"Due to" at the beginning of a sentence

The problem is not that you used due to at the beginning of a sentence. The problem is that due to must be followed by a nominal phrase, since to is a preposition and prepositions are (almost) always followed by nominal phrases. For this reason, you need to use a verbal noun or a gerund after to:

Due to having fewer features than an actual standard system, the performance will be better.

What you have is ungrammatical. Rewrite along these lines:

• Due to having fewer features than the actual standard system, performance will be better.

• Because it will have fewer features than the actual standard system, performance will be better.

I don’t like “actual standard”, either. I think one of those two words must go.