Intermittent 10–15s Freezes Every 20–30 Minutes Since 0.1/0.2 (Standalone Client)

Hello

Since version 0.1 (possibly 0.2), I’ve been experiencing intermittent freezes while playing. Roughly every 20–30 minutes, the game freezes for about 10–15 seconds. When it recovers, I’m briefly met with a black screen and two spinning cogs (loading indicator), after which gameplay resumes normally.

I’ve been playing HC/SSFHC since PoE2 launched, and while this thankfully hasn’t killed a character yet, it’s extremely disruptive and concerning in hardcore.

So far, I’ve only tried switching between Vulkan and DX12, with no change in behavior. I was hoping the 0.4 update—where improved CPU utilization was mentioned—might resolve this, but the issue persists.

System specs:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D (16 cores / 32 threads)
RAM: 32 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

I’m playing on the standalone client, not Steam.

If anyone has experienced something similar or has suggestions for troubleshooting, I’d really appreciate it.

I have the same problem, but just starting with 0.4.
Your PC is not the issue. A lot of people have this problem.
Apparently the developers do not think the game freezing every 20 or so minutes is worth a quick fix.