AMD SmartAccess Storage marries Microsoft DirectStorage with Smart Access Memory

Today at Computex 2022, AMD introduced its new Ryzen 7000 series processors, based on the Zen 4 architecture, alongside the accompanying Socket AM5 (LGA1718) platform and new chipsets. Alongside these two major announcements, AMD also debuted its new SmartAccess Storage technology, a new feature which the company has added to its Smart suite of technologies that include Smart Access Memory (SAM) and AMD SmartShift.

From the name itself it is quite obvious that the feature is related to some sort of storage boosting. Earlier, when it leaked for the first time, we speculated that it may be based on Microsoft's DirectStorage API. AMD today has confirmed our speculation and has also added that alongside DirectStorage, the company is also utilizing its own Smart Access Memory tech to offer GPU asset decompression that will immensely improve game load times and texture streaming efficiency.

Here's how AMD describes its new SmartAccess Storage technology:

AMD SmartAccess Storage

SmartAccess Storage gets you out of the load screen and into your gameplay

Traditional game loading takes a significant amount of compute power to decompress the game’s data, requiring the CPU to do the decompression and data transfer, which introduces latency and takes up considerable system resources

To help bypass these bottlenecks, AMD has created SmartAccess Storage, a suite of technologies supporting Microsoft DirectStorage that utilizes Smart Access Memory™8 with new AMD platform technologies along with Radeon GPU asset decompression to improve both game load times and texture streaming

You can find all of our AMD Computex 2022 product presentation coverage at this link.

AMD SmartAccess Storage marries Microsoft DirectStorage with Smart Access Memory