Does DirectStorage fix random read lag on FireCuda 540 in Gears 5?
Entering those high-destruction battlefields is an absolute rush, especially with a 2TB drive pushing assets. But there was this weird glitch where my frame rate would dive from 120 down to 60 during quick camera pans, which is super noticeable at 4K. The 4K random reads on the FireCuda 540 2TB were hitting 12-18ms of latency on my default partition, meaning the GPU was basically idling while waiting for data. I tried the usual 'high performance' driver settings, but the hitches stayed, which told me this was a deep-level protocol issue. I updated to a Windows build that fully supports DirectStorage and re-aligned my partitions to 4K. After running AIDA64, the 4K read speed climbed from 55MB/s to 82-88MB/s, and the stutters are completely gone. I did have a bit of a nightmare where some old mods caused the game to crash immediately after enabling DirectStorage, but deleting the conflicting plugins fixed it. Temps are steady at 48-54℃. Everything feels fluid now.
