ShaderCache Fix/Temp Fix (simple)

Vepar: You can try it, see if it helps you out so you're not constantly making the RAMDISK, I had tried it but it was saving as an IMG so it wouldn't load correctly.

Now I know this will not work for everyone, because for some shaders/lighting is not just your issue. My Suggestions are to completely uninstall drivers, and if you are on a ATI/AMD HD Radeon card, uninstalling display drivers/CCC and then get the cleaner from ATI/AMD and then when you go to reinstall 13.1, make sure that you are not installing CCC. I believe CCC and POE conflict with each other.

I apologize if this doesn't work for you, it's a fix that is only related to shaders which I stated above. Some it may work for, some it may not. This is mostly a fix for DURING GAMEPLAY, so you are not running into freezetimes of a couple seconds, it will just bog down lightly, but still be playable now.



Hopefully POE will optimize the game and take a look at the graphics and shaders, and maybe allow things to be changed. I for one do not like seeing every single person's LA + Chain + GMP Or anything of that sort.

Yes, it worked for me. To be honest after weeks of experiments I've came to this idea by myself couple days ago. I'm using IMDisk for mounting ram disk disk image. Rawcopy command tool to save disk image, and Link Shell Extension for symlinks. All can be automated by batch script for Windows Task Sheduler.

I had problems with preloading some effects such as Decoy Totem. Now no more freezes after entering new aeras.

Good tutorial for people who don't know how to properly setup a ramdisk. Well done.

Thx for this. I create RAMDISK for Shadercache and now the freezes on skill use/monsters skills are gone or are far less intrusive. I play on HD4850 512MB. Game is overall smoother.
I still not checked PIety (3 secs frezzes when her shot icearrows) but i think it will be at leasy more manageable.

I must ask btw... why 250MB ramdisk? My Shadercache forder have less than 1MB... ? Windows eat ~25MB and sopme other thing 25mb too so i have 190MB free space there.

Can i create for example 100MB only ramdisk, not 250MB one? i have 4GB ram so every 100MB free RAm when i launch the game is good thing Thats why im asking.

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Carcaroth wrote:

This did not help at all, if anything seemed to make things worse. Radeon HD 4870, winxp sp3, 2gb ram, dual core 3,2Ghz. Never EVER have i had to mess around with computer settings and drivers so much trying to get a game to work before Path Of Exile... all my efforts gone to waste, nothing seems to help even a little bit.

Getting mighty tired of not being able to play, just gonna die time after time until those FPS spikes/freezes stop happening, so i might as well not play at all. Even if i survive its annoying as hell to run away spamming health potions hoping you live while watching the slideshow happening on your screen, as it happens practically every time theres a large fight on the screen. Buying those microtransactions/effects would probably make things worse as its EVEN MORE effects on the screen... i wish i could buy "All Effects Off" from the store, that would actually help as i could actually PLAY THE GAME.

My feels exactly.

Shaders are little pieces of code which the video card creates to make PoE's effects. These instructions are different for each combination of skill and aura. The video card has to think hard about this briefly, which is generally where you see a stutter in gameplay. We have something called a ShaderCache though, which is supposed to alleviate this problem, each time we generate a new bit of shader code, it's stored in the cache for re-use.

This ShaderCache has a problem too though, it's not able to be pre-loaded into memory (RAM), so it sometimes stutters even worse depending on how good your video card is compared to the storage drive where the cache resides. This bottleneck can be bypassed by loading all of the ShaderCache into memory in a RAM drive. It's unnoticeable on fast SSDs and RAID arrays, so most gaming rigs don't need to make a RAM drive.

When new skills are put in the game, the game client has no choice but to make the shaders on-the-fly with the video card, but eventually we will have a large ShaderCache with every conceivable combination already available. This cache will reliably load into memory when it's needed, but for now, predicting that isn't implemented.

The other assets stored in slow storage (the hard drive) should be pre-loaded already, as they are part of the level, and need to be in memory (RAM) when they're used, or we would notice the delay. Some systems are still taxed by the extra processing which needs to be done for the sound effects and other normal stuff, the problem there may be that the motherboard and CPU are the bottleneck. RAM drives will not help you there.

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ionface wrote:

This ShaderCache has a problem too though, it's not able to be pre-loaded into memory (RAM), so it sometimes stutters even worse depending on how good your video card is compared to the storage drive where the cache resides. This bottleneck can be bypassed by loading all of the ShaderCache into memory in a RAM drive. It's unnoticeable on fast SSDs and RAID arrays, so most gaming rigs don't need to make a RAM drive.

I have RAID made with 3 HHDs and i stil get masive freezes with Havy Strike, some yellow mobs (game stuters when yellow mob is aproaching my char), Cold Arrow, Piety, skelies, etc... so its more graphics card issue (and optimization) than storage issue. Game goes from 60fps to ZERO is miliseconds. Something is wrong with PoE here m8. Dont blame "old rig".
I finish Crysis2, Far Cry3, new Bioshock Infinite, Diablo 3, Torchlight 2, countless other games... only POE seems to have problem with this 'shader generation'. I played most MMOs that always are heavy HDD killers (i played WoW, RIFT, GW2). I dont see something like that (skill use = freeze) in any other game, ever.

RAMDISK for ShaderCache makes freezes less inntrusive but they are not dissapear compeltely so as i say - i m 100% sure thet this is "Radeon Issue" that GGG is 'not aware of' (recent interview).

Fix radeons GGG - plz. Because its optimization problem.

Can this method help me under linux/wine? Sometimes the game goes slideshow...

I can throw the whole game in a ramdisk. Unfortunately it is just not enough to make the game playable without being very frustrating. Maybe if you have an ultra tanky char it's ok in SC. My rig is ridiculous Intel X79 platform etc. Something is pretty rough.

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KarraKurri wrote:

RAMDISK for ShaderCache makes freezes less inntrusive but they are not dissapear compeltely so as i say - i m 100% sure thet this is "Radeon Issue" that GGG is 'not aware of' (recent interview).

Fix radeons GGG - plz. Because its optimization problem.

Your evidence contradicts your conclusions. If pre-loading ShaderCache makes your issue better, then it has to do with the I/O seek time. Your RAID might not be very high performance, or you may be using old drives or large block size stripes or something.

I have no idea how this would be a brand specific AMD/ATI problem either, since PoE uses DirectX9, not any secret nVidia API. If there's a problem in the ATI cards specifically, that sounds like a driver problem.

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chipetke wrote:

Can this method help me under linux/wine? Sometimes the game goes slideshow...

You should definitely read the wine thread for performance tips, if you have nVidia, you can use the older less-expensive shader code (glsl=disable), with ATI, I've heard the open source driver is less spiky. The RAM drive is very easy to set up in linux, and it's the first response in the ramdisk stickied thread (if you have questions about that, just PM me).