PoE window freezing (Not responding) – is there any hope?

Prologue

My laptop has died. After a year I got a hand-me-down that I didn't know whether would run PoE or not. I asked ChatGPT. It said it would. So I installed it. Clicked the icon. Nope. The music was here, but the screen was black. I asked ChatGPT, we tried this and that, nothing worked. I was tired and still am, so I assumed it was not possible to run PoE, because perhaps laptop was too weak.

After some time I decided to try again and asked ChatGPT a more detailed question. We got it figured out that changing the settings to lower in the config.ini would help. I was able to launch the game. I made a character and so on. The happiness didn't last long.

Issue

PoE freezes all the time in the sense that the window says (Not responding). Most times it appears as infinite loading when I try to change the zone. It's a miracle to be able to:
launch the game (first freeze dice roll)
load the town
load the hideout
load the map
then it sometimes freezes during the first steps in the map
then loading back to hideout
or opening a vendor window sometimes
or when my friend arrived in my hideout to witness me being a proud owner of Bramblejack that dropped from a Voidborn Reliquary Key

I know this laptop is not the newest/best, so I am wondering if the issue is it being too outdated for PoE, or is my problem something that can be fixed. If the latter, what can I do? Are there more settings in the config file to change?

Here's the pastebin of my current settings:


Here's the specs:

I think I've tried most or all of the solutions suggested by ChatGPT, like checking system updates, drivers, using Nvidia something app, PackCheck, graphic options, resolution...

So, is there anything else I can try, any settings to change, folders to clean, files to delete, to make the game 'freeze' less?

Do not ask ChatGPT anything regarding PoE and hardware. Ask here first ;)

Specs of that hand-me-down are not good for PoE at all. Too little RAM, underpowered CPU, older GPU. That laptop model is rather outdated.

PoE is CPU-intensive, so that may well be the bottleneck, then only 8GB RAM is marginal.

It may run PoE. but as you have seen, rather badly.

Edit: apart from trying the different graphics options (DX11/12/Vulkan), trying everything on lowest settings, there is not much advice that I can give off the top of my head.

Weeeeell...

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xjjanie#4242 wrote:

Do not ask ChatGPT anything regarding PoE and hardware. Ask here first ;)

I prefer the other way around. GPT has been surprisingly helpful in a lot of areas. I didn't expect it to help with PoE, but it threw more suggestions at me in a minute than I would get after spending a lot of time googling. And while I know the forum has people like you, who are in my top 10 of PoE forum members, I worry that the response I get may be either not so nice, or... let's be honest... half of the threads in this forum section have no responses at all.

"

xjjanie#4242 wrote:

Specs of that hand-me-down are not good for PoE at all. Too little RAM, underpowered CPU, older GPU. That laptop model is rather outdated.

Yeah, sadly. That I know. But HOW outdated it is, that I didn't know ;)

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xjjanie#4242 wrote:

Edit: apart from trying the different graphics options (DX11/12/Vulkan), trying everything on lowest settings, there is not much advice that I can give off the top of my head.

This is where I hoped to get a little help. I admit I'm not very savvy when it comes to all the settings and unsure which thing does what. I don't know if I set everything to minimum, or if there's anything more I can switch. I don't know. I am just so tired... :(

Thanks for the help nonetheless! :)

"

Iangyratu#2417 wrote:

I think I've tried most or all of the solutions suggested by ChatGPT, like checking system updates, drivers, using Nvidia something app, PackCheck, graphic options, resolution...

So, is there anything else I can try, any settings to change, folders to clean, files to delete, to make the game 'freeze' less?

Hey, I didn't see what operating system this device is running and the pastebin you linked is expired.

If your operating system supports it, have you tried setting a static sized pagefile or virtual memory to your SSD? If you have the space, this would drastically improve any possible RAM constraints. If this is doable I'd recommend
not setting it to "system managed size".

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Eleven777#0993 wrote:

Hey, I didn't see what operating system this device is running and the pastebin you linked is expired.

If your operating system supports it, have you tried setting a static sized pagefile or virtual memory to your SSD? If you have the space, this would drastically improve any possible RAM constraints. If this is doable I'd recommend
not setting it to "system managed size".

Huh, weird, I set it to 6 months IIRC. I'll try to repost it and edit the link.

I use Windows 10.

I haven't tried that, will look into, thanks!

I didn't catch it at first, but the pastebin link is just missing the "a" at the end.
https://pastebin.com/Z9v1QiDa

Oh right. My hand has slipped when I was selecting text to add the URL tags. Thanks :)

It's a GPU driver crash issue, the cause of which is currently unknown. If you notice it freezes, press Windows key to tab out after you tab in, then tab back in and give it some time to reset. The cogwheels will appear with a black screen and it will be fine again.

If that is not the issue you are describing, then the loading times may come from little to no CPU overhead, meaning your system is maxed out, specifically your CPU being underpowered.

Laptop parts are not desktop equivalents even with the same name, they are cutdown versions of the same series with a similar name to keep power output and thus excess heat to a minimum. For example, between the RTX 4070M (Mobile) and desktop RTX 4070 lies a chasm of a staggering 86% difference in performance, meaning the desktop variant is almost twice as fast.