PoE's performance is poor for a lot of people

CCP have made a small program[1] which contains a copy of their game engine, along with some prerecorded world data which shows off all the capabilities and functions of the game engine. This is a cute way to see if you can run the game, but more importantly, it collects metrics, framerates, probably thrown exceptions, profiling data, etc., and sends it home to CCP[2].

Any time they make an engine update, I'm lead to believe a large amount of players download and run the new version, and CCP gets incredible amounts of useful information from real-world setups, that lets them see instantly if they're suffering from Redmond Effect - getting out of touch with reality based on their hardware.

As we all know, PoE's performance can be pretty spotty[3]. Many people used to run parties titled "No CoC", owing to the large amount of lag some machines suffered when someone was casting spells at a ridiculous rate. There have been complaints on reddit recently about "ground effects" slowing the game to a crawl. I personally have trouble with fire effects, and some golems. Players have speculated wildly on the causes, entirely nonconclusively, "my AMD machine drops to 15FPS"[4], "I got a 500% increase in framerate by using such and such a tool to uninstall my drivers"[5], "use this special config file to make the game look awful and it runs like a dream"[6].


If we the players can deal with it, I very much believe some development time should be shifted away from features for a short while, and sit down with the engine full time for some time, possibly to release a tool like this. We the players have to accept this.

Again I'll refer to CCP. They were long known in the community for releasing a feature, and never following up on it[7,8,9]. The entirety of EVE-online was (and possibly still is) littered with features and gameplay elements that could be much better, if only "the devs" weren't working on something new and exciting. The thing is, it's a zero sum game. If devs are working on fixing and polishing old stuff, maybe the old stuff gets 10% better, and is really good. In the same time, they could be making an entirely new feature which will be 100% better than it was before, obviously due to not existing, and this draws in new players, re-entices old players, and can be put out to Massively, giantbomb, TenTonHammer, etc.

When I say that we the players have to accept this, I mean that we have to be ok with a slowing of new features, new content, etc. Are you ok with no jewel master particularly soon? What about new maps? Act 5? What about more systemic things like a "fix" for Ctrl+clicking in the guild stash? Whirlyblades acting differently to all the other movement skills? Flasks really enjoying rolling the same mod twice in a row costing an alt for apparently nothing?

I am. I would be super ok with PoE "stagnating" for a little while, in exchange for smooth 60FPS, with no item name flicker, no horizontal tearing, no client freezes, etc.

I've been asked by support to make this thread, as I expressed similar, (less wordy) sentiments in an email. Perhaps they're just giving me something to do so it looks good, or because it's standard procedure, but I really want to think that it's because if there's enough support here, it'll happen.

After all, aren't you a little embarrassed when your friend comes over and your beast of a PC which you've bragged to them about is tripping over its own feet on a relatively simple-looking game?

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[1] https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=374217&find=unread

[2] http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/eve-probe/?_ga=1.224460766.595023283.1438641167

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/search?q=fps&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all

[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/3gc7lt/issues_with_amdgpu_fps_drops_need_more_attention/

[5] https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/2ibb52/huge_fps_increase_for_my_machine_anecdotal/

[6] https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/2gi963/question_low_quality_settings/ckjcupe

[7] https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4323250
[8] https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=358835
[9] https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5432079

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EDIT: A few counterpoints and answers to common thoughts in this thread:

Lockstep vs predictive: Framerate is dependent on network latency in lockstep mode, kind of. You can have a good connection, but low framerate if your PC (or the engine) isn't up to it, and you can have a good PC (and the engine can be playing well), but if your network connection is spotty, you'll have very short freezes while the client waits for the server to tell it what to do.

This shortcoming is completely nonpresent in predictive mode. The engine is poor, but if you're freezing up in town occasionally, check you're not in lockstep first.

Turning down your graphics: In many games, lowering graphical fidelity increases performance. This makes sense; less stuff to do per frame means more frames done per second. This is not the case in PoE. Sometimes you can get lower framerates with lower settings.

The more important thing to consider though, is one should not have to nuke graphics settings to runescape levels to attain playability, especially not on modern hardware. I often get sub 15 FPS on my near top end machine, and it's not an acceptable suggestion to "turn your settings down".

2.0: A lot of people are blaming 2.0. I personally have gotten worse performance since 2.0 came out, but it wasn't the inception at all. The performance issues are systemic, and weren't introduced in 2.0. That performance got worse after 2.0 for some people may be a clue for the developers as to what may have gone wrong, but we can't pretend that these issues haven't been around since Nemesis. (Nemesis was when I started playing, so I can't speak for times before then).

AMD/Intel/nVidia: A lot of people initially thought this was a hardware-specific issue, me included. I offered to buy an AMD testing rig for GGG, so I could get better performance, but it seems people on entirely different (and more sensible) setups have the same issues, both more and less egregiously.

SSDs: SSDs help in some cases. Loading (and some things like new player entry lag, strongboxes, exiles), is undeniably better with an SSD, but that's the only guarantee. We don't know that PoE's engine is constantly loading from disk, (and I've not tested), so it doesn't make sense that an SSD would actually help the permeating FPS issues.

Windows 7, 8.1, 10: People experience the same symptoms on any operating system. This is not the issue.

Background processes: As above.

Selection bias: All but one person posting in this thread has agreed with me. If anyone on your friends list has time, please point them towards this thread. I want an equal representation of the PoE playerbase, not just the people who come to the forums annoyed when the game's performing poorly.

Yep - it's poor. Part of the mapping experience which is painful is being effectively forced into running ground-effect and fracture maps, which on a really bad day will lock you out due to DCs, but even on a good day will make your computer whine like crazy.

I´m going to join in here. Bought a new gaming laptop last year (i7-4710HQ, 8GB RAM, GTX860M 2GB) and could finally enjoy CoC and Mjölner discharge specs.

Now with 2.0 I am getting fps drops similar to those I frequently had on my old potato laptop.
Hammering on a boss with Mjölner discharge and a fellow Ice Crash player caused this, it also happens when there´s Vaal totems around or vs Necrovigil bloodline packs. It´s not very enjoyable when "frames per second" suddenly turns into "seconds per frame". Just should not happen on an up to date gaming rig.

+1, performance is only just OK for me to play.
So no parties and just stop when the servers seem especially slow (< 20 FPS, or frequent stutters). That is a huge pity, other games run fine on my machine. More performance would make me a lot happier than new features, I'm not sick of act 4 yet.

I've noticed that strongboxes lag again, after release of act 4 they were better.

+1 to OP
good sum up

+1

My totally ignorant opinion: Just a couple patch cycles to fix the most glaring issues would be wonderful.

"

Opinionated wrote:

+1

My totally ignorant opinion: Just a couple patch cycles to fix the most glaring issues would be wonderful.

+1

Horrible performance and insane lags, special bad if open box with exile

In open Beta i started playing the Game and really like it. But it more and more changes to be unplayable for me with every more Effects that came out. I try to play without PowerCharges or Buffs at all but that lacks to much and at least u will use 1 or 2 Effects to get the Build running. Only Hatred, Herald of Ash and Ice Golem is to much and i have slow Rate of Pictures. I remember a Time there i used 5-6 Auras and Blood Rage on Top and had no issues with an Partymember right to my Side in a Map. That was before 1.0 and my PC at this Time was real Crap. Now i have an much better PC and need to look first 5-10 Min how many DC´s i have and deciede from there if i open a Map or only try an Dried Lake or Docks Run.
That makes me sad and i know its my Internet Connection at least but it never changed!-)

"

LeandroHazard wrote:

In open Beta i started playing the Game and really like it. But it more and more changes to be unplayable for me with every more Effects that came out. I try to play without PowerCharges or Buffs at all but that lacks to much and at least u will use 1 or 2 Effects to get the Build running. Only Hatred, Herald of Ash and Ice Golem is to much and i have slow Rate of Pictures. I remember a Time there i used 5-6 Auras and Blood Rage on Top and had no issues with an Partymember right to my Side in a Map. That was before 1.0 and my PC at this Time was real Crap. Now i have an much better PC and need to look first 5-10 Min how many DC´s i have and deciede from there if i open a Map or only try an Dried Lake or Docks Run.
That makes me sad and i know its my Internet Connection at least but it never changed!-)

Rip my tempest char bcs of lag (freeze some sec and dead)

Worst performance.

bumping this thread.

I hope the devs deals with this serious artificial layer of difficulty in playing this game. I am game for some pugging, but this will never happen when people complain about dc's, lags, freezes when a summoner, CoC or even ice crash joins and spoils a party. Prioritizing this before anything else in conjuction with lockstep is timely and logical.