NVIDIA BETA Driver Delivers Big SSD Performance Boost In DirectStorage 1.2, Gen5 Up To 50% Faster Than Gen4
Microsoft's DirectStorage 1.2 API has seen a big boost in SSD performance, both Gen5 & Gen4, with NVIDIA's latest BETA drivers.
NVIDIA Drivers Bring Big SSD Performance Gains With DirectStorage 1.2 Optimizations, Gen5 & Gen4 SSDs Tested
Using the DirectStorage GPU Decompression benchmark, Compusemble has published another video that highlights the advantages of using a Gen5 SSD over a Gen4 one and how its actual performance is realized thanks to the last version of the API running on optimized NVIDIA GPU drivers.
The NVIDIA driver in question is the 535.50 BETA which includes some major optimizations for the Microsoft DirectStorage 1.2 API and these optimizations allow for a big boost to SSD performance. The same optimizations will be carried over to a public driver so that everyone can enjoy the SSD performance improvements.
Microsoft DirectStorage 1.2 Performance With Gen5 & Gen4 SSD (NVIDIA 532.03 Drivers):
Microsoft DirectStorage 1.2 Performance With Gen5 & Gen4 SSD (NVIDIA 535.50 Drivers):
To demonstrate the performance uplift achieved by the new drivers, first, we had a standard test running the older NVIDIA 532.03 Drivers. The drives used were the Crucial T700 Gen5 which is the fastest available consumer SSD yet and the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G, a high-end Gen4 drive that is also specifically optimized for DirectStorage API. The 1.2 API already gives a big boost by moving the copy after GPU decompression to the compute queue. This shows a clear difference between the Gen5 and Gen4 SSDs with the Gen4 maxing out at 22.26 GB/s bandwidth while the Gen5 SSD maxes out at 28.09 GB/s bandwidth.
Gen5 vs Gen4 SSD GPU Compression Benchmark (Bandwidth)
However, with the new NVIDIA GeForce 535.50 drivers, the Gen5 SSD pushes up to 33.12 GB/s of total bandwidth while the Gen4 SSD caps out around the same 22.80 GB/s of bandwidth that it was previously offering. Not only is the bandwidth higher but the loading time for the Gen5 SSD also gets a significant cut-down.
Gen5 vs Gen4 SSD GPU Compression Benchmark (Load Time)
Without the new drivers, the scene took 0.24 seconds to load & with the new drivers, it only took 0.20 seconds. This shows that there could be a lot of performance that remains to be unlocked on the new Gen5 SSDs with updated and optimized drivers and new API versions of DirectStorage.
The Microsoft DirectStorage 1.2 API was made available in April this year and it will take some years before we get to see implemented in a major application such as games. There's only one game so far that supports DirectStorage API and that's the not so well received, Forspoken. The game did give us a taste of the fast console-like loading times that we can expect in future PC ports and AAA titles but so far there hasn't been a lot of traction around the technology. Hopefully, NVIDIA & AMD can work with developers to implement this technology in future collobrated titles.
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