Unable to do Twinned Dungeon boss, recent changes?

Hi, it seems recent changes/patches have changed something with regard to graphical performance/load, which seems to especially have hit Dungeon boss when Twinned.

This happened yesterday.
I went into the Arena in that map, but whenever both bosses came on-screen at the same time, the screen froze for 4-5 seconds, and ofc I was dead after that.
I tried twice, same thing happened both times.

I had put up a portal inside the arena, so couldn't get back in to do /bug in that map, at least not without losing more xp, which I absolutely did not feel like.

Today, doing a single-boss Dungeon map, there's a noticeable but manageable lag when the AoE attack occurs. I suspect it's this, that overloads something when twinned, but I could be wrong.


Later today, I experienced something similar, in single-boss Primordial Pool map.

When Malachai-lookalike cast corrupted blood pool the first time, the screen froze for ca. 3-4 seconds, and then I was dead, as I was standing in it.

When entering 20 mins later, after having written this, there was no freeze, just some minor lag, and the boss fight was fairly easy.

I did /bug in that map, no. 1.541.280.488, but that might not be very useful to you.
I am also not going to bother with a screenshot, as that would not provide any useful information.


My PC specs:

GPU: AMD/ATI HD5770 with 1 GB RAM. (not the latest and greatest ofc, but has worked fine until now). Using driver from Windows Update, ATI 8.850.0.0, dated 19-04-2011.

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 240e, will be upgraded soon to quadcore 615e.

RAM: 8 GB DDR2

SDD: 480 GB Crucial BX200, fairly new, and at only 14% filled.

Motherboard: Asrock AliveXFire-eSATA2, AMD 480X Northbridge, ATI SB600 Southbridge.

OS: Windows 7 x64.

PoE was installed from website, not through Steam.

PoE DirectX version: 9Ex (auto-chosen).

I am an IT-supporter myself, and I must say, this feels like being the equivalent of an unpaid beta-tester for this game.


I don't suppose you will give my char, RexOfWraeclast, 30% xp back?

No, you won't be getting any XP back. :/

One thing you may want to try is adding --noasync as a command line parameter.

Click me

The drawback to this is that your loading times will go up a bit, but everything will get pre-loaded. Based on what you have said, it sounds like your rig is having issues when new assets are loaded. This should alleviate that.

I was actually going to make a separate thread about also having longer loading times and freezes/stuttering with recent changes, but it's mostly in large/full party, and it also seems to be involving AoE effects.

As an aside, hideouts with the golden particle effect are super-laggy for me.
Shrines with Ice Nova also create stutter, not a lot, but enough that I don't bother with them.

I will try out --noasync, but it will suck a bit if it means longer loading times generally.

It will probably have to be turned off for rotas, but since I'm almost at 8 with all masters..

I do think preloading most stuff is the right way to do things, shouldn't even be a consideration.
AoE effects should just be preloaded, period.

Now, this makes me ask, when a freeze/stutter happens due to long loading time, would it be possible to make 'time' stop in both server+client instance, so your char is not killed due to it?

Even if only in single-play / non-party, that would help a lot.

Also, HC leagues must be either having a fit about stutters/freezes, or needing top-notch gaming pc's?