Cogwheels of doom - constant DX12 crashes (client-caused) - UNFIXED in 0.3.1

Subject: Critical Performance Issue – Game Locked at 20 FPS (PoE2)

Dear developers,

I would like to report a critical performance issue I’m experiencing exclusively with Path of Exile 2. Despite running the game on a high-end system, the framerate is constantly locked at 20 FPS, making the game nearly unplayable.

Here are my system specifications:
• CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER
• RAM: 16 GB DDR4 @ 3200 MHz
• Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI
• Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
• GPU Drivers: Latest version installed
• BIOS: Updated to the latest version

The issue persists in every area of the game, regardless of graphical settings or resolution. Even when all settings are set to the lowest and resolution is reduced, the framerate remains locked at 20 FPS with no improvement.

I’ve tested both the Steam and standalone versions — the problem occurs in both.
Other games and applications run smoothly and perform according to the capabilities of my hardware. This issue appears to be isolated to Path of Exile 2.

It’s important to note that on Day 1 of the beta, the game was running at 180 FPS without any issues. The problem began only recently, and I’ve seen multiple players with similar setups reporting the same experience.

Unfortunately, this bug makes the current league completely unplayable for users with this configuration.

I have already reported the issue in the bug report section of the forums, but no developer has responded yet. I am available to provide logs, screenshots, or any other technical data that may help diagnose the problem.

I hope this message helps bring attention to this serious issue and supports efforts toward a fix.

Today once again I had a DX12 crash that resulted in the issue described in the original post, but - unlike what GGG said - the game did not pause and monsters kept attacking me despite me being unable to do anything other than spam life pots.

Even their bandaid solution to the issue they seem incapable of resolving with nvidia isn't working.

No, Johnathan. I am not smiling like you were in that interview with Ziggy when he asked you about those issues.

PS. Every Breach + Expedition map results in a DX12 crash. Every single one.

BUMP

DX12 started crashing in 0.2 for me. This happens like once every hour on average. I would have thought this would be fixed by now. Same problem was introduced to poe1 with secrets of Atlas

Vulkan was a good alternative in 0.2.
Performance was worse but at least it didn't crash.

Now in 0.3 and 0.3.1 the DX12 crashes still persist and are very annoying.
Vulkan is now crashing for me also.


This should be a priority.




Rtx5080 - 9800x3d

I feel so dumb for spending a lot of money on micro transactions on a game I can't play. This issue is heartbreaking to say the least.

For me "Dynamic Resolution" caused this. Not Dynamic Culling. I removed the Dynamic Reso tick away no crashes so far. Can't test on Vulkan that cripples my FPS by half.

I really don't know why this hasn't been addressed or made a priority. Game is worse after 3.1b, on the verge of completely unplayable. Vulkan looks like ass and dx12 is completely unplayable.

GGG, this is not an isolated case. It affects many if not all NVIDIA card users. You cannot simply ask of us to downgrade our drivers or deal with the constant crashes.

Even though this may be partially NVIDIA's drivers fault, DX12 only crashes in your games, which means some of YOUR code is responsible for that.

Been having this issue as well the whole season.

Freezes in Maps
Freezes in Atlas
Freezes in Hideout
Freezes in Passive Tree

Making the game extremely frustrating and unplayable

In my case, I have stopped finding this issue. I've managed to test it out on the following driver versions:

- 576.88
- 581.29
- 581.42
- ASUS Notebook Drivers (561.00 based)

Since 0.3.1 I've not encountered the loading logo of death. I do clean reinstall every time (the last cycle with DDU between versions to boot) and, while I feel the Vulkan performance was a tad bit more consistent than DX12, I've managed to run both API's without major issues. Between each driver reinstall I do the full shader cache clear, and delete the minimap folder just for completeness' sake.

I do still believe the DX12 engine render path is absurdly bad in optimization and performance - there is a constant shader hit that's really taxing.

Related to downgrading drivers again, this seems to only happen in the PoE engine, Diablo 4 and other games don't:
- Suffer any weird engine crash issues
- Suffer any performance penalties in DX12/Vulkan

I've also started annoying Nvidia directly with this issue, but being a single post in their driver forum, it get's passed over - will share the URL's so more people will complain and they'll acknowledge the issue and move the needle (If only to tell GGG to get their game up in engine coding for DX12):
581.47 driver thread - https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/game-ready-drivers/13/575700/announcing-geforce-hotfix-driver-58147-released-93/3568058/
581.42 driver thread - https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/game-ready-drivers/13/575454/geforce-grd-58142-feedback-thread-released-93025/3568051/

Nvidia started acknowledging - go in and drop your settings and findings

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/game-ready-drivers/13/576272/geforce-grd-58157-feedback-thread-released-101425/3570149/