Thank you @SmotheryVase665 for the feedback. Clearly no evidence of a new DS.
Thank you @TenPatrol for the api link. Clearly no 2.0 in the pipeline.
I also checked the DirectX Discord, in the directstorage channel one developer was using version 1.2.3 on Oct 2nd 2024. [I also noticed a range of opinions on the benifits of DS]
So I think we have all proved beyond any doubt that “DirectStorage 2.0” is a complete myth and this topic is misleading.
It’s not streamed like on Netflix, it’s more like download on demand. Whenever you fly over a scenery or you choose a new airplane, you will download them. That said, you will need to load and render stuff locally.
Windows can use the spare 32GB to cache a file’s contents. So MSFS reads a file, but it comes from fast RAM/CPU cache rather than always a slower SSD.
It can happen automatically.
Asobo may have a custom scheme for fast cache access. We will soon find out.
With access to more data than we can possibly store, a cache editor to delete by time or location seems useful.
And of course we know Windows can allocate RAM to the GPU.
I would agree with @PilotJedi668 on this issue … a RAM disc will most likely have little to no practical benefit in FS2024. IMHO the key counter arguments would be:
The RC is best in FS2024 if it is really large (100? 200? GB) … not “fast”
… as it will always be orders of magnitude faster then network data transfers.
A RAM disk will permanently grab lots of memory
… putting more memory pressure on other software … e.g. the sim itself
… and it will reduce the RAM that the OS can use to cache disk blocks in memory.
In order to not drift even further “off topic” I will just leave a reference to a different thread, where I started to collect insights into the RollingCache. A lot about its behaviour seems still very “unclear” to me.
Getting back to the Direct Storage topic … given that Sebastian mentioned during that last dev stream that people should watch out for DX12 doing “VRAM to RAM” swapping (which is already a kind of PCI-to-DDR “Direct Storage” technique) makes me think that there are other (low hanging fruits?) to tune a sim config for a smoother flight.
I think my main “complaint” would be that most pilots will have a hard time to fully understand the tuning options. The new “Dynamic Settings → Frame rate target” seems like a very good idea to me. But there is basically no documentation about which parameters it is adjusting … not “debug options” for us users … I am not even sure if or how we can get (turn on?) some warnings or logs.
I am pretty sure that those features might exist for the developers.
Back to topic … I still feel like “Direct Storage” being a solution for a problem which we in the FS2024 universe do not have.
