Diablo IV may also support the DirectStorage API
Developed by Square Enix, “Forspoken” is the inaugural PC game to employ Microsoft’s DirectStorage technology, released on January 24th this year, and remains the sole PC game supporting this technology thus far. Due to its built-in DirectStorage benchmark testing, it occasionally appears in relevant tests.
According to data records on Reddit, the inclusion of two files named dstorage.dll and dstoragecore.dll suggests that Blizzard Entertainment’s highly anticipated masterpiece, “Diablo IV,” may also support the DirectStorage API, though an official announcement has yet to be made. This implies that “Diablo IV” could potentially become the second PC game to support DirectStorage technology, with the development team possibly still striving to incorporate it into the final version.
Regrettably, existing information indicates that “Diablo IV” will only support DirectStorage 1.0, like “Forspoken,” rather than the latest DirectStorage 1.1, precluding the utilization of GPU for decompression.
In March 2021, Microsoft officially introduced the DirectStorage API to PCs, enabling NVMe SSDs on PCs to bypass the CPU and memory, directly transferring data to video memory. This significantly reduces game loading times and resolves some texture loading issues. Theoretically, games adopting this technology can achieve seamless scene integration. Last year, Microsoft introduced DirectStorage 1.1, which incorporated the “asset decompression” functionality already present in the console version, allowing the GPU to replace the CPU in the decompression process of game texture-related resources, further reducing loading times.
The public beta for “Diablo IV” has concluded, with the game set to officially launch on June 6th this year, available on Windows PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4/5 platforms. Blizzard Entertainment previously announced that the final version of “Diablo IV” will support NVIDIA DLSS 3, with ray tracing to be added subsequently.
