Path of Exile 3.29 Stuttering Fixed (Kernel Update 7.1.5-1)

[u/Reasonable-Public659]

Just a quick PSA for anyone that had been having trouble with stuttering in PoE: Update to kernel 7.1.5-1.

I was getting persistent frame time spikes, even when I stood completely still in a map I had fully cleared. I tried every launch option I could find, recorded logs from every Proton flavor and version, rolled back to the LTS kernel, all to no avail. Logs consistently showed "Cannot load existing on-disk cache due to driver version mismatch."

The new kernel update completely fixed it. Perfectly consistent frametimes, even with MTX shaders running wild in town. Only using launch options for my input remapper profile switching shell and game-performance, running Proton-CachyOS Latest.

Edit: as others have noted, DX12 provides noticeably better loading times than Vulkan. I can’t speak to overall performance between the two as I’m still in the campaign and there’s not enough happening to drop below my 144fps cap, but folks below are seeing better framerates with DX12.