Preliminary Performance Improvement Results

While many users reported significant performance improvements, there are some issues that we are investigating. Some users are experiencing crashes, and some reported a reduction in performance.

We have investigated the crash reports and have fixes in progress. We expect to have those fixes deployed within a day.

To investigate the performance impact for our users, we used our telemetry system to analyse how the performance changed for various hardware setups. We found that users who have only two hardware threads (cores) indeed experience worse performance than before when using the new mode. Due to the nature of the improvement, it is probably necessary to only engage it if you have four or more hardware threads.

Results (Average Frame Rates)
All users, without optimisation: 53.502fps
All users, with optimisation: 65.385fps (+22.210%)

In maps, without optimisation: 47.351fps
In maps, with optimisation: 55.699fps (+17.630%)
The improvement in maps is likely more easily capped due to GPU fill-rate.

Geforce 970 series, without optimisation: 70.298fps
Geforce 970 series, with optimisation: 80.767fps (+14.892%)
This is the most common graphics card series used to play Path of Exile.

2 hardware threads, without optimisation: 34.910fps
2 hardware threads, with optimisation: 30.921fps (-11.426%)
This is a case where users are experiencing reduced performance. 4% of our users have two hardware threads. This optimisation will be disabled for users with only two hardware threads.

4 hardware threads, without optimisation: 51.765fps
4 hardware threads, with optimisation: 62.955fps (+21.615%)
49% of our users have four hardware threads.

8 hardware threads, without optimisation: 61.707fps
8 hardware threads, with optimisation: 71.526fps (+15.911%)
40% of our users have eight hardware threads

Intel CPU, without optimisation: 54.962fps
Intel CPU, with optimisation: 67.208fps (+22.281%)

AMD CPU, without optimisation: 49.442fps
AMD CPU, with optimisation: 58.806fps (+18.940%)

No shadows, without optimisation: 51.714fps
No shadows, with optimisation: 60.618fps (+17.217%)

Low shadows, without optimisation: 49.268fps
Low shadows, with optimisation: 64.387fps (+30.687%)

High shadows, without optimisation: 56.614fps
High shadows, with optimisation: 72.804fps (+28.596%)
It's faster with shadows because users with more powerful machines play with shadows on

Note that these averages include all gameplay. The improvements are more noticeable (and represent larger percentage increases) under extreme combat than when idling or running around.

To more accurately judge the improvements, we should examine the variance of the frame rate rather than just the average frame rate. We'll keep collecting data and will share anything interesting we find!