We’ve heard a lot about the PlayStation 5’s magical SSD architecture, which is supposed to usher in an era of lightning-quick loading times and streaming speeds that are unheard of, even in the PC world. Not surprisingly, that exclusive is over.
NVIDIA announced a new I/O architecture called RTX IO today, which leverages Microsoft’s DirectStorage API and promises a huge leap in performance by decompressing and loading assets directly off of the GPU. That means no more potential CPU bottlenecks, as well as a major decrease in processor utilization (20x).
NVIDIA also claims that RTX IO allows for performance 100 times faster than standard hard drives and older APIs. “Object pop-in and stutter can be reduced, and high-quality textures can be streamed at incredible rates, so even if you’re speeding through a world, everything runs and looks great,” the company explained. “In addition, with lossless compression, game download and install sizes can be reduced, allowing gamers to store more games on their SSD while also improving their performance.”
“Microsoft is delighted to partner with NVIDIA to bring the benefits of next generation I/O to Windows gamers,” wrote Bryan Langley, Group Program Manager for Windows Graphics and Gaming. “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.”
It’s unclear whether this feature is exclusive to NVIDIA’s new GeForce RTX 30 Series, or if it will be available for Turing-based GPUs as well.