how to improve my load times?

I have ssd and normal hdd. Installed it initially on hdd and later moved it to ssd as the load times are bigger then I expected.
I measured game startup time and on my hdd it is 1min 8sec, on ssd about 18sec.

It could be slow hard disk, it could also be low RAM space which causes disk swapping (data moved in and out of RAM onto a virtual memory on the hard disk, making loading horribly slow).

Firstly, if you are unsure what the cause should be, do post your system spec.


As for SSD drive, they are much faster than traditional drives because they are a purely electronic storage device, no any mechanical parts. But if you are limited on RAM, then you will still have a problem.

Generally, you'll need 4GB or more for Windows 7. Some may claim that they can run it with 2GB of RAM, but I'll bet that disk swapping occurs.

the only thing that will give a significant difference is a ssd if your cpu is decent.

if you don't have enough money try a usb flash drive.
the amount of load time saved is almost identical for many games.

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CommodoX wrote:

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incendium wrote:

SSD, there is cheap ones - you only need like a 16-64gb one...

Uuugh .... technically flawed, wouldn't use one if I get it gifted ..... sure, still faster than a HDD and much more IOPs, but with SLC-cells insteand of MLC and old controller with outdated wear-leveling algos = herp derp.

If you buy cheap, you buy shit - that's the rule for SSDs. And without knowing the hardware facts, don't buy anything (rule applies for everything, but especially for IT-stuff, so much crap out there for uninformed customers).

SLC is *much* faster than MLC... The advantage of MLC is that it's cheap and high density. Pretty much all decently sized consumer SSDs are MLC, so it's not that relevant anyway. Also, the days where only high-end models have mature SATA3 controllers are in the past.

Telling people never to buy anything unless they're experts in hardware details is a rather unrealistic and elitist position to take. Especially since you got the hardware details wrong ;)

There are obviously some SSDs that are better than others, but "if you buy cheap, you buy shit" is laughably far from the truth at this point. The rise of cheap, reliable SSDs is one of the most notable and important changes in the consumer hardware market over the past year.

OP: you should really invest in an SSD. Wait for a Newegg sale and you can get a good one for less than $1/GB, sometimes considerably less. If that's not an option, you could try ReadyBoost with a fast USB thumb drive.

Yup, SSD. I tried playing the game tonight on my brother's PC with an SSD, it was like a completely different game. Smooth, no load stutters, fast startup, fast zone switching. Wow.

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BurnOutBrighter wrote:

Yup, SSD. I tried playing the game tonight on my brother's PC with an SSD, it was like a completely different game. Smooth, no load stutters, fast startup, fast zone switching. Wow.

And ofc this game load shitloads amount of data and we all need to buy SSD for medicore looking ARPG with 10 textures used over and over and 3 mobs types per map.


GGG - fix your game. PoE should be perfectly playable without stuttering and lag of skills on 4GB of RAM and normal HDD. I dont see reason why i need SSD for this game when i can play for example Skyrim without stuttering (and i bet that skyrim streams 10 times more data from HDD than PoE).

The loadings and preloading skill effects are very broken in PoE atm (juts go on yt and see how some players that can run whole game on 60fps and stream in HD in the same time (or record movie) lags when Piety shots ONE ice arrow and in many, MANY other places (espacially bosses rooms in dungeons and some maps - foe example ACT 3 Swers ahve very strong issues with preloading effects) - clearly broken stuff) and this need to be fixed.

This dont change the fast that SSD is nice addition to gaming rig - but compeltely unnecesary for game like PoE (if the fix broken things). MMOS, open world games - OK but not HnS that loads only one area and eats 1-1,5 GB o RAM max.

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solistus wrote:

Telling people never to buy anything unless they're experts in hardware details is a rather unrealistic and elitist position to take.

Sure, but if you don't know what the technic stuff means you buy blind - nobody would buy a car blind, yet almost everybody does it with computers.

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solistus wrote:

Especially since you got the hardware details wrong ;)

#
Yep, messed SLC and MLC up, my bad :P.

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solistus wrote:

There are obviously some SSDs that are better than others, but "if you buy cheap, you buy shit" is laughably far from the truth at this point.

Shit = percentual compared to reliable SSDs (not crap with SandForce-controller for example).
Any SSD would improve heavily compared to a HDD, but that doesn't mean that somebody should buy the first SSD they see.

Sure, I'm a bit special and searched 4 months for a IPS-NonGlare-16:10-gamer-Pivo-FullHD-TFT till I found one matching my standards .... can't deny that.

try this

Open Windows Explorer and go to

C:\Documents and Settings\[User]\My Documents\My Games\Path of Exile

or
C:\Users\[User]\Documents\My Games\Path of Exile
depending on your version of Windows

Make a copy of the file production_Config.cfg
Open the file in your favourite editor.
Search for the [Display] section and replace it with these values:

[DISPLAY]
antialias_mode=0
borderless_windowed_fullscreen=false
fullscreen=true
post_processing=false
resolution_height=600
resolution_width=1024
screen_shake=false
shadow_type=no_shadows
texture_filtering=1
texture_quality=3
vsync=false

Save the file and restart Path of Exile

The parameter that has the most influence on loading times is texture_quality, the higher the value the faster the areas will load.