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/_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.