Ok, I think I might have this stable now. I have launched, exited, restarted, and played to load through a few levels several times, expecting a crash/lockup. So far none has happened for me.
Note, I am no expert or ever claim to be. This may not work for everyone, as this is just a workaround that I have tinkered with since last night and so far has kept POE2 from crashing or freezing with the dreaded system lock up, forcing a hard shutdown of my system. I am not responsible for any changes you decide to make on your own system.
GGG still needs to address and FIX this issue! (If they haven't done so already).
You need to make sure your gpu driver has minimal control with the game. Let the game handle all of the graphical settings, not the driver. By that I mean, every setting in the gpu driver (NVIDIA or AMD) that overrides, enhance, or takes control of any settings in the game, should be disabled or set to "Application-controlled". Let the game set the graphical, max foreground/background fps, etc.
Your gpu driver should have already created a profile for the game (create it yourself if you don't see it).
For NVCP, this would be Manage 3D > Program Settings tab > Path of Exile (pathofexilesteam.exe) should be selected.
Here's what I have set on the driver for my 4080S that has worked for me so far.
Image Scaling - Off
Ambient Occlusion (greyed out so can't be changed)
Anisotropic filtering - set to Application-controlled
Antialiasing - FXAA - Off
Antialiasing - Gamma correction - Off
Antialiasing - Mode - Application-controlled
Antialiasing - Setting (greyed out so can't be changed)
Antialiasing - Transparency - Off
Background Application Max Frame Rate - Off
CUDA - GPUs - All
CUDA - System Fallback Policy - Driver Default
Low Latency Mode - On
Max Frame Rate - Off
Monitor Technology (GSync Compatible if you have capable monitor otherwise, Fixed Refresh)
Multi-Frame Sampled AA (MFAA) - Off
OpenGL GDI compatibility - Auto
OpenGL rendering GPU (your discrete GPU)
Power management mode - Prefer maximum performance
Preferred refresh rate (model of monitor) - Application-controlled
Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample optimization - Off
Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias - Clamp
Texture filtering - Quality - Based on your overall system, set this to Quality or Balanced. Older hardware select any of the Performance options
Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization - On
Threaded optimization - Off
Triple buffering - Off
Vertical sync - Off
Virtual Reality pre-rendered frames - 1
Virtual Reality - Variable Rate Super Sampling (greyed out so can't be changed)
Vulkan/OpenGL present method - Auto
For AMD Adrenalin, I can only assume this would work the same way by selecting the game profile under Gaming tab and set the following under Graphics:
Gaming Experience - Custom or Default
Wait for Vertical Refresh - Always off
Under the Advanced section:
Anti-Aliasing - Use application settings
Anti-Aliasing Method - Multisampling
Morphological Anti-Aliasing - Disabled
Texture Filtering Quality - Standard
Surface Format Optimization - Disabled
Tessellation Mode - Use application settings
OpenGL Triple Buffering - Disabled
The Display area can be whatever you choose since that shouldn't really affect with game settings.
For Windows 11 (don't remember Win10), type Graphic Settings, and make sure that all of your games listed there is set to your GPU, and not "Let WIndows Decide" or "Power Saving...". It seems a recent windows update added more lines to choose including "Specific GPU1: Your GPU" and "Specific GPU2: Usually the integrated graphics".
Also if you have AutoHDR enabled, Disable that!
Other few things to mention:
I did not rollback to any previous windows update (I am still on 24H2).
I have the latest NVIDIA game driver 566.36
I did not change any affinity settings under Task Manager
I capped the game fps to 120fps (If your hardware can't handle that, cap at 60fps or even 30fps) from POE2 settings.
Try these settings out and hopefully they will work for you!
