Performance degradation observed after patch 0.2

Hi,

I started experiencing performance degradation after the release of patch 0.2 (more details below). I did not encounter these issues prior to Dawn of the Hunt, so I don't believe it's related to outdated drivers or power settings, despite many discussions suggesting to check those.

My system specs:
CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K
GPU: Nvidia RTX 2070 Super

Issue description:
The root cause of the performance drop appears to be irregular CPU spikes. While idle in the Act 1 map (no mobs nearby, not interacting with anything), CPU frame times fluctuate continuously between 8ms and 30+ms, which causes noticeable FPS drops. Meanwhile, the GPU remains stable at around 7ms.

Temporary workaround:
I found a temporary fix that resolves the issue — until the game client is reopened. The steps are:
1) Navigate to C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Roaming\Path of Exile 2
2) Delete the following folders: ShaderCacheD3D12 and Minimap

After deleting these, the game briefly rebuilds the cache, during which performance is slightly lower. However, once the rebuild completes, CPU spikes disappear and performance stabilizes — until the next restart.

I hope this gets addressed soon, as the performance issues currently make the game difficult to play.

I fixed the issue on my end. The root cause was that the CPU frequency was fluctuating between 1GHz and 3GHz (this can be checked in the Windows task manager).

To resolve the issue, I adjusted the Minimum processor state setting:

1) Open the Edit Power Plan window via Windows Search.
2) Click on the Change advanced power settings link.
3) Ensure that the High Performance option is selected in the top dropdown (This was already selected on my machine, so I didn't change it).
4) Find Processor power management in the list and expand it.
5) Set the Minimum processor state to 0% (it was previously set to 100%).

After making this change, my CPU frequency became stable at 4.7GHz, and this resolved the CPU spike issue.