Personal remarks on Disk Cache Enabler

[sa547]

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/100975

It's been several weeks ever since Disk Cache Enabler was released not only for Starfield, but also for Fallout 4 and SSE/AE.

Prior to DCE, for years I've tried many attempts at improving performance, anything to get rid of stutters, abandoned LE for SSE, and I even saved up and built a new PC specifically for this game and Cities Skylines, but almost everyone knows that modded games must be on a very large SSD, so that there is little to no stuttering, something which is beyond what I could afford on my current salary (sorry, more than half of that salary is for daily needs; at some point in the future I would move my games to an SSD, but then I stick to hard drives because they are easier to recover. There is PrimoCache, but personal complications prevent me from using credit/debit cards just to buy it).

Reading the original technical description of the mod for Starfield:

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Short:
This plugin makes Starfield use OS' file cache, which leads to less disk access over time. Especially good for HDD. Less freezing, Less sound drop.

Long:
On Windows, we use "CreateFile()". When you access a file or a device, and this function gives you some options to play for specific purposes.
The game "Starfield" which uses "Creation Engine" has a dedicated binary reader like many other game engines. This binary reader part reads files from filesystems.

Unlike other major game engines, Starfield uses the following flags for CreateFile(): FILE_FLAG_OVERLAPPED, FILE_FLAG_NO_BUFFERING, and FILE_FLAG_SEQUENTIAL_SCAN.
Okay. However, there is a problem with "FILE_FLAG_NO_BUFFERING". This flag tells the OS not to leave file on memory after it is read.

Workloads in Games are pretty predictable. Like character animation, footstep sounds, textures or anything soon will eventually be used again and will not change. Without the file cache, the system must read from disks whenever needed, which results in a considerable performance impact on slow drives like HDD.

Additional notes:
If Starfield is installed on SSD, this plugin may improves I/O-related performance but not much. Less disk I/O, better performance.

 

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Main - The most fastest and intended version. No function overhead since it is memory patched. Use this if you are using AE.
Universal - It hooks function. which causes small function overheads. This version works universally including VR regardless of version. But I am not able to provide any support for older version of Skyrim (1.5.x) in any form. Please don't ask.

Why the author chose to have two versions of the mod for different versions of the game isn't explained in full, did not explain what are the "overheads" which makes the Universal version different from the 1.6 version, but regardless, DCE Universal is working as much as its 1.6 counterpart, as they cut down on I/O operations which translates to little to no micro-stuttering.

This far, I've used the FO4 and SSE (the Universal version, instead of the 1.6-only) versions of the mod, and suffice to say that as they made the most of the installed RAM on my PC, loading assets into memory as I go, the mod made those games truly playable even on a hard drive, as I have racked more hours playing both games than without the mods.

The mod also encouraged me to weed out scripted mods causing freezes, as I uncovered culprits found with XPMSSE and promptly replaced them with XPMSSE Lite without the scripts.

I do have to say that DCE works best if you have 16gb or more of installed memory (my PC has 32gb) and a hand-tuned page file, especially as some of that memory isn't utilized much by those games. That I feel DCE is a great upgrade for free for those specific games, as opposed to Primocache which, while touted as being superior and can be used for almost every application to speed up I/O operations, is a paid program and may not work for everyone.

Damn, wish this mod was made many years ago.

 

[Mercury71]

Have this mod installed since a few days after it was released. I am not sure it does anything for me since i have 32GB RRAM and a new large SSD. But the game runs smooth like butter with almost 500 active mods.

[z929669]

5 hours ago, Mercury71 said:

Have this mod installed since a few days after it was released. I am not sure it does anything for me since i have 32GB RRAM and a new large SSD. But the game runs smooth like butter with almost 500 active mods.

I didn't even know about this mod, and it probably only applies to those using a potato with < 16 Gb RAM

[Mercury71]

31 minutes ago, z929669 said:

I didn't even know about this mod, and it probably only applies to those using a potato with < 16 Gb RAM

My toughts to. I belive the resent move of both Skyrim and all mods/tools over to a brand new fast SSD is what had stuttering go away for me.

[z929669]

12 hours ago, Mercury71 said:

My toughts to. I belive the resent move of both Skyrim and all mods/tools over to a brand new fast SSD is what had stuttering go away for me.

Same. My specs are in my sig