Nvidia High Definition Audio Driver causes severe performance issues - Many users may not be aware
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As the title says, on my system the Nvidia Audio Device Driver causes severely degraded performance while playing PoE. I experienced this issue notably in patch 3.15, and I could barely play the league because when I tried to interact with any league mechanic, or tried to kill packs of monsters, my game would turn into a slideshow. I couldn't properly play, and as much I enjoyed Expedition as a league mechanic, it was unplayable performance wise. I didn't want to support the league because I thought it was the game, turns out it was my software configuration.
I learned about this performance issue after disabling the games sound effects in the productions_config.ini file. I turned off sound effects and the game turned from a 1-5 FPS slideshow to smooth 60 fps, didn't matter what content I was doing. Clearing a map had never felt better. I achieved near similar results by disabling the "Nvidia High Definition Audio" and "Nvidia Virtual Audio Device" in windows Device Manager. This is where I learned of the performance fix. https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/fjw702/nvidia_users_disable_those_2_for_a_huge/ This is an issue affecting many players, which most are probably blaming the game. I shared this fix with one of my Path of Exile buds, and he experienced the same benefits. He disabled his Nvidia Audio Device Drivers and experienced much better performance. Today Nov. 11, around 7PM, I ran a map and noticed my performance turned into a sluggish slideshow when I opened a Legion. Textures loaded in slowly on mobs, too. I went and checked my device manager, and somehow my Nvidia HD Audio driver was re-enabled.  (Somehow got re-enabled) I disabled the driver, restarted my machine, and now the game runs fine. Please look into this. Many players probably experienced the same performance "loss" that I felt similar to 3.15, and blamed it entirely on the game. It's severely demoralizing to play a game that cannot function during regular gameplay. It deters players from wanting to play, and 3.15 was personally my worst experience to date. Last edited by Atimar549 on Nov 11, 2021, 9:50:54 PM Last bumped on Nov 12, 2021, 1:28:42 PM
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Being the PoE friend that OP mentions, I feel I should give my perspective.
<tldr>: PoE optimization is poor. Disable the Audio driver. Check back as it seems to re-eneable periodically. Since my laptop is about 4 years old at this point, its probably no surprise that I struggle with performance issues is PoE. Coming from D3, I've had never had any issues with performance, but since day 1 I've struggled to sustain 20fps in PoE with the lowest settings. I can attest to the demoralizing feelings that come with loving a game that plays like a slideshow. This league, my performance is unfortunately no better than normal. An average session consists of 30s+ loading screens for maps (god forbid I have to go to Town), and the 1st scourge switch of every map incurring a hard 2s freezeframe. All of the great changes this league have helped me look past this, but its always been an issue none the less. **Having disabled all game audio (excluding loot drops) set to 'false' in the productions_config.ini file, and disabling the NVIDIA HD Audio Driver provided noticeable improvements in game performance. The 2s Scourge freezeframe issue persists.** | |
" Great work and cool tip. :) | |
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Dude,
You basicly saved me from quiting this league. Thanks a lot, but that's kinda concerning about the game optimization.. |
