Path of Exile Loading Screen Times (Death on Load)

I'm going to start by posting the specs of my laptop, and then I'll explain my problem..

AMD A8-4500M (1900 MHz) Quad Core 2MB L2 Cache
4GB DDR3 PC3 12800 (800 mhz)
ATI/AMD Radeon HD 7640G 512MB (3GB shared max.)

The game itself runs great on this laptop. I can run everything on high, with anti-aliasing, though I do see quite abit of performance decrease when there are alot of spellcasters in party so I usually don't use anti-aliasing and such.

The problem I'm having is with the load screen. It generally takes about 30-40 seconds for me to load the game when running it from the desktop, and changing instances can take up to 25 or 30 seconds aswell. This wouldn't be much of a problem except for the fact that my character appears in the instance before the load screen has ended, meaning that my character is defenseless as the screen is black and can't control him/her.

It's a major problem for me when trying to solo certain bosses, or when porting into a battle from town. I've died three times because of it, I load into the instance and I can hear fighting in the background but the load screen is "hanging" and so I can't control my character or see whatever is happening to him.

I wanted to know if anyone else has experienced this problem, and if anyone has a solution. It would also be very nice if someone could help me troubleshoot the issue. I've updated all of my drivers, I don't think it's a hardware issue because the game runs perfectly and I think it's just the actual load screen that's hanging because I can hear the combat sounds even when I'm still on the loading screen.

I have the same problem as you. :(

Lost 3x50s and 1x60 on hardcore to it. Favourite spot to die seems to be crematorium.

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zewk wrote:

I have the same problem as you. :(

Lost 3x50s and 1x60 on hardcore to it. Favourite spot to die seems to be crematorium.

Can you post your hardware? I died twice on Battlefront, and once to Merveil.

One word (well, technically three words): SSD.

I've seen the game played on a total of 6 PCs. Three of these (one laptop, two desktops) have SSDs, and three use standard platter drives. All three of the platter drive systems have really long load times (about as long as you describe), but the three SSD based systems load new areas in just a couple seconds. I will say that none of the systems I've seen put the player in the zone *before* things finished loading - or at least no characters died as a result -- so there may be a larger problem that you're running into.

Still, at some point, you should consider putting a SSD in your system (if budget and convenience allows). The benefits, even outside of PoE, are immense.

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RParade wrote:

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zewk wrote:

I have the same problem as you. :(

Lost 3x50s and 1x60 on hardcore to it. Favourite spot to die seems to be crematorium.

Can you post your hardware? I died twice on Battlefront, and once to Merveil.

I got seagate momentus XT. It's all about the harddrive and mine doesn't seem to be good enough. It's some kind of hybrid.

Either get a SSD, or 16gb+ ram and use a RAM Drive.

Wish I had seen this before :(

Unfortunately, all previous posts are correct about the use of a Solid State. The difference I had when changing to a SSD during closed beta was phenomenal.

The good news, for those who can, is that SSD's are getting much cheaper. I originally bought my measly 120 GB SSD specifically because of PoE. Reinstalled Windows and PoE to the SSD, put everything else on my 1.5 TB HDD.

However, after seeing the difference in Windows boot times (loading 400K fonts on an HDD blows!) and PoE start-up and loading screens, I got curious. I then tossed my photo and video editing software and a couple other games on the SSD as well. That 120GB just didnt cut it.

Now I am running on two 256 GB Samsung 840 Pro Series that I got on Newegg's Shell Shocker deals for less (each) than I paid for my original 120 GB.

I can never go back. <3 SSD

SSD are cheapest way to go.