Game Clients: Path of Exile on Steam vs Path of Exile website download

Greetings,

I am just wondering what the difference is between the version of Path of Exile available on Steam vs the version of Path of Exile available on the Path of Exile website. Is there really and advantage to having one over the other?

Regards,

Wolfy339

not really, use whatever makes you happy. PoE's website client is a little smaller in size and doesn't take as much time to update

Some users/players are pretty vocal about the non-Steam client to be faster and more reliable than the Steam client. I've tested both (thoroughly), and find them both pretty much the same, other that the fact that updates through Steam are bigger in size.

update patches on steam can be 5 times as big as the ones on here so if you have a slow connection or then dont pick steam,.

I don't have an SSD, and Steam client gave me hell of a time - long loading times, random freezes and fps drops. Then I've read that the standalone client worked better for people with simmilar issues so I downloaded it and it really worked wonders - no more random freezes, better loading times and 10x faster updates. I don't know what the hell Steam is doing with those updates that a few Mb update can take 30 minutes.

If you have an SSD/good hardware you probably won't feel any difference - apart from the update part of course.

P.S. You can link both accounts. Even though I now use standalone client I log into Steam client if I want to buy something with a Steam Wallet.

Playing the game - absolutely no difference - you MAY need to disable the Steam Overlay tho, that seems to be a problem for some systems and not others...

Updating - HUGE difference as Steam does not support 'file patching' - developers must supply new copies of any changed file and PoE is basically just one-big-file so Steam has to download the ENTIRE game at every update...

I gave-up on the Steam version for that reason alone...

Hope that helps

p.s. Steam integrates achievements and shows-off your playtime to people if that's your bag - most of my friends think I stopped playing PoE and I'm not about to admit I didn't - yet - at least...

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esostaks wrote:

If you have an SSD/good hardware you probably won't feel any difference - apart from the update part of course.

No SSDs here either. Internet connection is 30Mb/s fiber. Hardware wise - Intel Core i7-8700 (3.2Ghz, turbo mode to ~4.2Ghz. 6 physical/12 logical cores), Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti, and 16GB of RAM. I think those specs should be more than sufficient for either client.

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Wolfy339 wrote:

"

esostaks wrote:

If you have an SSD/good hardware you probably won't feel any difference - apart from the update part of course.

No SSDs here either. Internet connection is 30Mb/s fiber. Hardware wise - Intel Core i7-8700 (3.2Ghz, turbo mode to ~4.2Ghz. 6 physical/12 logical cores), Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti, and 16GB of RAM. I think those specs should be more than sufficient for either client.

I assume that PC wasn't specced for gaming?

i7 and 16Gb good - 1050Ti less good (tho enough for PoE) - no SSD is absoutely bonkers tho.

An SSD is the single-best-thing you can put into a PC - I'd argue Win10 NEEDS an SSD to work properly and those 'logout login' teleports in PoE are WAY quicker if nothing else ;0

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ohnpeat wrote:

I assume that PC wasn't specced for gaming?

i7 and 16Gb good - 1050Ti less good (tho enough for PoE) - no SSD is absoutely bonkers tho.

An SSD is the single-best-thing you can put into a PC - I'd argue Win10 NEEDS an SSD to work properly and those 'logout login' teleports in PoE are WAY quicker if nothing else ;0

I was trying to spec the machine for gaming, however, its also a general use machine and probably treading the line spec wise. The 1050Ti was an upgrade from a much older Radeon 57x0 card that AMD stopped making drivers for. The only reasons I don't have an SSD at present are -
1. Cost (too expensive per GB, IMO)
2. Capacity (for the capacity I'm looking for - 2TB or better - its expensive if even available)
3. Reliability (I think SSDs aren't quite on par with mechanical drives for reliability yet, but soon will be).
Only reasons I didn't go higher on the video card was:
1. Cost - I believe the 1080Ti, which was the latest and greatest at the time I bought the 1050Ti, was easily over $700 and I'm not going to pay that for a video card. Sue me
2. The fact that my current monitor does not have an HDMI port or a DisplayPort port - and no, adapters are not the solution, I have seen too many of them fail.

That said, my machine has been working OK, though maybe not as fast as with an SSD, for the most part with traditional mechanical drives. An SSD might be on the list for a future upgrade due to the read and write speed/throughput factor becoming more difficult to ignore. The monitor is a few years old (Samsung SyncMaster 2443BWX) and is on my upgrade list, if only so I can get a monitor with HDMI and/or DisplayPort ports.

3-yo i5, 16GB, 1060, SSD, Win10 and a decent internet connection. I have tried both and don't notice any difference. Both are plenty fast on a 1440 and downloading patches.