Performance drops during intense disk usage
Performance drops during intense disk usage
It could be a simple misunderstanding about the cause. I’ve recorded all my findings here in case you can assist in identifying the problem. My system specs: GTX 1050Ti, Intel i5-8300H, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD plus 1TB SSHD (Asus ROG Strix GL503GE). Previously, I could play Cities: Skylines smoothly with around 45-60 FPS and no noticeable lag. Recently, after several Windows 10 updates, loading times have increased significantly. The saved game now takes over 13 minutes to load, and even after it starts, it runs slowly—especially when moving to new areas of the map. I also noticed the disk usage indicator stays active every time I navigate. After changing to an SSD, loading speeds improved slightly (about 15 assets per second on my Macbook Pro), but not enough to fix the issue. On my Asus drive, assets load at roughly 8 per second. I tried reinstalling the game on the SSD, but it didn’t greatly help. I also observed that RAM usage reaches its maximum (around 6GB) and then drops. To confirm whether the problem is disk-related or graphics-related, I ran intensive games and they performed just fine. In GTA V, lag appeared only in crowded areas after a while, with similar spikes in disk usage. TL; DR: Cities: Skylines experiences severe loading delays. 2. Asset loading is extremely slow—8 assets per second on SSD, 15 on SSHD. RAM hits its limit quickly. I’ve ordered more RAM and plan to install it soon. Is this a memory issue? If so, will the problem resolve once I upgrade? And what should I do next?
Attribue la faute à Uncle Billy... Avez-vous reçu la mise à jour 1903 ? Pourquoi votre HDD ou SSD fonctionne-t-il pendant que vous jouez ? Faites-vous quelque chose en arrière-plan ou quelque chose lié à la nature ?
Yes, I see the 1903 update... *shudder* Please don't say it's causing the problem. Also, I'm not running anything in the background. The disk usage indicator stays lit while I pan or zoom in during Cities: Skylines. I assumed it was loading assets or something.
I wouldn't immediately point the finger at the windows. Those drives with over 128Gb are incredibly problematic—truly terrible. We installed five or six of them, and each one failed completely after roughly three years. Some would constantly display blue screens as the SSD neared its end. I’m unsure if the firmware updates weren’t effective or if their write performance was poor, but these mixed drives are definitely unreliable. It’s completely normal for a game to freeze when it tries to pull texture data from an HDD while running, since RAM can’t keep up with that load. The HDDs simply aren’t fast enough to store everything quickly. I strongly recommend considering a more affordable 1Tb SSD instead, just to prevent a lot of data loss.
It seems both drives began struggling around the same time, which isn’t typical. I put the game on the SSD, but it didn’t really help much. I’m not sure my current performance is impressive, but the reliability problems still feel unexpected. My laptop has been running for about nine to ten months.