Possible ATI solution (for the majority)

I might have a solution for all ATI users who has FPS drops on certain skills/areas.
I went from 200 to 4 fps during certain skills/areas. Now i never go below 37fps which is really playable - with any number of zombies, members, lightning or iceshoots there is.

I tried many different drivers and combos so see what was causing the fps drop for me and after a days seartching ive found the cause: CCC.
It appears there is an issue if you have had 12.x driver/ccc installed and then updated to a new driverversion. This caused windows installer to break/fail when trying to remove some certain registerfiles relating to CCC.

my solution:
1. Re-register Windows installer
-a Start -> run -> type 'cmd' -> type 'msiexec /unregister'
-b Start -> run -> type 'cmd' -> type 'msiexec /regserver'
-c close the 'cmd' window
2. Uninstall your ATI CCC via 'add/remove program' (start -> run -> appwiz.cpl) dont reboot yeat.
3. Download and run the ATI-Catalyst removal utility from AMD and then reboot
4. Install the 13.1 driverpack from AMD -> chose modified installation -> Untick 'Catalyst Control Center' from the list and install the rest.
5. In PoE: turn V-sync off, post processing on and AA set to "Trilinear Filtering"
6. Now you can install CCC ceperatly (will run smoother w/o ccc tho)

Lets hope this will solve the issue for any other ATI user!
If it did, make a post and we will find out if its related to more then my 3 machines with ATI cards ^^

I know that someone might think this is a regular driverclean - its not, you have to use the official AMD CCC-removal tool for this to overwrite the issue caused by a trigger command in the register for windows installer (msiexec)
Note: This is not a fix for the crashes that some ATI users have reported, only fps drop.
And your GPU load will be used up to 100% now and dont go idle

I will try this today.

Just something of note that helped me reduce the fps spikes, not eliminate them but noticeably reduce them.

Was to turn vsync ON (yes on) and turn shadows off. Both of those were big for me.

BTW OP, I'm thinking of formatting my computer just in case (due to all the hacking) and to increase performance.

If I do this, can I ignore the first few steps of instructions and just start from the installation of the ATI Drivers?

Didnt work for me.

"

Niglatinus wrote:

Didnt work for me.

Sorry to hear!
Have you tried disable the shadows aswell ?
What fps range you get ? and most intresting of all, which ATI card do you use?
I have 7970 DCU II (as a reference to my topic)

I have a 6670, most games work perfectly fine. This game just has that new technology, that ATI can't handle.

"

bellyfrog wrote:

BTW OP, I'm thinking of formatting my computer just in case (due to all the hacking) and to increase performance.

If I do this, can I ignore the first few steps of instructions and just start from the installation of the ATI Drivers?

"

Niglatinus wrote:

I have a 6670, most games work perfectly fine. This game just has that new technology, that ATI can't handle.

Actually the 6670 is a 1.5 year old, low end card in the sub $100 category and is not meant for gaming. More appropriate for an HTPC. This would explain frame issues with PoE.

I run both a 6970 and a 7970 in two separate computers.

Both have the frame rate problems, especially in act 3/ docks/ high particle spells.

"

jpnole wrote:

"

Niglatinus wrote:

I have a 6670, most games work perfectly fine. This game just has that new technology, that ATI can't handle.

Actually the 6670 is a 1.5 year old, low end card in the sub $100 category and is not meant for gaming. More appropriate for an HTPC. This would explain frame issues with PoE.

Ummm dont know what you mean, but this card runs every other game I play PERFECTLY FINE.

BF3, WoW, Diablo 3, LoL, Borderlands 2, Witcher 2, and plenty others. I don't think you have ANY IDEA on what you are talking about.

It's not like game is graphically demanding enough for a budget card to have issues regardless. The only cards that should have issues playing a game with this quality of graphics is integrated ones.

At least the main frame drop issue is known by the developers as due to certain assets not pre-loading and thus the loading of said assets causes spikes in framerate.

Fingers crossed it will be fixed in a nearby patch and the suffering will be ended.

Now we just need to hope and pray and beg for further customizable graphics in order to get the game playable in groups for those of us with older machines.