Path Of Exile Replaces DX11 With A Beta Version Of Vulkan Renderer

path of exile flaming scepterPath of Exile should be running as smoothly as ever thanks to the latest patch which introduces the beta version of the Vulkan renderer. Grinding Gear Games says that the new renderer should provide a smoother and more consistent performance compared to Direct X 11 even when the CPU is under high load thanks to multithreading. Here’s how it works:

“In our DirectX11 backend, shader uploads happen on the background threads, but the graphics driver (the AMD/Nvidia/Intel layer) processes them before the GPU can use them. It does so in its own threads that can be starved when the CPU usage is high. In that case, driver processing appears to happen in the main thread, causing stalls. Somewhat ironically, the additional multithreading we have been adding over the years actually makes this problem worse, as it increases overall CPU usage (in order to get faster frame rates). Thankfully, this is where Vulkan comes in. Among many other improvements, this rendering API lets you do everything in function calls we have full control over, letting us completely avoid these uncontrollable DirectX11 graphics driver stalls.”

This means that Vulkan will help keep the peak frame rate down and will prevent sudden spikes by giving the developers more control over how the CPU manages resources resulting in a smoother gameplay experience. The studio reminds players that the renderer is still in beta and that it’s currently slower than Direct X 11 but they assure players that this should be fixed with the next patch.

Head over to the Path of Exile official forums to learn more.