Potential fix for poor performance on ATI/AMD cards. Your input is needed!

So, as many of you may or may not know, for a very long time I have suffered from abysmal frame rates in this game. I used to blame GGG. I was a fool for doing this rather than venturing out and trying fixes on my own after the fixes I found on google did not work.

Keep in mind, this may not work for you. It could even make your FPS worse in this game, and effect other games you enjoy adversely as this will require you to install beta drivers. I will try to make this as simple as possible for people who are not familiar with doing things like this.

Here is what I did to fix my FPS issues, in the order I have done them. Feel free to try other methods, it may even work better! I would also like it if you post if this fix works for you or not, just to see if this fix works for the majority or if it is just a freak case that fixes it for some and not others.

1- Uninstall your divers.

What I did is I went to control panel -> add/remove programs and selected AMD Catalyst Install Manager. Right click and press change. From there you will want to select express uninstall ALL AMD software.



Go through this process and restart your PC when asked.

I had also used a program to make sure the drivers were completely removed. http://treexy.com/products/driver-fusion

While this step might not be needed, it is part of what I did to fix my problem. You will see an area where you are able to uninstall all AMD drivers. It may or may not ask you to upgrade to premium to remove all of the files, I ignored this and let it do its thing that the free version allows. Reboot your computer again.

2- Download WHQL graphics driver 14.4 http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+7+-+64

Download driver: 14.6 beta http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/latest-catalyst-windows-beta.aspx

please note that what I have linked is what worked for me, your operating system may be different and require a different installer.

The order I installed this software in was the WHQL drivers first (restarted my PC), then the beta (restarted my PC again).

3- Optimize the game with the AMD Gaming Evolved client.

I am not sure if this actually does anything, but I figured it can not hurt.

You will see a menu on the left with all of your installed games. Locate Path of Exile and press optimize settings.



After that is done, give it a try! This may seem pretty basic to most users, but I never knew about the WHQL drivers. None of the fixes I have attempted before with drivers ever mentioned this. I also used the beta drivers this time rather than the stable non beta versions.

Here is the results. For me at least.

Before :(





http://i.imgur.com/R7Rv6rT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0DtVke0.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jHnngD0.jpg

After!

http://i.imgur.com/YYeqohY.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Wzap3Ut.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/dOACgPD.jpg

While those last 2 screenshots may not me impressive, it is a HUGE improvement over the spikes and lockups from before. I have notices the while fighting dominus his blood rain in the second phase puts me down to 20 FPS, but it is steady non spikey FPS and not really a problem.

I have not tested this in a party yet. Curious to see how this handle being in a group with a cast on crit user.

Enjoy, and good luck!

I am curious. When was the last time, before this, that you updated your Drivers?

Also, kinda looks like it enabled V-Sync. Can you affirm or deny that?

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Sneakypaw wrote:

I am curious. When was the last time, before this, that you updated your Drivers?

Also, kinda looks like it enabled V-Sync. Can you affirm or deny that?

I don't recall, I do keep them updated semi frequently in hopes there is some sort of fix, nothing ever fixed it until this. I am not sure which part fixed this, but I know in the past uninstalling/reinstalling my drivers did absolutely nothing.

I am not sure about the vsync part, I play in windowed full screen (makes it easier to alt tab for multi client dom farming), vsync has always been off and is still off after doing this fix.

"

POOPHAMMER wrote:

"

Sneakypaw wrote:

I am curious. When was the last time, before this, that you updated your Drivers?

Also, kinda looks like it enabled V-Sync. Can you affirm or deny that?

I don't recall, I do keep them updated semi frequently in hopes there is some sort of fix, nothing ever fixed it until this. I am not sure which part fixed this, but I know in the past uninstalling/reinstalling my drivers did absolutely nothing.

I am not sure about the vsync part, I play in windowed full screen (makes it easier to alt tab for multi client dom farming), vsync has always been off and is still off after doing this fix.

The constant 60/63 FPS in your First After screenshot looks alot like V-Sync. Did you check both, the Catalyst Control Center Settings AND the In Game Settings?

You can hav v-sync disabled in game but still have it enabled through the Graphicscard settings.

I can tell by the tearing when I move vsync is definitely off. It was off before and is still off.

Wonder if this works for others too

There is only one way to find out. Just gotta wait for other people with the same issue to try it and leave feedback

I can confirm this doesnt work for me. 13.2 drivers work just fine. Going to 14.6 with WHQL makes it alot worse. Consistently getting lower fps and more spikes

I can confirm, it helped.

Still not even thinking of joining a party, but the solo play is much more enjoyable.

Thanks Poop!

I can also confirm that this helped me immensely. I was getting terrible FPS spikes which also seemed to spike my ping, and turned the screen black for 2-3 seconds.

I noticed when uninstalling that I had been using the 14.6 beta drivers rather than the 14.4 stable release, and this may have contributed to the issue. Either way, I followed the directions exactly, and am no longer experiencing the black screen. I occasionally still get massive FPS spikes, but they last for about half a second. The game is much more playable now.

I did not try the 13.2 drivers that gutsygibbon used. That may have solved my issue as well, as I have an older Radeon HD 5850. I find it curious that the 14.4 drivers AND the 14.6 drivers are being installed, don't the 14.6 drivers overwrite the 14.4 drivers? That being said, I was already using 14.6 without installing 14.4 first, and installing both did seem to fix the issue. I used the Gaming Evolved optimization as well, but I have a hard time believing that had anything to do with the fix.

Thank you very much for the independent research, the game is MUCH more playable for me now!