How to Optimize Path of Exile 2 for Performance (2026) Optimization Guides

Quick Answers

Common questions answered at a glance

What FPS gain can I expect?

Most players see 30–80% more FPS from combining the right in-game settings with Windows tweaks. GGG’s 0.4.0 patch in December 2025 gained players 25–100% on its own with its multi-core Processor optimization. Then, they found disabling Global Illumination alone gives a 32% FPS boost!

Why does PoE2 run so poorly?

Will this break anything?

The PoE2 Performance Problem

There are few games out there that punish PCs harder than PoE2. Hundreds of enemies on-screen, layered particle effects, physics calculations and real-time lighting make for a perfect storm on your Processor. Even players with RTX 4090s report drops during dense endgame fights.But the good news is: GGG has been optimizing hard. The 0.4.0 patch was massive — multi-core was worth double FPS for many in endgame content. But there’s still plenty you can do to help, and there’s one fix most people miss that has nothing to do with graphics settings.

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Step 1: The Shader Cache Fix — The Single Biggest Stutter Fix

Do this one thing if you do nothing else from this guide. PoE2 compiles shaders on the fly as we encounter new types of effects in the game world. Which means stuttering every time we see a new skill, new mob type, or new environmental effect for the first time. The official PoE forums document a fix: move the shader cache to a faster drive by setting cache_directory in the [GENERAL] section of your config file, and increasing the amount of shader cache available to your Video Card.NVIDIA: Open your NVIDIA Control Panel → Manage 3D Settings → Global Settings → Shader Cache Size → set this to 100 GB or Unlimited. No this is not a typo. PoE2 generates an ungodly amount of shader data. The default 10GB fills quickly, and on running out of space it has to start recompiling shaders. The results of that are stutters during the early hours of gameplay. Increasing it to 100 GB or Unlimited allows your Video Card to save everything and gets rid of those nasty stutters.AMD: Ensure Shader Cache is enabled in Radeon Software (by default it is). AMD doesn’t expose a way to set a size, but you can force it to clean rebuild the cache by clearing it after a driver update: AMD Software → Settings → Graphics → Reset Shader Cache (or do it regardless to be safe).After you change that setting delete your old shader cache so it is forced to rebuild: delete everything in %LOCALAPPDATA%\NVIDIA\DXCache\ (for NVIDIA). AMD users need to reset through the Software. Your first session after using this fix will stutter with the new cache being built, after that it is smooth sailing.

Step 2: Graphics Settings Ranked from Biggest FPS Gain to Least

Lighting is the FPS killer in PoE2. Shadows + Global Illumination (GI) take the largest percentage of your video card’s load. PCGamesN’s benchmark testing with an RTX 4070 confirms shadow and GI quality are the biggest performance levers, achieving 117fps average at 1080p with optimized settings versus significant drops at higher quality.Global Illumination — Off. 32% more FPS. This is the largest single graphics setting in the game. GI emulates bouncing indirect light on surfaces. Beautiful but expensive. Turn it off for immediate FPS improvement.Shadow Quality — Low. Combined with GI changes, for many going from Ultra to Low with Shadows saw around 25% from GI and Shadows combined. Shadows are the second most expensive setting after GI.Post-Processing — Low. Removes bloom, depth of field, and some random screen effects. Gives you a cleaner image so you can see your targets and helps FPS on pack impacts.Effects Quality — Low. This is especially important for endgame as PoE2 has a lot of density to the scenes. If you add the sprites, explosions, ground effects, other spells all hitting all at once during pack encounters…killing all that noise makes a big difference in load on the processor and FPS.Texture Quality — How much does your VRAM support? Texture Quality has no affect on FPS only memory usage. If you have 8GB+: High. 4–6GB: Med. 4GB or under: Low.Texture Filtering — 16x Anisotropic. There’s virtually 1.5% of a difference between 16x AF and Trilinear. Keep it maxed, it’s free quality.Anti-Aliasing — TAA or DLSS. TAA is the lighter option. If you got an RTX card, see Step 3. Stay away from FXAA, it’s a blurry mess.Motion Blur — Off. Always, unless you are crazy, in a game this visually noisy as PoE2 you will miss so much in terms of what’s going on if you have motion blur on.

Step 3: DLSS vs FSR — One Is Much Better

PoE2 supports both DLSS and FSR, but they’re not created equal. Community testing has found DLSS to produce significantly better image quality than FSR in PoE2. FSR seems to be using an older spatial implementation (possibly FSR 1.0) which causes some noticeable blurriness and artifacts — particularly on particle-heavy effects.DLSS Quality mode is the sweet spot for NVIDIA users. It looks very close to native while providing a 25–40% FPS boost. DLSS Balanced or Performance modes provide more FPS at the expense of image quality, especially at 1080p.AMD users should use FSR Quality, but be aware it’s going to look softer than DLSS. At 1440p the difference is less noticeable. If you’ve got an Intel ARC card, try NIS or XeSS.Dynamic Resolution is your safety net. Enable it and set your target framerate to whatever you want to maintain (e.g. 60 or 120). The game will automatically lower render resolution during intense moments to keep you at that target. This is especially useful for endgame content where FPS can tank from 120 to 30 in a split second.

Step 4: Network Mode — The Hidden Stuttering Fix

PoE2 uses Lockstep networking by default. This means your game waits for the server to confirm every action before rendering it. If your connection has any jitter at all — even small spikes from 15ms to 40ms — the game freezes until the server responds. The official PoE forums are full of reports from players experiencing hard freezes tied to lockstep networking, even on stable connections with sub-20ms latency.The config file fix: Navigate to Documents\My Games\Path of Exile 2\poe2_production_Config.ini. Under [NETWORKING], change networking_type=auto to networking_type=lockstep or networking_type=predictive. Community testing on the PoE forums shows that manually setting this resolves stuttering for many players.If your ping is under 50ms: Lockstep is fine and gives the most responsive feeling. If your ping is 50–80ms: try Auto. If your ping is over 80ms or you’re on WiFi: try Predictive. Predictive allows your client to “predict” movement locally and corrects when the server responds, which eliminates network-induced freezes at the cost of occasional rubber-banding.Use Ethernet, not WiFi. Players on r/PathOfExile2 report that switching from WiFi to Ethernet eliminates latency spikes of 3000–5000ms. In a lockstep game, WiFi jitter is your worst enemy.

Step 5: Windows Settings That Make a Difference

PoE2 is very sensitive to Windows background noise. Because the game is Processor-bound, anything competing for Processor time has a disproportionate impact.Disable Memory Integrity (VBS). Settings → Privacy & Security → Windows Security → Device Security → Core Isolation → Turn off Memory Integrity. 5–10% FPS difference. Reboot.Disable Xbox Game Bar. Settings → Gaming → Game Bar → Off.Enable Game Mode. Settings → Gaming → Game Mode → On.Switch to Ultimate Performance power plan. Open Command Prompt as admin and run this: powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61. This is for Desktop PCs only.Clean up your startup programs. Go to Task Manager → Startup tab and disable anything unnecessary. This can free up 1–4GB RAM.Enable HAGS. Go to Settings → System → Display → Graphics → Change Default Graphics Settings → On. This requires a restart.Use ISLC. Because PoE2 games can last a long time, and the standby memory can build up, gradually leading to worse performance over time in longer sessions. ISLC (Intelligent Standby List Cleaner) clears the standby list automatically. Set it to purge if your free memory drops below 1024MB.

Step 6: NVIDIA and AMD Control Panel Settings

For NVIDIA: Right-click desktop → NVIDIA Control Panel → Manage 3D Settings → Program Settings → Add PathOfExileSteam.exe (or PathOfExile.exe for standalone).Power Management Mode — Prefer Maximum Performance. PoE2 fluctuates wildly between light town areas and heavy maps. Max performance prevents the Video Card from clocking down at the wrong time.Low Latency Mode — On or Ultra. It doesn’t have native NVIDIA Reflex, so there’s no conflict between them. Ultra is fine.Shader Cache Size — 100 GB or Unlimited. This is the most important one (see Step 1). DO NOT leave at default.Texture Filtering Quality — High Performance.Vertical Sync — Off.For AMD: Anti-Lag → Enabled, Surface Format Optimization → Enabled, Tessellation → Off, Texture Filtering Quality → Performance, Wait for V-Sync → Off. Be sure to reset Shader Cache when you update drivers.

Step 7: Endgame-Specific Optimization

This is where performance matters most for PoE2. Endgame is where it suffers most. Delirium encounters, Breach-style content, packed density maps where you have hundreds of mobs, dozens of Skill effects, physics objects all rendering simultaneously.For endgame maps: Effects quality min, GI Off, Shadows Low, Post-Processing Low. These are your Processor-heavy settings and endgame is where it bottlenecks the hardest.For party play, lower everything further. Multiple players casting skills at once multiplies both your particle and Processor load. If you regularly group, consider a dedicated “party” settings profile with everything on minimum.Sound can kill you. Sound can impact your performance as well. Sound effects are processed on the Processor in PoE2’s audio engine. When there’s a lot of things on screen from extreme encounters, lowering sound channels or sound quality helps too. It’s a PoE1 trick that still applies.

Step 8: Hardware-Specific Tips

Above all else, PoE2 is Processor-bound. Single-thread performance and cache size take priority over the Video card’s power. AMD X3D processors (5800X3D, 7800X3D, 9800X3D) are the best of the bunch at the moment solely because of the L3 cache advantage.Budget PC (RTX 3060 / RX 6600): Everything Low, GI Off, DLSS Balanced (or FSR Quality), aim for 60+ FPS at 1080p. This is actually achievable with the use of optimized settings.Mid range (RTX 4060 Ti / RX 7700 XT): Medium settings with GI Off or Low, DLSS Quality, aim for 100+ FPS at 1080p or 60+ at 1440p.High end (RTX 4080+ / RX 7900 XTX): High settings with GI on Low, DLSS Quality, aim for 100+ FPS at 1440p. Even these will dip to single-digit FPS at extreme endgame density.Enable XMP/DOCP in BIOS. The speed of your RAM directly affects the performance of the Processor. It’ll be running at a base speed of 2133MHz due to not having the profile enabled, allowing for 15–20% better performance if enabled. DDR4 3600MHz CL16 or DDR5 6000MHz+ is sweet spot.Dual channel is mandatory. Two sticks is much much faster than one. Being Processor-bound, PoE2 is going to eat up memory bandwidth.SSD required. PoE2 on a hard drive means constant loading stutters, texture pop-in and slow zones. NVMe required.Laptop: Keep plugged in. Always use High Performance power plan. Prop up the rear for airflow. With its Processor demands, PoE2 will push laptop thermals to the limit.

Common PoE2 Issues and Fixes

Constant stutters in gameplay. Three things to check here, in order: 1) Shader cache size — Check size in NVIDIA CP & set to 100GB/Unlimited (Step 1), 2) Network mode — Switch to Predictive or Auto if your ping is over 60ms (Step 4), 3) Standby memory — Run ISLC (Step 5). These fixes resolve stuttering across the vast majority of players.Good FPS in town but performance tanks once on maps. This is your Processor bottleneck, town has very few entities while maps have hundreds. Drop your settings to GI disabled, Effects to Low, Shadows to Low. If you are still struggling, your Processor is likely your bottleneck, settings changes are not going to overcome the issue that your Processor is not keeping up with the endgame density.Performance degrades the longer you play. This is memory build up. Run ISLC to manage your standby memory. In extreme cases restart the game every few hours.DLSS looking blurry/ghosty. May help to toggle between DLSS Quality & Balanced. If you are using FSR it should be noted that PoE2 doesn’t seem to be using the latest FSR that other Free to Play titles are using, rather a version that is 3 generations behind. DLSS is the clear winner for image quality with this game, so stick with DLSS.Instancing crashes, disconnects. Verify files through Steam. If it continues, try changing your server gateway to a different region with lower ping. GGG’s servers can be unstable during league starts.

The Short Version

If you’ve only got 5 minutes, do these in order:1. Set Shader Cache to 100GB or Unlimited in NVIDIA Control Panel2. Turn off Global Illumination, Shadows to Low, Effects to Low3. Enable DLSS Quality (or FSR Quality for AMD)4. Enable Dynamic Resolution with your target FPS5. Check network mode in production_Config.ini (try Lockstep or Predictive)6. Disable Xbox Game Bar, disable Memory Integrity, enable XMP in BIOSThat’s 80% of the benefit in 5 minutes. Everything else in this guide is the remaining 20%.May your maps be juiced and your loot be divine.