Probably solved.

REWARD:
I am offering to gift any player a stash tab or similarly-priced MTX of their choice if they have an answer or directly lead to information that fixes whatever issue I'm experiencing. This would take place through support. I am attaching a bounty to this not solely for the sake of wanting a fix, but because I suspect that there may be something for me to actually learn here. Plus, I have extra points laying around anyway.

Observed problem:
Yesterday, I was enjoying POE with approximately 150-160 FPS on Directx12, borderless windowed mode, and 1440p resolution. Upon exiting a map, my game decided to no longer perform at that level. In short, the machine now only runs at 107 FPS in fullscreen and 90 fps in borderless windowed in DX11. Vulkan performs even worse.

Hardware:
This is not a matter of old or insufficient hardware. I built this machine no more than two weeks ago in anticipation for the league.

CPU: Intel 13700k
GPU: RTX 4070ti
RAM: 32 GB
Storage: an SSD
Cooling: many fans, radiator, watercooling
Monitor: M27Q set to 170hz. Windows display settings set to 170hz. Monitor FPS counter confirms 170hz is functional. NOT a G-Sync monitor, nor do I have G-sync installed.

Observed utilization and temperatures:
CPU utilization before/after FPS disappearance: no more than 30%.
GPU utilization before/after FPS disappearance: high 90/100%. This is good.
CPU/GPU temperatures: nominal - never exceeds 60 degrees unless the room is warm. Generally stays around 45 degrees.

Power draw observations (is this where the issue lies?):
DX11, 1440p, fullscreen, max graphic options: 110 FPS by drawing 210-220 watts.
DX12, 1440p, fullscreen, max graphic options: 55 FPS by drawing about 130 watts.

4070ti max wattage is 285 watts. I don't know what wattage the card was drawing before this random change. Is it possible that the GPU is throttled somehow?

Attached is an image of my F1 readout in game while in a map walking around. You can see for yourself that everything is pretty stable.


This is what my F1 readout looked like before this FPS oddity happened. Note: the jitter is from popping a bunch of mobs.

=============================================================
Things I have tried so far:
- Hard resetting Windows
- Rolling back Windows Updates (though none transpired recently for me anyway)
- Using old Nvidia driver versions as well as the most recent
- Ensuring that Vsync is OFF in POE options and Nvidia Control Panel
- Disabling default Windows game recording, Xbox Game Bar
- Ensuring that POE draws from GPU instead of some other source
- Toggling between different renderers in POE (after this strange change, DX11 is what performs best at 110 FPS; DX12 seems to draw much less power)

Again, I am offering a bounty of any stash tab (or I suppose the small premium tab bundle) for any fixes that work or information that lead to squashing this problem. I would be gifting it by contacting support, saying who I'd like to gift to, and then going from there. May need to contact the intended recipient for confirmation in the support email exchange.

Thank you in advance.

Do you have FreeSync activated in your monitor settings?

"

luukseN wrote:

Do you have FreeSync activated in your monitor settings?

I have tried with and without it. It doesn't seem to make a difference one way or the other.

can you post a screenshot of your graphics tab in poe?

On my own Desktop, what changes a lot is to play with Fullscreen

BUT, since PoE requires so many external tools to be playable, if you use fullscreen, most of those tools won't work, especially the pricing macro.

So I am kinda of stuck as well

Edit: Weirdly, while borderless and turning VSync on solved my issues, may worth the shot

I have basically the same specs as you (4070ti, 13700k, 64gb ram), and your GPU usage seems like it's significantly higher than it should be. My GPU usage is usually around 50% or lower, but I'm also playing in 1080p.

Has your performance changed in any other games?

"

luukseN wrote:

can you post a screenshot of your graphics tab in poe?

Not at the moment - however, I tend to have everything set to the highest graphic offering at 2560x1440p. I've tried different configurations and nothing really changes.

However, of course, if I lower the resolution, the FPS "cap" I'm at does raise. Downgrading to 1080p does result in 170fps. This tipped me off earlier to look at GPU power usage... Editing the original post to include more information.

"

wykett wrote:

On my own Desktop, what changes a lot is to play with Fullscreen

BUT, since PoE requires so many external tools to be playable, if you use fullscreen, most of those tools won't work, especially the pricing macro.

So I am kinda of stuck as well

Edit: Weirdly, while borderless and turning VSync on solved my issues, may worth the shot

I can't recall if I've actually bothered to try both borderless and vsync at the same time since that does seem a little strange. But anything is worth giving a try at this point - I'll try it out when I log in later.

Fortunately I play SSF so I'm not hit as hard with having to be fullscreen, but I do like the easier transition from game to other things that borderless offers (work from home!), hence why I'm so caught up in this madness.

Try deleting caches and shaders. After that the game will probably stutter a bit until everything gets recompiled again. Not sure if will work or not but worth a try.

What strange is that you did not change anything but performance took a hit. I know you like running games on max but it worth tweaking with the settings a bit. Lots of times there is literally no visual difference between let's say high or ultra or normal vs high settings but the performance difference is noticable.

The cache is located in user\appdata\roaming\pathofexile\

I think you can delete minimap, shadercached3d11, motdcache

You can make backup copy of these folders just in case but should not be a problem but as I said the game will stutter until everything is reloaded/recompiled again for the first time.

I see that you took a look at the power draw already. It being so low, especially in DX12 mode, is very concerning. It should be close to 300W at all times when the GPU is maxed.

So what I would do now is check for the source of the throttling. It doesn't seem to be a bottleneck from the CPU or disk based on the ingame graphs. It all points to a problem with the GPU itself or the power delivery.

To start, you can download HWiNFO, run it in "sensor only" mode and scroll down to the GPU section. Then check the "GPU Performance Limiters" section and optionally post a screenshot of it while the issue is happening for further troubleshooting. It should at least tell you if the throttling is caused by a thermal hostpot (it could be happening even if the core temps are still within normal range if some other part of the GPU is overheating), the card being power limited (improper cable connection, faulty VRMs...) or something else.