been hard at work bringing this state-of-the-art tech from Xbox\u2019s Velocity Architecture over to Windows, empowering game developers on both platforms to create new immersive gaming experiences with vastly reduced load times.\u202f<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335551550&quot;:6,&quot;335551620&quot;:6,&quot;335559738&quot;:240,&quot;335559739&quot;:240,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">If you\u00a0are\u00a0a developer that watched\u00a0our\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zolAIEH0n1c\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">GSL talk<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u00a0and signed up to be part of our NDA developer preview program, you\u2019ll be happy to know that we have started rolling out our first preview kit to you. For those of you that already have an NDA with us and are interested in this early preview,\u00a0you can reach out to\u00a0us at\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"mailto:askwindstorage@microsoft.com\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">askwindstorage@microsoft.com<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u00a0with your company information and the\u00a0project\u00a0you\u2019d like to integrate\u00a0DirectStorage\u00a0into. If you don\u2019t have an NDA, stay tuned as we\u2019ll be gradually rolling out to an increasing number of developers.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"TextRun SCXW260019126 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"none\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun CommentStart SpellingErrorV2 CommentHighlightPipeClicked CommentHighlightClicked SCXW260019126 BCX0\" data-ccp-parastyle=\"Normal (Web)\">DirectStorage<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun CommentHighlightClicked SCXW260019126 BCX0\" data-ccp-parastyle=\"Normal (Web)\">\u00a0Compatibility\u202f<\/span><\/span><span class=\"EOP CommentHighlightClicked SCXW260019126 BCX0\" data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559738&quot;:240,&quot;335559739&quot;:240,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Microsoft is committed to ensuring that when game developers adopt a new API, they can reach as many gamers as possible. As such, games built against the\u00a0DirectStorage\u00a0SDK will\u00a0be compatible with\u00a0Windows 10, version 1909\u00a0and up; the same as the\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/gettingstarted-dx12agility\/\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">DirectX 12 Agility SDK<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335551550&quot;:6,&quot;335551620&quot;:6,&quot;335559738&quot;:240,&quot;335559739&quot;:240,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">DirectStorage\u00a0features can\u00a0be broken down into:<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335551550&quot;:6,&quot;335551620&quot;:6,&quot;335559738&quot;:240,&quot;335559739&quot;:240,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"1\" aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-aria-posinset=\"1\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">The new\u00a0DirectStorage\u00a0API programming model that provides a DX12-style batched submission\/completion calling pattern,\u00a0relieving apps from the need to individually manage thousands of IO requests\/completion notifications per\u00a0second<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559738&quot;:240,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"1\" aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-aria-posinset=\"2\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">GPU decompression\u00a0providing\u00a0super-fast asset decompression\u00a0for load time and streaming scenarios\u00a0(coming in a later preview)\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"1\" aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-aria-posinset=\"3\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Storage stack optimizations:\u00a0On Windows 11, this consists of\u00a0an upgraded\u00a0OS storage stack\u00a0that unlocks\u00a0the full potential of\u00a0DirectStorage,\u00a0and on\u00a0Windows 10,\u00a0games will still benefit from\u00a0the\u00a0more efficient use of the legacy OS storage\u00a0stack\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:240,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">This means that any game built on\u00a0DirectStorage\u00a0will benefit from the new programming model and GPU decompression technology on Windows 10, version\u00a01909 and up. Additionally, because Windows 11 was built with\u00a0DirectStorage\u00a0in mind, games running on Windows 11 benefit further from new storage stack optimizations. The API runtime implementation and the GPU decompression technology is delivered via the\u00a0DirectStorage\u00a0SDK, and ships with your game.\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"none\">As a game developer, you need only implement\u00a0DirectStorage\u00a0once into your engine, and all the applicable benefits will be automatically applied and scaled appropriately for gamers.<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">In fact, this\u00a0great compatibility extends\u00a0to\u00a0a variety of different hardware\u00a0configurations as well.\u00a0DirectStorage\u00a0enabled games will still run as well as they always have even on PCs that have older\u00a0storage\u00a0hardware (e.g.\u00a0HDDs).\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335551550&quot;:6,&quot;335551620&quot;:6,&quot;335559738&quot;:240,&quot;335559739&quot;:240,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">We\u2019re super excited to see what the future holds and are committed to working with studios to bring\u00a0DirectStorage\u00a0enabled\u00a0gaming experiences\u00a0to gamers everywhere!<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335551550&quot;:6,&quot;335551620&quot;:6,&quot;335559738&quot;:240,&quot;335559739&quot;:240,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Late last year,\u00a0we announced\u00a0that we would be\u00a0bringing\u00a0DirectStorage to Windows PCs,\u00a0and in June,\u00a0we\u00a0told the world how\u00a0DirectStorage\u00a0would improve the\u00a0gaming experience on Windows 11. Since then, the DirectX team has been hard at work bringing this state-of-the-art tech from Xbox\u2019s Velocity Architecture over to Windows, empowering game developers on both platforms to create new immersive gaming experiences with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66138,"featured_media":12651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-directx"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"<p>Late last year,\u00a0we announced\u00a0that we would be\u00a0bringing\u00a0DirectStorage to Windows PCs,\u00a0and in June,\u00a0we\u00a0told the world how\u00a0DirectStorage\u00a0would improve the\u00a0gaming experience on Windows 11. Since then, the DirectX team has been hard at work bringing this state-of-the-art tech from Xbox\u2019s Velocity Architecture over to Windows, empowering game developers on both platforms to create new immersive gaming experiences with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}