Starfield | The Game's File I/O Is Holding Back The Rest Of Your PC

A look at Starfield's file I/O and how it impacts storage and overall game performance.

Starfield has traversal stutter that occurs when the game loads new assets or new areas of the map. Unlike other games, these stutters are not only CPU related. These stutters mostly occur in big cities like New Atlantis.

Some stutters occur in disk IO bound scenarios, even on a Gen5 SSD. Below you can see the SSD hitting 100% usage, followed by a drop in the GPU usage and a stutter.