Modder ‘Archost’ has released a must-have mod for everyone who currently plays Fallout 4, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition or Starfield.

This plugin basically makes these three Bethesda games use OS’ file cache, which leads to less disk access over time. According to the modder, owners of both SSDs and HDDs will benefit from it. Since this plugin reduces the disk calls, it can lead to less freezing and fewer sound drops.

Archost shared some additional tech details about this plugin.

“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.

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

Since this plugin can improve overall performance, we highly recommend using it. In theory, it could resolve or at least minimize Starfield’s stuttering issues. So, those interested can go ahead and download it from the following links.

Skyrim Special Edition Disk Cache Enabler
Fallout 4 Disk Cache Enabler
Starfield Disk Cache Enabler

To give you an idea, in Fallout 4, this mod can reduce the average disk access calls per second from 1800 to 200. The modder also claims that the performance increase is even higher in Starfield.

Speaking of Starfield, Bethesda released yesterday a new patch for it. As we’ve stated, this patch fixed an upscaling issue that could result in some blurry textures. Now while the update fixed the mipmap issues, it did not fix moiré. As such, the game now suffers from extreme shimmering on some textures. So, PC gamers will have to use this mod in order to make the textures look the way they were supposed to.

Be also sure to check out our Best Skyrim Mods article.

Enjoy and stay tuned for more!