GPUDirect Storage - when can we expect it on consumer GPUs?

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce Drivers Section' started by NEP6XSBW, Aug 9, 2020.

  1. NEP6XSBW

    NEP6XSBW Member Guru

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    https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/gpudirect-storage/

    Direct access to NVMe SSDs by GPUs. This will have a tremendous impact on data science as well as gaming. With the new consoles supporting similar technology, you would expect games to start taking advantage of it in the future. There's no doubt that it will be coming to consumer cards, the only question is when. Official release is supposed to come in the 4th quarter, but it looks like it will only be available on the Tesla and Quadro.

    Has anyone tried it? Apparently you can sign up in order to test it and to get notified when it releases officially.

    Here's more: https://on-demand.gputechconf.com/s...-to-gpu-memory-alleviating-io-bottlenecks.pdf
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2020
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  2. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    I see no use for home consumers except for loading assets in games. I am in doubt that will come to consumer cards any time soon. Plus all old, current and incoming games can`t use it anyway.
     
  3. SaiBork

    SaiBork Master Guru

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    This is meant for 100's of TBs of data, so not really consumer in mind there.
     
  4. GiveMe

    GiveMe Active Member

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    Consumer GPUs already have access to RAM, thats way faster than a nvme ever will.

    gpudirect nvme is just another Storage possibility for Big Data but it will not improve any gaming performance
     

  5. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    Never.

    This has no use in Consumer graphics at all.
     
  6. NEP6XSBW

    NEP6XSBW Member Guru

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    Microsoft and Sony would beg to differ.
     
  7. NEP6XSBW

    NEP6XSBW Member Guru

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    Of course RAM is faster. Let me know when 1tb RAM becomes the norm, though.
     
  8. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    DirectStorage is not nVidia GPUDirect Storage

    "DirectStorage – DirectStorage is an all new I/O system designed specifically for gaming to unleash the full performance of the SSD and hardware decompression. It is one of the components that comprise the Xbox Velocity Architecture. Modern games perform asset streaming in the background to continuously load the next parts of the world while you play, and DirectStorage can reduce the CPU overhead for these I/O operations from multiple cores to taking just a small fraction of a single core; thereby freeing considerable CPU power for the game to spend on areas like better physics or more NPCs in a scene. This newest member of the DirectX family is being introduced with Xbox Series X and we plan to bring it to Windows as well."

    which is a tagged data system to enable nvme's to pre-emptively stream data into memory BEFORE its required to eradicate sync-lock when travelling between world cells.

    GPUDirect only has relevance on DGX and similar servers.
     
  9. NEP6XSBW

    NEP6XSBW Member Guru

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    They're attempting to solve the same problem, except Microsoft's DirectStorage doesn't completely eliminate the CPU from the equation, while GPUDirect Storage does. GPUDirect Storage isn't exclusive to DGX. It works with any CUDA card and NVMe. It's just not enabled on consumer cards yet.
     
  10. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    Lets assume it has happened. What software installed on consumer computer can utilise that feature (without re-programming)?

    PS I mean will (old) games get boost?

    PPS And another question: when absolutely all consumer rigs will be equipped with NVMe storage?
     
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  11. NEP6XSBW

    NEP6XSBW Member Guru

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    Old games wouldn't get a boost, but rest assured, next gen games most certainly would, given that the new consoles will use similar technology. I don't see why anyone could possibly be opposed to introducing modern technology, especially since current hardware could easily support it.

    Not all consumer rigs need to have NVMe devices. Many people only stream video and do light work on their PCs. For anyone who games or does serious work, like data science or video editing, I'm sure most will be adding NVMe SSDs to their rigs in the near future.
     
  12. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    For many reasons. I am just sceptical that either this thing will come soon, and this thing is easy to implement.

    Developers of games for PC have to support many HW-SW combinations to look good in eyes of as many consumers as possible. Such developers have to be more slow to include top/newest technologies.
    Developers who target mostly enthusiast gamers can of course utilise it.

    What I don`t get is your enthusiasm. Even now gamers with NVMe have no troubles related to loading game assets from storage to videocard. I have no troubles with plain old SATA SSD.

    Also you should consider a human factor - even new shiny technologies can be used lousy/inefficiently.
    Give developers new hardware for their old software and they will update their software to work slow on that new hardware.
     
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  13. sirDaniel

    sirDaniel Guest

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    Such technology would minimalize pop-in textures like in old Rage game due to minimal lag or delay in data transfers. Also lowest CPU utilization, less system RAM usage. If am not mistaken, this tech is "load texture on-the-go"? Is it possible with today SSD or nvme storage speeds?


    AMD had a idea with their proffesional cards + SSD on board https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/7/26/12285568/amd-radeon-pro-ssg-graphics-card-ssd

    I still dream about a device that has all memory unified for cpu/gpu like tasks. Software would choose what kind of compute units it would use to processing (shaders, floats, integers). Complete gpu-cpu unification with only one fast memory. :)
     
  14. NEP6XSBW

    NEP6XSBW Member Guru

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    Looks like the answer is "September 17."

    So much for the all of the people saying this sort of tech was unnecessary.
     
  15. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    So much for the people who believe every word from the product manufacturer.
     

  16. xacid0

    xacid0 Guest

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    I like it when people go all smart and quickly say never or no use for consumer at all. xD
     
  17. Caesar

    Caesar Ancient Guru

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    https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/nvidia-announces-rtx-io-gpu-to-directly-access-ssd.434012/
     
  18. Cyberdyne

    Cyberdyne Guest

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    Seems like a strange thing to lie about.

    I've heard it plenty of times, "x company will never do x". Last time was "Nvidia will never support adaptive sync/Freesync monitors"

    I understand skepticism, but c'mon.
     
  19. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    except it did.
     
  20. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    Skepticism is aimed not to technology itself, but to marketing stuff, to promises. Manufacturer can claim 1000% of improvements, but in reality...

    Plus, only owners of NVMe and newest videocards will gain something from GPUDirect storage and only in software supporting that tech.
    Plus, I can imagine the situation where game devs will write code primarily for GPUDirect tech leaving secondary storage code paths heavily unoptimized - so people without NVMe (and newest videocards) can loose.
     

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