Path of Exile News

Within the next few days (possibly as early as tomorrow), we're planning to deploy Patch 3.14.1d which includes the video memory utilisation improvements that we discussed last week.

[h3]3.14.1d Patch Notes[/h3]

• The Path of Exile client now utilises your system's video memory more efficiently, which means that assets will stay loaded for longer. For systems with sufficient video memory, this will result in significantly fewer assets being visibly loaded during gameplay.
  
• Added 'Wipe Cache' button in Options. While we clear Path of Exile's cache periodically, this button can be used on demand to attempt to troubleshoot issues that may be due to invalid files, or if the cache grows too large.
  

We'll be keeping a close eye on players' reports of their experiences after this patch. As we mentioned last week, this patch is not a panacea for every single graphical/performance issue in the game, but we expect it to have a large impact on making things feel a lot better for most users.

We have a few other performance/graphics related things to talk with you about (for example, cases of invisible monsters and their skills), and a couple of small tools on the way that will make diagnosing performance issues more efficient. We don't have a timeline for this just yet as we want to iterate further before announcing anything. In the meantime, we at least wanted to let you know this is on our radar.

We look forward to your feedback about the upcoming patch.

Community streamer, ThisIsBadger, has organised an exciting team vs team event which takes place this coming weekend! Participants will be randomly split into three teams to compete for points which are awarded for cumulative team level, Boss bounties, Delve depth, Heist collections and more! Teams will be assigned 72 hours prior to the event start.

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League Starts: May 21, 2021 1:00 PM PST
League Ends: May 25, 2021 1:00 PM PST

This event is open to everyone although there is a cap of 700 players per team (2100 spots in total). If you'd like to get involved, make sure you register here so that you don't miss out!

Good luck to all those participating!

The gloomy microtransactions from the previous Warlord Mystery Box are now available in the store! It's also still possible to combine some of the individual Suffering and Misery pieces into the 'Despair' cosmetic effects.

So that you don't miss out, we wanted to let you know early that later today at 9pm (PDT) we will also be offering a free Apollyon Mystery Box alongside our weekend sale when you spend any amount of points in the store! This sale will follow the normal free mystery box rules of one box per account. More information to come in our sales news later today.

Alongside the cosmetics from the original mystery box, we are also introducing the Suffering Mirage Archer Effect, which gives your mirage archers a menacing new look; and the Warlord Stash Skin Bundle, which gives you a further way to personalise your hideout.

Please note that the Warlord Stash Skin Bundle can be equipped to your Stash and Guild Stash via the Hideout Cosmetics UI and are only available in your hideout which means that they will not be displayed in town instances.

You can check out the original range of Warlord cosmetics and the new microtransactions in that theme in the videos below. You can also view the full range in the store by clicking here.

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Thank you for your support!

In the near future, we'll be making some improvements to how Path of Exile utilises your video memory. This post explains what impact that will have on your gameplay and when to expect the patch.

Graphics cards have a certain amount of Video RAM (VRAM), which is used to hold the various assets that we are rendering for the current game scene. If you run out of VRAM while playing under DirectX 11, our default renderer, the game will still work but your frame rate will drop as it has to render assets that reside in system memory. The graphics driver would also move assets back and forth between main memory and VRAM, further slowing things down. For users without enough VRAM, performance under DirectX11 is pretty terrible.

While the Vulkan rendering API has all sorts of performance benefits, it doesn't have the default-to-system-memory fallback that was present under DirectX 11, and its default behaviour is to just crash when out of memory. When we initially released the Beta version of our Vulkan renderer, some users would experience crashes during memory-intensive gameplay.

As either crashes or significantly degraded performance are both bad for game experience, it's important that a game engine manages what assets are in memory by unloading ones that haven't been used recently and aren't expected to be used again soon. Over the past year, we have added a system that unloads assets that the game expects to not need in the near future, and keeps VRAM usage at a conservative level. This has eliminated crashes and slowdown due to excessive VRAM usage but has unfortunately introduced other issues related to the lifecycle of assets in memory.

With assets now being loaded and unloaded dynamically during gameplay, we retooled the engine so that the assets could be loaded asynchronously without stalling rendering. Previously it would have been a stuttery mess, as the engine used to completely freeze until a new asset was entirely loaded.

However, what do you display when a texture is not yet loaded? In order to not display an entirely black texture, we added a technique called texture streaming where we have the lowest mip levels (i.e. low-detail versions) of each texture always in memory so that we can display something approximately correct more quickly. This is more desirable than the alternatives of having significant frame rate drops or nothing drawn at all. While texture streaming is a harmless visual optimisation, it is often incorrectly attributed to problems that are actually to do with the fact that the game unloaded an asset that it really shouldn't have.

A few paragraphs ago, we described our VRAM usage under this system as conservative. That means that our current implementation doesn't aggressively use all of your VRAM, and this causes players to get frustrated by assets being unnecessarily unloaded too early (for example, when you notice some items looking blurry for a short time).

Our engine team has been working on a better implementation that aggressively uses as much VRAM as it can to store as many assets as will fit. This is a good thing because users with mid-range or better graphics cards will experience assets being unloaded far less often than they currently do. It depends on how much VRAM you have, of course, but the issues that are currently attributed to resource unloading/texture streaming will be largely eliminated for many users. And of course, all of the above changes mean that users with low-end graphics cards don't experience crashes or frame rate drops when they run out of VRAM.

Our initial plan was to deploy this update in the next engine patch, which was previously scheduled for a week or two before 3.15's deployment in July. However we're very unhappy with the current situation so we are working towards pulling out this feature for deployment in the near future (ideally in the coming week, but we'll update this estimate as testing continues).

This change isn't a panacea for every single graphical/performance issue in the game, but is certainly going to have a large impact on making things feel a lot better for most users. Our engine team will continue to hunt down further problems and solve them. As always, thanks for your ongoing feedback and reports.

Whether Atziri, the Heist Rogues or the Trialmaster are your muse, it's time to let your creativity shine in our Fan Art competition! The theme for this competition is simply Path of Exile, so no matter what aspect of Wraeclast inspires you, it's time to show off your artistry.

[h2]Prizes[/h2]

Top Three Winners

• Custom forum avatar made from your submitted art
  
• Special made forum badge
  
• Signed Path of Exile Art Book
  
• Your choice of two Path of Exile T-shirts - (Chaos Orb, Shaper or Untainted Paradise)*
  
• Chaos Orb Keychain
  
• Brutus Art Print
  
• Your choice of an Armour Set (any Armour Set from the store)
  
• Your choice of a Weapon Effect (a Weapon Effect from the list below)
  
• Your choice of Helmet Effect (a Helmet Effect from the list below)
  

4-5th Place

• Signed Path of Exile Art Book
  
• Your choice of one Path of Exile T-shirts - (Chaos Orb, Shaper or Untainted Paradise)*
  
• Your choice of an Armour Set (any Armour Set from the store)
  
• Your choice of a Weapon Effect (a Weapon Effect from the list below)
  
• Your choice of Helmet Effect (a Helmet Effect from the list below)
  

6-10th Place

• Your choice of one Path of Exile T-shirts - (Chaos Orb, Shaper or Untainted Paradise)*
  
• Your choice of a Weapon Effect (a Weapon Effect from the list below)
  
• Your choice of Helmet Effect (a Helmet Effect from the list below)
  

11-20th Place

• Your choice of a Weapon Effect (a Weapon Effect from the list below)
  
• Your choice of Helmet Effect (a Helmet Effect from the list below)
  

Runners-Up

• Your choice of Helmet Effect (a Helmet Effect from the list below)
  

*Please note that T-shirt style is subject to size availability and may be substituted for a T-shirt in another style. In this scenario, we will work with you to meet your preferences.

[h2]Microtransaction Prize Pool[/h2]
List of Weapon Effects:

• Acid Weapon Effect
• Arcane Weapon Effect
• Azure Seraph Weapon Effect
• Carnage Weapon Effect
• Ebony Weapon Effect
• Dreadspire Weapon Effect
• Ghostflame Weapon Effect
• Kraken Weapon Effect
• Mystic Weapon Effect
• Pure Light Weapon Effect
• Purple Weapon Effect
• Radiant Weapon Effect
• Seraph Weapon Effect
• Temple Weapon Effect
• Vampiric Weapon Effect
• Verdant Weapon Effect
• Wasteland Weapon Effect
• Water Elemental Weapon Effect
• Wrangler Weapon Effect
• Wild Weapon Effect

List of Helmet Effects:

• Aquila Crest
• Automaton Halo
• Bent Horns
• Bleached Skull Helmet
• Brilliant Crown
• Coliseum Helmet Attachment
• Divine Sign
• Fiery Visage
• Iron Maiden
• Mark of the Phoenix
• Serrated Mohawk
• Skull Hood
• Spirit Charm
• Swan Crest
• Twisted Horns
• Smoking Hood
• Huntsman Hood
• Madcap Hood
• Darkprism Helmet Attachment
• Purple Flaming Head Helmet Attachment
• Ghostflame Flaming Head Helmet Attachment
• Stygian Flaming Head Helmet Attachment
• Arcane Flaming Head Helmet Attachment
• Flaming Head Helmet Attachment
• Arcane Horns Helmet Attachment
• Undead Outcast Helmet

[h2]How to Enter[/h2]

Create still art that is inspired by anything introduced in Path of Exile. This excludes video submissions but does include any painting, drawing or model creation. Then just submit your work in this thread.

Multiple submissions are welcome and encouraged. Please note that the submission needs to be your own work and needs to have been created after the launch of the competition.

[h2]Competition Times[/h2]

The competition starts at the time of this post and will end on Monday the 7th of June at 5PM NZT (6th of June at 10PM PDT). Submissions made after this time will not be counted. We'll post the winners sometime in the following days.

Best of luck to those participating! We can't wait to see what you create.