How Windows 11 will improve your gaming experience

This week, Microsoft officially revealed Windows 11. There’s a lot to be excited about with Microsoft’s new vision of what Windows can be, but the part I’m most excited about is the dedication to gaming.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made it abundantly clear that Microsoft is “all in” on gaming. And Windows 11 is a direct representation of that mantra with features like DirectX 12 Ultimate, DirectStorage, and Auto HDR. Xbox Series X and Series S owners are probably familiar with the two latter terms as they debuted on Microsoft’s next-gen console.

Auto HDR uses computer intelligence to automatically add High Dynamic Range (HDR) enhancements to games. In layman’s terms, supported games will render a much wider range of brightness values and colors, “giving an extra sense of richness and depth to the image.”

According to Sarah Bond, Xbox corporate vice president for game creator experience and ecosystem, over 1,000 games will be automatically enhanced on Windows 11 devices that support HDR. This includes games like Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, Rocket League, DayZ and Doom 64.

Another feature Windows 11 will adopt from the Xbox is DirectStorage. As explained on Xbox Wire:

"With a high performance NVMe SSD and the proper drivers, Windows 11 can soon load new games faster than ever thanks to a breakthrough technology called DirectStorage…"

There’s a lot of technical jargon that breaks down exactly how DirectStorage works, but the takeaway here is that games will load incredibly fast. Robust worlds will render “at lightning speeds, without long load times.” There will be “DirectStorage Optimized” Windows 11 PCs that are already configured with the necessary hardware and drivers to enable this feature.