NVME demand could shoot up as Microsoft DirectStorage in Forspoken is seen working its magic

Update: More tests have been run this time demonstrating the much-improved frame pacing that leads to smoother gameplay with fewer hitches and stutters.

Microsoft's DirectStorage API was one of the main reasons why Square Enix's Forspoken on PC was such a highly anticipated game. The new storage API was built on Xbox Velocity architecture and was set to revolutionize gaming. Early demos had shown extremely promising results and third-party testing on compatible hardware was equally impressive. The official system requirements for the title on PC were shared this past week and it confirmed that Windows 11 was necessary for DirectStorage support.

Earlier today, Sunil Godhania, Senior Social Media Manager at Square Enix, published some expected performance numbers when DirectStorage is used. Godhania says NVMe drives should reduce load times to around a couple of seconds. SATA SSDs on the other hand will be able to do the same job in around 10 seconds. He writes:

This title uses Direct Storage[sic] technology. By running a NVMe SSD drive, loading time may finish within 1~2 seconds. With SATA SSD it may take about 10 seconds.
*loading time may vary depending on other hardware configurations and the storage devices in use.

Twitter user @JJDizz1L noted the load times where the game loaded back into the level almost in the blink of an eye when the "Continue" option was clicked. You can view the video below:

Another Twitter user Bloo posted screenshots of the various loading times across the various scenes of the benchmark, and all of these were under two seconds:

However, not every scene may yield great results. Wccftech notes that their loading times were far longer, with a few scenes taking over six seconds, even on a WD_BLACK SN850 Gen4 NVMe SSD. However, we have to keep in mind that it's a fairly new release which means the future overall looks really bright for DirectStorage and gaming on NVMe SSDs.