another thing you could try is
in game files you find the file
settings_common.ini with the setting use_blocking_io = true, set this to false.
This will be the default in the future, so currently it’s quite untested. But it could help
If you can please try it out with direct storage and let us know if it improves anything.
can i ask if your SSD is connected with m2, SATA or some other interface?