DirectStorage Shows Just Minor Load-Speed Improvements In Real-World PC Demo

Andrew Cunningham writes via Ars Technica: Microsoft’s DirectStorage API promises to speed up game-load times, both on the Xbox Series X/S and on Windows PCs (where Microsoft recently exited its developer-preview phase). One of the first games to demonstrate the benefits of DirectStorage on the PC is Square Enix’s Forspoken, which was shown off by Luminous Productions technical director Teppei Ono at GDC this week. As reported by The Verge, Ono said that, with a fast NVMe SSD and DirectStorage support, some scenes in Forspoken could load in as little as one second. That is certainly a monstrous jump from the days of waiting for a PlayStation 2 to load giant open-world maps from a DVD.

As a demonstration of DirectStorage, though, Forspoken’s numbers are a mixed bag. On one hand, the examples Ono showcased clearly demonstrate DirectStorage loading scenes more quickly on the same hardware, compared to the legacy Win32 API — from 2.6 seconds to 2.2 seconds in one scene, and from 2.4 seconds to 1.9 seconds in another. Forspoken demonstrated performance improvements on older SATA-based SSDs as well, despite being marketed as a feature that will primarily benefit NVMe drives — dropping from 5.0 to 4.6 seconds in one scene, and from 4.1 to 3.4 seconds in another. Speed improvements for SATA SSDs have been limited for the better part of a decade now because the SATA interface itself (rather than the SSD controller or NAND flash chips) has been holding them back. So eking out any kind of measurable improvement for those drives is noteworthy.

On the other hand, Ono’s demo showed that game load time wasn’t improving as dramatically as the raw I/O speeds would suggest. On an NVMe SSD, I/O speeds increased from 2,862MB/s using Win32 to 4,829MB/s using DirectStorage — nearly a 70 percent increase. But the load time for the scene decreased from 2.1 to 1.9 seconds. That’s a decrease that wouldn’t be noticeable even if you were trying to notice it. The Forspoken demo ultimately showed that the speed of the storage you’re using still has a lot more to do with how quickly your games load than DirectStorage does. One scene that took 24.6 seconds to load using DirectStorage on an HDD took just 4.6 seconds to load on a SATA SSD and 2.2 seconds to load on an NVMe SSD. That’s a much larger gap than the one between Win32 and DirectStorage running on the same hardware.

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Bipartisan Proposed Legislation To Curtail Secretive Email Seizure

“A bipartisan proposal in both the House and Senate would sharply limit the ability to seize emails without notice to the owner,” writes longtime Slashdot reader hawk. “It places a six-month limit on the length of gag orders in warrants.” The Hill reports: The Government Surveillance Transparency Act, sponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers from both chambers, puts limitations on gag orders that seek to block tech companies from altering users whose data has been seized. It targets a practice brought into the spotlight after journalists from CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post all had their records seized by the Department of Justice (DOJ). The bill requires law enforcement agencies to notify surveillance subjects that their email, location and web browsing data has been seized, aligning with current practices for phone records and bank data.

“When the government obtains someone’s emails or other digital information, users have a right to know,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a release. “Our bill ensures that no investigation will be compromised, but makes sure the government can’t hide surveillance forever by misusing sealing and gag orders to prevent the American people from understanding the enormous scale of government surveillance, as well as ensuring that the targets eventually learn their personal information has been searched.”

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NASA Wants Another Moon Lander For Artemis Astronauts, Not Just SpaceX’s Starship

NASA plans to encourage the development of another commercial vehicle that can land its Artemis astronauts on the moon. Space.com reports: In April 2021, NASA picked SpaceX to build the first crewed lunar lander for the agency’s Artemis program, which is working to put astronauts on the moon in the mid-2020s and establish a sustainable human presence on and around Earth’s nearest neighbor by the end of the decade. But SpaceX apparently won’t have the moon-landing market cornered: NASA announced today (March 23) that it plans to support the development of a second privately built crewed lunar lander.

“This strategy expedites progress toward a long-term, sustaining lander capability as early as the 2026 or 2027 timeframe,” Lisa Watson-Morgan, program manager for the Human Landing System Program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, said in a statement today. “We expect to have two companies safely carry astronauts in their landers to the surface of the moon under NASA’s guidance before we ask for services, which could result in multiple experienced providers in the market,” Watson-Morgan added. […] Congress is “committed to ensuring that we have more than one lander to choose [from] for future missions,” [NASA Administrator Bill Nelson] said during a news conference today, citing conversations he’s had with people on Capitol Hill over the past year. “We’re expecting to have both Congress support and that of the Biden administration,” Nelson said. “And we’re expecting to get this competition started in the fiscal year [20]23 budget.”

Exact funding amounts and other details should be coming next week when the White House releases its 2023 federal budget request, he added. “So what we’re doing today is a bit of a preview,” Nelson said. “I think you’ll find it’s an indication that there are good things to come for this agency and, if we’re right, good things to come for all of humanity.” NASA plans to release a draft request for proposals (RFP) for the second moon lander by the end of the month and a final RFP later this spring, agency officials said. If all goes according to plan, NASA will pick the builder of the new vehicle in early 2023. That craft will have the ability to dock with Gateway, the small moon-orbiting space station that NASA plans to build, and take people and scientific gear from there to the surface (and back). This newly announced competition will be open to all American companies except SpaceX. But Elon Musk’s company will have the opportunity to negotiate the terms of its existing contract to perform additional lunar development work, NASA officials said during today’s news conference.

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Calgarians Detail Life With an Electricity Load Limiter

Limiters cap amount of electricity households can use, making many appliances unusable. From a report: Josie Gagne was stumbling in the dark, sobbing while on the phone with an Enmax customer assistant, as she tried to locate the tiny orange button under the utility meter that would restore heat inside. It was the shock that got her. The young single mother with two kids under two returned home one winter day last year to find a note on her door from Enmax. She’d fallen behind on bills; the home was now on a limiter, capping her electricity. The furnace was off and at that point, she had no idea what a limiter even was. “I’m freaking out. I’m crying, thinking ‘What am I going to do?'” she said. “It’s the middle of winter, it’s still cold outside. How am I going to feed my children when my oven doesn’t work?”

Rising utility bills have community advocates worried the number of Calgarians facing this scenario will increase, and many don’t know what a load limiter is. It’s often the first step before disconnection. Several Calgary residents flagged the issue while sharing their utility bill experiences with CBC Calgary through text messaging, and on Calgary Kindness, a mutual aid Facebook group. They’ve shared their personal stories with CBC journalists so others know what to expect. Contributors said they were scared their fridge would lose power and their groceries would rot. They relied on air fryers, barbecues or a hot plate to make it through. The extra fees — $52 for the notice, $52 to remove the limiter — only made it worse. Plus, the black mark on their files means they often can’t get a contract with more favourable fixed rates. When the device is installed, a stove or anything else requiring 240 volts of electricity won’t work.

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Android’s Messages, Dialer Apps Quietly Sent Text, Call Info To Google

Google’s Messages and Dialer apps for Android devices have been collecting and sending data to Google without specific notice and consent, and without offering the opportunity to opt-out, potentially in violation of Europe’s data protection law. From a report: According to a research paper, “What Data Do The Google Dialer and Messages Apps On Android Send to Google?” [PDF], by Trinity College Dublin computer science professor Douglas Leith, Google Messages (for text messaging) and Google Dialer (for phone calls) have been sending data about user communications to the Google Play Services Clearcut logger service and to Google’s Firebase Analytics service.

“The data sent by Google Messages includes a hash of the message text, allowing linking of sender and receiver in a message exchange,” the paper says. “The data sent by Google Dialer includes the call time and duration, again allowing linking of the two handsets engaged in a phone call. Phone numbers are also sent to Google.” The timing and duration of other user interactions with these apps has also been transmitted to Google. And Google offers no way to opt-out of this data collection. […] Both pre-installed versions of these apps, the paper observes, lack app-specific privacy policies that explain what data gets collected — something Google requires from third-party developers. And when a request was made through Google Takeout for the Google Account data associated with the apps used for testing, the data Google provided did not include the telemetry data observed.

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