It looks like a big change is coming to Path of Exile. It is about improving the game's use of video memory. If it goes well, the change should decrease the odds of frame rate drops.
Now before you get too excited, it looks like it’s not arriving anytime soon. Developer Grinding Gear Games revealed in a post that initially it was planned to be included in the next engine patch, which is set to arrive sometime in June or July. However, Grinding Gear said that they remain rather unhappy, especially with the current situation, and thus may deploy this feature in the near future.
Going Technical
As a quick background, graphics cards contain their own memory called VRAM. Now Path of Exile’s default renderer is DirectX 11 and when a player runs out of VRAM, the game continues to run but the frame rate will drop. While this is happening, the graphics driver also moves assets between the VRAM and main memory, which results in things slowing down even more.
Besides the degraded performance, there's a chance that the game will crash, and either a crash or frame rate drop is bad for gaming. To be fair, the developer said that they have added a system to ensure that VRAM usage is kept at a minimum. Though this has introduced other issues as well.
Anyway, Grinding Gear went on to say that their engine team continues to work on a better implementation to maximize VRAM. Although they can’t say what the actual change or improvement will be, it should offer a better experience to many players.
Fan Art Competition
Yesterday, Path of Exile started a fan art competition where players and fans can create art inspired by anything introduced in the game. This is limited to drawing, painting, or model creation and doesn’t include videos. Submissions are accepted until June 7.
Many excellent prizes are at stake with the top three winners getting:
- Custom forum avatar made from the submitted art
- Special made forum badge
- Signed Path of Exile Art Book
- Choice of two Path of Exile T-shirts (Chaos Orb, Shaper, or Untainted Paradise)
- Chaos Orb Keychain
- Brutus Art Print
- Choice of an Armour Set
- Choice of a Weapon Effect
- Choice of Helmet Effect
You can view the complete details of this competition here.
