Stutters - CPU spikes

Hello!

After about 30 minutes of Path of Exile 1 gameplay, game becomes incredibly laggy with CPU graph spiking up to ~200ms and stopping frames from generating for same period. After 5 minutes of lags game goes back to running normally, then loops over to stuttering again, and so on.

Graph looks like this:

Game was running fine in first 20% of graph. CPU graph (red) shows values around 200 ms on first frame after lagspike and then rapidly decreases to normal value.

During spikes all my inputs are completely discarded as if I never pressed any buttons - character moves in same direction as before lag started (also Cyclone keeps being channelled in same direction), skills and flasks don't get activated, items don't get picked up or stashed or put in vendor's window.

From what I already know it can start happenning in both maps and hideout.

I started noticing these lags after I switched to Vulkan renderer.

I found no one else posting about this exact problem here at Technical Support forum, as they never mentioned such periods of lagspikes and running normally.

Among things I tried to fix lags were:

- Solutions posted in General Troubleshooting Guide;
- Turning off CPU C-States (also tried changing minimum and maximum processor state for power management);
- Disabling HPET drivers;
- Disabling CPU cores processors (up to 6 from 12 available for my PC);
- Setting priority for PathOfExile.exe to High;
- Updating GPU drivers;
- Reinstalling Windows.

Is there anything else I can try to fix stutters?

Thanks in advance!

"

Ravenstoat#2337 wrote:

After about 30 minutes of Path of Exile 1 gameplay, game becomes incredibly laggy with CPU graph spiking up to ~200ms and stopping frames from generating for same period. After 5 minutes of lags game goes back to running normally, then loops over to stuttering again, and so on.

My first thought is that this screams "thermal throttling".

Which CPU do you have? What cooler are you using for it?

Download the free version of HWMonitor, open it before you next start playing the game, and then leave in the background until the problem next happens and subsequently recovers. Then show us a screenshot of the worst recorded temperatures recorded for your CPU.

Download the Setup file from here: https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

"

Sarno#0493 wrote:

Which CPU do you have? What cooler are you using for it?

CPU: Intel Core i5 11400F
Cooling fan: ID-COOLING SE-903-R V2

I'll try playing with HWmonitor and come back with findings

"

Sarno#0493 wrote:

Download the free version of HWMonitor, open it before you next start playing the game, and then leave in the background until the problem next happens and subsequently recovers. Then show us a screenshot of the worst recorded temperatures recorded for your CPU.
https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Spikes:


Recovery after spikes:


Edit:
Probably worth mentioning that lags started at around 68-72 degrees for Cores

Another finding - neither it is related to GPU overheating.

I deliberately lowered my foreground FPS to 60 and stutters started appearing at GPU's 70ish degrees Celcius. Though, stuttering occurs much less frequently when cap stays at 60 FPS

But let's be honest here - playing at 60 FPS is kind of weird in 2025.