PoE's performance is poor for a lot of people

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k4n3 wrote:

the sooner they start fixing the engine, the better for the survivability of the game.
the more they delay the cloggier the game will run with next updates.

Amen, there is no upside to lousy performance.

If they were to just cull clutter (crate fragments, arrows, gore, then later corpses and/or loot which is hidden by the filter) more agressively, the performance would increase and the map crashes would decrease.
Then decrease the amount of particles in effects and POE would be miles better than now. None of this is magic requiring a graphics guru.

But GGG are only worried about the economy. If someone finds a way to drop ludicrous amounts of loot (such as spirit vaccuuming), we get a fix the very next day, even if it causes huge collateral damage for people not abusing such a mechanic.

I love POE, but I no longer respect GGG's vision like I used to.

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SL4Y3R wrote:

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Asday wrote:

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SL4Y3R wrote:

I will never understand why people in threads like this don't post their specs. Makes the whole thread essentially worthless.

How would that help? Literally everyone's setup is completely different. We've got AMD, intel, nVidia, ASUS, Powercolour, XFX, Gigabyte, basically everything. My point originally is that GGG should author a tool that would be able to test real world metrics, and would obviously know the hardware.

Easy to point to where a problemap lies with the specs and complaint given. Can often times either find a solution, or pinpoint the bottleneck.

And thats precisely the problem, the game has way too much bottlenecks, and its because due to the way the engine is designed, bottlenecking it is way too easy.

I just did a map that had "fractured". Was pretty much impossible after clearing a SB in the map

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johnKeys wrote:

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SL4Y3R wrote:

Easy to point to where a problemap lies with the specs and complaint given. Can often times either find a solution, or pinpoint the bottleneck.

no.
please stop that crap already, Slayer.
the "bottleneck" is ultimately in GGG's code and not the PC Specs.
you know it, I know it and GGG know it too.
are some players (you) running it on a PC capable of powering through every single hiccup? sure. is it a solution? no. it's a Work Around, and one that costs a fuckton of money at that. so much money, I don't think anyone would be buying a rig like that, just to play Path Of Exile.

I recently tried PoE on my office PC (you commented in that thread), and the experience with an SSD, a brand new Core i5, and a ton or RAM was radically different compared to my good old home Potato. it's a machine that cost me quite a bit, and it is not for PoE or any other games.
and even there, doing a Kaom run with 2 other people in a Public Party was FPS-stressful...

GGG's engine needs a fix.
GGG's compression, reading/loading and indexing of the content file, needs a fix.
these are facts, and you going into every single thread and going "hmm what's your specs?" isn't helping. it's annoying and beside the point.

Umm. No. Specifically with your PC, it's yours. I'm all for optimization, but there has to come a point when games stop being bending to the minority crappy PC owner. Who refuses to upgrade their PoS 32-bit OS 4 GB DDR2 system, and DEMAND that a game work on their computer. And not only work, but work well.

These people realize that one of the reasons this game has problems is because it's 32-bit. They could load more into RAM initially, but GGG cannot do so, because these people would complain that their 10 year old PC cannot play the game.

PS: Thank god MS ended support for XP.

100% agree with much of what has been said here. The game's performance is laughably awful especially when you consider that the graphics look like something out of the early 2000s- personally I really enjoy this style; it's fun and nostalgia-inducing for me. What is not fun is getting kicked to login, losing maps consistently, and losing XP due to latency spikes. Truly, for me the game's performance is in MUCH worse shape than it ever was during the days of desynch. There is no -oos for what i am experiencing. I am starting to wonder if GGG is enlisting the USPS or perhaps the Pony Express to shuffle packets back and forth instead of TCP or what have you.

When I know with 100% certainty that, for instance, opening a strongbox with "x" mod WILL without a doubt result in -10% XP, it takes a lot of the fun out of the game. I love this game; I have put ~60 $ USD into MTX in the last six weeks. When I did this, I was working under the assumption (Delusion?) that PoE would be around for a while- maybe not for ten years as the devs intend (although that would be amazing) but at least for 2-3 perhaps. Content/premise/mechanics-wise, PoE is definitely my #1 favorite action-type game, and it is easily in my top 5 all-time favorites of any genre. I am very, very pleased with the Awakening in almost every way. But, the problems I am experiencing are getting very close to the point of becoming game-breaking. For other people that I know, the issues have already gone well past that point.

Now when I look at my social screen and see that almost no one in my guild of 30+ formerly active players is online consistently, and that I no longer have to scroll down to see all the people who are currently online on my friends list, all this- coupled with the fact that most of the people I know who are scaling back their involvement in this game have outright said that it is 100% due to the abysmal performance and that otherwise they would absolutely love to continue playing- causes me to be quite concerned that six months from now there will be no PoE. Oh, I am sure that the servers will still be active at that point regardless of what happens in the near future. If almost no one is still playing then except for scummy RMT opportunists desperately trying to hold onto their easy method of grabbing money despite that audible death-rattle alongside a handful of people who are lucky enough to be able to own NSA supercomputers that can just steamroll over all the optimization issues, then the overall effect, for me, will be identical to a total shutdown.

Please, GGG, 1. acknowledge that there are issues and 2. take a break from designing and implementing divination cards/map mods/other new content and fix what you already have. I do not want to see this game die. You guys have created an amazing thing here; but there are some very serious issues that must be addressed if we are to be able to continue our adventures in Wraeclast.

Can we please get a dev response here? I feel like half the reason so many people are leaving is that they have given up hope that GGG even cares; I see people saying things like "they already made their money and it's not worth it to them to put the effort into fixing the code now." I strongly disagree with those kind of statements as I have had nothing but good experiences with GGG support (very fast response time, quick resolution of issues) that make that point of view very difficult for me to accept as valid, but I can understand why people feel that way.



Sidenote: Can we eventually perhaps have a discussion RE the relative merits of map mods that create more challenging monsters to fight or give mobs special abilities/powers VS map mods that handicap the player character? The former is fun and interesting; the latter is, with a few exceptions, irritating and frustrating.
Thanks for reading.

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SL4Y3R wrote:

Umm. No. Specifically with your PC, it's yours. I'm all for optimization, but there has to come a point when games stop being bending to the minority crappy PC owner. Who refuses to upgrade their PoS 32-bit OS 4 GB DDR2 system, and DEMAND that a game work on their computer. And not only work, but work well.

These people realize that one of the reasons this game has problems is because it's 32-bit. They could load more into RAM initially, but GGG cannot do so, because these people would complain that their 10 year old PC cannot play the game.

PS: Thank god MS ended support for XP.

you know, as the proud owner of a PoS Windows XP 32-bit 4 GB (actually, 3) DDR2 system a.k.a my trusty Potato - I actually agree the goal of supporting such a machine fully, is currently out of reach.
the thing is though, it was supported for the better part of almost 3 years now, because when the game - engine and all - was made, my Potato was a lively young spud.
I remember I could actually run with a 4-man party, back in Open Beta.

so logically, the additions to the game should have made it only slightly more demanding since.
something like "can no longer party on the good old Open Beta potato, but can still solo with a playable rate" is in my opinion a realistic expectation.
they didn't. instead, the - excuse me but it just has to be said - fucking shitty piece of engine and asset-management code which GGG seemingly didn't bother fully hammering into shape in years, grew into a monster of epic resource-guzzling proportions.

as an Alpha tester, I expect you to understand this Slayer.
but instead you seem to insist the solution is to keep feeding the beast with exponentially larger computing power over time, instead of cutting it down to size.

I agree, PoE perfimance is very poor.
I dont say i have top-end PC, but still, i can play a lot of games with no worse graphics, and they dont show massive FPS drops as PoE does.
I believe, its graphical engine just isnt optimized.
Also, existance of some builds like CoC or Mjolner or Dominating Blow should be in line with actual graphical requirements of game engine. Right now, it looks like people who made game mechanics (skills, items, overall balance) never met those who did particle effects and other visuals.

Before Beta and 2.0 I had no real issues running PoE. Now almost every ground effect is killing 1/2 of my fps (Desecrated Groung is the worst), lots of bodies on the ground have very similar effect.

Funny as playing PoE recently reminded me of one game from the past that was able to kill any gaming rig. Ultima 9 it was and I will never forget the look on my friend's face when his just freshly out of the box NASA spec PC was brought to its knees by it. So yeah PoE is slowly becoming that first edition Ultima 9 for me, no matter what rig you got, you are fucked.

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johnKeys wrote:

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SL4Y3R wrote:

Umm. No. Specifically with your PC, it's yours. I'm all for optimization, but there has to come a point when games stop being bending to the minority crappy PC owner. Who refuses to upgrade their PoS 32-bit OS 4 GB DDR2 system, and DEMAND that a game work on their computer. And not only work, but work well.

These people realize that one of the reasons this game has problems is because it's 32-bit. They could load more into RAM initially, but GGG cannot do so, because these people would complain that their 10 year old PC cannot play the game.

PS: Thank god MS ended support for XP.

you know, as the proud owner of a PoS Windows XP 32-bit 4 GB (actually, 3) DDR2 system a.k.a my trusty Potato - I actually agree the goal of supporting such a machine fully, is currently out of reach.
the thing is though, it was supported for the better part of almost 3 years now, because when the game - engine and all - was made, my Potato was a lively young spud.
I remember I could actually run with a 4-man party, back in Open Beta.

so logically, the additions to the game should have made it only slightly more demanding since.
something like "can no longer party on the good old Open Beta potato, but can still solo with a playable rate" is in my opinion a realistic expectation.
they didn't. instead, the - excuse me but it just has to be said - fucking shitty piece of engine and asset-management code which GGG seemingly didn't bother fully hammering into shape in years, grew into a monster of epic resource-guzzling proportions.

as an Alpha tester, I expect you to understand this Slayer.
but instead you seem to insist the solution is to keep feeding the beast with exponentially larger computing power over time, instead of cutting it down to size.

I have always been in favor of whatever optimizations they can make, great. More the merrier.

I just find technical threads without anything technical to be rather demanding (?). Not sure what word to use there, but anyways, I stand by my point. I am confused like the rest about lack of particle options, but still. When a person makes a complaint about something running poorly, it is usually wise to say what it's running poorly on.

But no engine overhaul can help a player who runs on a core2duo laptop on a 5400 rpm drive w/ 32 OS.

E: just wanted to clarify that I'm not directing this to you John. Your posts are detailed with specific examples given about the subject.

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SL4Y3R wrote:

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But no engine overhaul can help a player who runs on a core2duo laptop on a 5400 rpm drive w/ 32 OS...

I don't think that's the expectation, either. But there is a very wide range of moderately up-to-date machines which struggle with POE's performance. Think about what this does to POE's marketshare:

If I have a decent machine but POE runs poorly compared to other games, I have 3 options:
a) Skip the game, play something which runs better.
b) Buy a better PC to play POE.
c) Play it as is, but always feel unhappy with it.

How does each option affect GGG?
a) GGG loses a customer who potentially buys MTX
b) Either I feel I've spent enough on my new PC, so I won't give money to POE (GGG loses) or I would anyway have supported POE financially because I love it (neutral for GGG)
c) The happier I am, the more likely I am to pay money, so GGG loses again.

The end result is that GGG loses money for every bit of performance lost. This needs to be balanced against the cost of optimization.
Only GGG can tell how well this balance currently works out, but from the feedback in these forums I believe GGG should spend a patch optimizing their performance. I'm pretty sure it would pay off quite well.

Main culprits are AMD hardware, and RAM usage. Not saying usage is high per se, but I would like to see better usage of RAM tied to a decrease in disk calls (stutter).