Microsoft Debuts DirectStorage 1.4 With Zstandard Support
The result should be better compression, faster load times, and smoother asset streaming in large-scale games.
During GDC, Microsoft unveiled a public preview of DirectStorage 1.4 with support for Zstandard and introduced a new toolkit called the Game Asset Conditioning Library. If you've never heard of it, Zstandard, or Zstd for short, is Meta's high-performance data compression algorithm used in various systems, including Linux, and praised for its strong compression ratios and fast decompression speeds.
Now, Zstd compression is available as an option for game assets on Windows. Microsoft describes it as an "open standard that improves compression ratios, enables faster load times, and provides smoother asset streaming for content-rich games." Zstd isn't intended to replace existing methods: it has now been integrated into the multi-tier decompression framework, supporting both CPU and GPU decompression, giving developers a new option for building DirectStorage pipelines.
Some recent games using this technology include Resident Evil Requiem, Battlefield 6, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Spider-Man 2. Although still in active development, Microsoft has also made its Zstd GPU decompression compute shader open-source.
As for GACL, it's designed to fit into existing content pipelines, reportedly offering up to a 50% improvement in Zstd compression ratios for game assets while keeping runtime decompression costs low when used with DirectStorage. The two are designed to work together: after a Zstd stream is decompressed at runtime, any shuffle transforms applied during content conditioning are seamlessly reversed by DirectStorage.
Learn more about the changes in DirectStorage 1.4 here and subscribe to our Newsletter, join our 80 Level Talent platform, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Instagram, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.
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