Want to know the VRAM amount PoE uses

I have an older videocard with only 1GB VRAM, a Radeon 5870 on a i5-2500k@4.4GHz PC with 16GB DDR3-1600. Path of Exile is on a SSD.

When I enter a new area or a map my framerate often crashes to single digits. movement is totally jerky if I can move at all. The videocard usage then is pretty much negligible, never near 100% in PoE anyways. I then wait 2-3 seconds while it recovers, sorta. This especially happens when any other program in the background also uses a bit of graphics (e.g. another game).

At the same time, playing PoE, MSI Afterburner pretty much reports a videocard VRAM usage of 950-1000MB constantly.
I set every graphics option I could find to the lowest setting, no AA, low shadows, medium textures, etc.

So my guess is, I don't really have enough VRAM for the game, especially when there is something running in the background too.

So my question is twofold:
a) which of the PoE versions is the least hardware hungry for VRAM: DX9, DX9 extended, DX11? 32 or 64Bit versions?
b) how much videocard memory does it use for you people typically? E.g people with a 4GB Videocard could maybe look.

I'd like to have this info so I can shop better for a new card and the amount of memory it needs to have


If someone with a 2GB or better 4GB videocard could please download GPU-z https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-gpu-z/
It's a simgple program which doesn't need to be installed just run, no installation. On its "sensors" tab it shows the currently used amount of video memory 6th line from the top. Play a bit of PoE and then check.
Knowing how much memory PoE uses would help me greatly to shop for a new card.

I'd assume DX9 uses less VRAM - but that would mean using the 32-bit client, which I'd avoid.

I definitely wouldn't run two games with 1GB of VRAM.

Turn shadows off. its usually one of the most "intensive" option to have for the computer

Well, running 2 programs at the same time worked together with PoE for a loooong time. It's only lately,over time, when PoE started to improve its graphics that the problem started to become more pronounced.

Normally, shadows are CPU bound IIRC. But will try.

As I edited in the first post of this thread: someone with a better videocard, with more VRAM than me, please run GPU-z, which is a quick way to check how much memory PoE uses, please.

I've got a GTX 970 with 4GB of vram, yet my PoE, with all minimal settings and in windowed fullscreen, is hogging about 2800-3200 mb of vram in game with nothing else running.