Why is my FireCuda 540 causing stutters in CP2077 Overdrive?
Seeing my read speeds locked at 3000MB/s while running 4K Path Tracing felt like a slap in the face for a PCIe 4.0 drive. The FireCuda 540 2TB was struggling with the massive asset stream in Overdrive mode; the old firmware caused the I/O request queue to timeout whenever it hit 128, making my FPS jitter violently around 60. I tried 'Low Latency Mode' in the drivers, but that was useless—I gained 2 FPS but the input lag became unbearable. I finally flashed the latest manufacturer firmware and forced the M.2 slot to Gen4 in the BIOS. Bandwidth tests immediately shot up to 6800-7200MB/s and the smoothness is night and day. I had some weird drive wake-up issues initially, but disabling power saving fixed it. Temps are stable at 52-58℃ with response times down to 22-28ns. Frame times are now locked at 5.1-6.4ms.
