Is the WD SN850X causing I/O blocking in Black Myth Wukong?
Whenever Wukong dashes through the forests, I'd get these micro-stutters that were driving me insane. Even though the WD SN850X has great 4K random speeds, the default Windows write cache flush policy was causing severe I/O queue blocking during high-res texture streaming. This sent my frame times jumping wildly between 12-35ms. I tried enabling 'Game Mode' in the drivers, but that just bumped CPU usage by 2% without fixing the stutters—total frustration. I eventually went into Device Manager and changed the disk policy to 'Enable write caching' and 'Disable disk write cache buffer flushing.' Checking RTSS, my 1% lows climbed from 42 FPS to a solid 65 FPS. It's no longer a slideshow. I actually lost a bit of save data during a power outage right after disabling the flush policy, so I had to buy a UPS to feel safe using this long-term. Temps stay around 52-58℃ with load at 20-35%. I/O blocking is gone, and the system is finally dialed in.
