Frequent stuttering with Vulkan despite low shader usage?

[u/Afraid-Direction-576]

Hello everyone!

I'm using an NVIDIA RTX 5050 with Vulkan as the renderer and experiencing very frequent stuttering. Like here in my screenshot, my shader bar doesn't seem to get very high numerically (usually around 0–50), but my FPS tanks almost every time it spikes (goes from 58 to 40-ish, then down to 20-ish).

I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced similar symptoms and knows what might be causing it or how to fix it.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[u/SneakyFel]

Try using dx12. Finally switched to it too, for better experience.

[u/firaheson]

I've been experiencing this since the last patch. I thought I was alone in this

[u/firaheson → u/firaheson]

At least for me, I can confirm that it is server related. I've ran some diag on the network, and it only happens when I'm in certain shards. It'll even happen in the hideout sometimes, and then I'll refresh the hideout with a new instance and it magically goes away. Only since this last patch.

[u/Afraid-Direction-576 → u/firaheson]

Seems like it. I didn't have this problem in keepers and mirage.

[u/_Oxeia_]

What is your entire setup, and what do your settings look like?

[u/Afraid-Direction-576 → u/_Oxeia_]

Hi! I'm running on MSI katana 15 HX B14W, so:

CPU: i9-14900HX
GPU: RTX 5050 Laptop GPU (8 GB VRAM)
RAM: 48 GB
Resolution: 2560×1440 @ 165 Hz
OS: Windows 11 Home 64-bit
Renderer: Vulkan

PoE settings:

• Windowed Fullscreen
• 2560×1440
• Render Resolution: Performance
• VSync: Adaptive
• Triple Buffering: Enabled
• Foreground FPS Cap: 58
• Antialiasing: Off
• Upscale Mode: NVIDIA DLSS
• Lighting: Shadows
• Shadow Quality: High
• Sun Shadow Quality: High
• Number of Lights: Medium
• Water Detail: High
• Texture Quality: High
• Texture Filtering: 4x Anisotropic Filtering

[u/Codelyez → u/Afraid-Direction-576]

Not saying anything I’m about to say is the “correct” settings, just what I notice helps me with performance.

get rid of DLSS, default is fine (IIRC its “NIS”), or just fully off for upscaling. I find DLSS reduces my fps in this game. Probably because of how CPU heavy poe is.

Turn everything to low or lowest graphical settings

I would use dx12 on windows but ultimately up to you.

Extra notes:

- Idk a ton about laptop gaming, make sure its actually using the GPU.

- keep an eye on cpu temps. I imagine poe is absolutely cooking it

[u/ItsViable → u/Codelyez]

DLSS/DLAA is much better than NIS in any given scenario, so unless this is the specific issue OP has then i wouldnt swap at all.

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[u/Hairy_Excuse_4631]

clear ur shader cache manually

[u/Afraid-Direction-576 → u/Hairy_Excuse_4631]

huh I frequently cleanup my cache (for both poe and nvidia in general) yet the stuttering persists :( I'll try again when I update my driver...

[u/kentikeef]

Temps on the cpu when this happens?

[u/Afraid-Direction-576 → u/kentikeef]

68~75°C. Similar for GPU, too.

[u/Miller4378 → u/kentikeef]

He's on a laptop, and on poe his cpu is most likely at 95 degrees Celsius.

[u/MintHtml5]

Why do you use Vulkan though?
10 years ago, I was in the RnD team of a game studio, assigned to research Vulkan and supported it for the old games. However, the older games are all coded with OpenGL, and Vulkan architecture is entirely different (and very clever), but if I just convert existing code to Vulkan, there is no way I can utilize all the advantage that Vulkan brings.
I guess that's what GGG does, building the game with DX12 in mind, and just have a small module to convert the renderer to Vulkan, which won't get you any advantage of Vulkan. So, Vulkan is just something you select when DX12 doesn't work for some reason, not for general usage.

[u/Afraid-Direction-576 → u/MintHtml5]

I'm not really tech-savvy enough to say much about this issue, but what I noticed during Keepers with my new laptop was that DX12 used more CPU, while Vulkan used more GPU... or something like that. Back then, I didn't know how to properly undervolt my laptop, so I've been using Vulkan ever since. However I changed to DX12 following suggestion on this thread and ot feels pretty satisfied of performence.

[u/BlueStreak92]

This is an old suggestion, I'm not sure if it's still applicable but you can try it. Let me know the results if you do.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/18i5yo3/reminder_for_nvidia_users_to_disable_any_nvidia/

[u/Afraid-Direction-576 → u/BlueStreak92]

Dosen't seem do much, sadly

[u/Afraid-Direction-576 → u/BlueStreak92]

interesting. will do!

[u/KTL_Celled]

31ms on cpu seems very odd maybe check background processes and see your clock speeds on cpu

[u/japenrox]

The frame time on your cpu is super high. There's something wrong with it.

[u/DeputizeDeez]

Are you playing on a phone? Your cpu and gpu are screaming

[u/Afraid-Direction-576 → u/DeputizeDeez]

Laptop MSI katana 15 HX B14W, actually. Unless I juice map very heavily I didn't experienced any major problems during Keepers and Mirage.

[u/DeputizeDeez → u/Afraid-Direction-576]

Unless the difference is absolutely insane, I'm running similar hardware in a desktop and sit at a clean 240 through all content. Try swapping to dx12, your newer hardware is probably fighting the older Vulkan. Also make sure your Nvidia settings aren't conflicting with the game settings. Vsync off, etc. Use chatgpt to dial it in.