GGG is ZERO help so let's get serious on why some players have major lags with Synthesis

With many threads on the performance problems some players are experiencing with Synthesis (especially Intervention) and nothing coming from GGG on this (crickets chirping) it falls upon us to have to troubleshoot this ourselves and see if we can see a Windows pattern of why this is occurring.

To start here are my gaming rig specs:

• Intel i7 870 oc'ed to 3.5 GHz (all threads) up to 3.8 GHz (single thread)
• 8 GB ram
• 500 GB SSD (older Samsung 840)
• 6 GB Geforce 1060 AMP! gpu
• Windows 7 Pro

Very modest by today's computer standards but easily enough for me to run Synthesis 3.6.3, do memory fragment runs, syndicate battles including Incursion, and not seriously lag or freeze out at any time (just the normal framerate drops that always occur with battling too many mob packs simultaneously). I will add that I have run this cpu oc'd for many years now and never ever crash (massive cpu dual fan air cooler + many extra case fans... nothing overheats).

To start the analysis here is how I have PoE configured:

My Win7 memory usage while at the start of PoE on the Twilight Strand Beach (Windows 7 baseline):



My total memory usage is at 62% of the total 8 GB ram I have. There are 31 processes running of which 15 are not essential to running Windows 7. So I have about as lean a Windows 7 Pro as it can get. I have PoB running taking up 230.67K of memory. Also I did set these 2 things:

Virtual memory disabled:


Processor Scheduling set to programs:



After running up the beach and killing Hillock:

Only 1% more memory used running up the beach killing Zombies , Sand Spitters, and finally Hillock. So far nothing out of the ordinary.

Next I loaded a witch build into level 10 (Oriath Docks):

Only 64% memory used (up 1% more).

I started up my browser (Vivaldi):

Another 12% memory used by Vivaldi with 5 tabs in use (it will use more memory the more tabs I open).

I then ran The Canals and The Feeding Trough zones up to the final battle:

Yikes, I'm up to 94% memory used (another 18% allocated by PoE), probably for all the assets running these 2 zones. Depending on the zone/map I can easily see that amount go way up with a greater variety of creatures and other graphic and audio assets that are needed.


So if I do run out of memory with my swap file (virtual memory) disabled (for test purposes), I should expect that PoE will crash.

The take away from this is that on my bare bones Windows 7 Pro (only 16 core OS proceses in use) I have used up my 8 GB of ram. Windows 10 is a more complicated OS for sure and I've seen task manager show 50+ memory processes easily.

So what does all this prove? That PoE is a memory hog? We already knew that long ago. Most definitely it is physically showing that PoE 3.6.3 has outgrown 8 GB of ram for Windows 10 and probably soon my old Windows 7 if I want to keep my browser and PoB running in the background. My "filthy casual" player observations of PoE running on Windows 7 Pro tells me not to be in any great hurry to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro unless I am willing to double my ram to 16 GB.

More importantly, this info is telling me that on an average Windows 10 Pro installation that players with only 8 GB ram are running out of physical memory and Win10 is invoking its virtual memory voodoo function to dump something to the swap file to free up space for PoE. Any unexpected disk access is a performance killer for sure and could easily explain why some players say Syndicate Incursions don't freeze PoE and others do get frozen and lag die as Windows is having to do memory segment swapping and the server simulation is totally oblivious to that and is merrily processing the syndicate member(s) and minions attacking the poor exile to death while client PoE is stuck waiting for Windows to rejuggle memory.

I think it's high time that GGG be transparent on this and tell all players that we must have 16 GB of ram to run PoE on Windows 10 and to expect extra delays running with only 8 GB ram. I'm sure they won't as it will lose them some new players (damn I only have 8 GB ram so I can't play PoE) but in the long run it would serve GGG and players better to be told the real truth of what our gaming rig specs must be to play PoE.

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I'd like to get some serious feedback from players running Windows 10 on 8 GB and 16 GB to verify that not enough memory is the biggest reason PoE is lagging/freezing.

Thanks.

It's as simple as other games working completely fine and PoE lagging/freezing like crazy.

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IIPheXII wrote:

It's as simple as other games working completely fine and PoE lagging/freezing like crazy.

But most other games don't need anywhere near the memory that PoE requires. I wanted to focus only on the memory PoE requires as we all know there are other performance problems, the biggest one being that the GGG founders were cash poor at the start and had to roll their own game engine and learned how on the fly so without a top quality professional game engine at its core PoE performance suffers greatly.

Keep in mind that the engine is constatnly being worked on. It gets modular changes every league. I wouldn't be surprised if it was 99.9% different now compared to what it was when they first created it. One of the devs said in an interview that no other currently available engine would be able to stomach the sheer insanity that players can do in this game. Shit like self sustaining and autocasting 200 ignites per second for example.

My guess is that the problem stems from the sheer amount of stuff there currently is in maps. When betrayal was on it's own, it wasn't really a problem (though I'm not sure if interventions caused lags in maps with alva in it, I didn't play betrayal that much), but now we get three encounters (which all need different assets) on top of a large side zone that has an active component to it.

Compared to a normal map in standart we now have about twice the amount of monster types, two additional side areas and between 3 and 9 additional unique monsters that can have additional modifiers that need even more stuff for their animations.
I wouldn't be surprised if the cause for lag is simply just too much content at once. Does anyone know if beyond, breaches, abysses or even just the "increased monster variety" mod make the lagging worse? That would pretty much prove the theory.

i never had any freezes or lags this league even with syndicate. running windows 10 with 16 GB

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LowBudget780 wrote:

You can't expect a 10 year old 3.5ghz processor to run everything flawlessly, especially a CPU intensive game like Poe.

Please take note: I am running PoE 3.6.3 with no Incursion Syndicate freeze up or severe lags. I put up this thread because I am tired of someone every week putting up a new thread stating that they are freezing/lagging, thus Syndicate is shit and "please fix GGG". If it is simply a lack of enough memory to keep Windows from needing to use its Virtual Memory function then there is nothing that GGG can do to "fix PoE" as there isn't a major flaw causing the stall.

FYI: The Intel i7-870 is a 2.93 GHz 4 core/8 thread (hyperthreading) cpu that I have very carefully and expertly oc'ed to 3.5 to 3.8 GHz. Just because it is now a decade old doesn't make it unable/unsuitable to run everything, including PoE. At some point I will need to upgrade my ram to 16 GBs and get a new cpu + motherboard as future versions of PoE will need more memory but today I am ok.

you guys just need to upgrade your potaters, its a simple as that i hate the syndicate because it's forced content but i never had any lag or freeze because of it .

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Exxxiled665 wrote:

you guys just need to upgrade your potaters, its a simple as that i hate the syndicate because it's forced content but i never had any lag or freeze because of it.

Ok, so some like Synthesis mechanic and some hate it. That's normal for any challenge league.

But the weekly posts stating they freeze/lag in Incursions needs to be dealt with and explained by GGG. Staying silent on this (ignoring that it's happening) is bad form by GGG.

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Arrowneous wrote:

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Exxxiled665 wrote:

you guys just need to upgrade your potaters, its a simple as that i hate the syndicate because it's forced content but i never had any lag or freeze because of it.

Ok, so some like Synthesis mechanic and some hate it. That's normal for any challenge league.

But the weekly posts stating they freeze/lag in Incursions needs to be dealt with and explained by GGG. Staying silent on this (ignoring that it's happening) is bad form by GGG.

i never had any freeze or lag in ANY league not just this one. this is what i'm running the game on https://www.acer.com/ac/en/AE/content/predator-model/NH.Q29EM.002

This issue is just getting ignored. Been seeing posts about it for a seek or two but GGG is nowhere to be seen. They even disabled e-mail support altogether.