Windows 7 and the future of PoE?

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Bhaladas a écrit :

To be honest I don't think this is a Windows 7 specific issue.

it is.

this thread is about dx11.x poe and win7 and whether win7 has a future when it comes to dx11 improvements.

patch 2.5.2 introduced the first improvements where win7 users don't profit from, the question is: will there be more?

this is independent from how the game currently runs on win7,8 or 10.

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vio a écrit :

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Bhaladas a écrit :

To be honest I don't think this is a Windows 7 specific issue.

it is.

this thread is about dx11.x poe and win7 and whether win7 has a future when it comes to dx11 improvements.

patch 2.5.2 introduced the first improvements where win7 users don't profit from, the question is: will there be more?

this is independent from how the game currently runs on win7,8 or 10.

Did you read this?

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[–]necrate 6 points 4 hours ago
My performance has been getting better and better with each patch. My hardware is: Intel i7 4770k @ 3.7GHz, 16GB DDR3, R9 290 4GB (stock); running PoE natively on Win7 64 with up-to-date drivers

Windows 7 user, one among many, who is experiencing improvements all round. This PATCH is the problem, and GGG say they are looking into it.

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Bhaladas a écrit :

To be honest I don't think this is a Windows 7 specific issue.

As I mentioned before I am on Windows 10 and have similar problems with DX 11 as some Windows 7 users. Some Windows 7 users have no problems and run better than some Windows 10 users.

Same goes for AMD vs Nvidia. I have Nvidia AND Windows 10 and am affected by this patch along with many other people with Nvidia, Intel, Windows 10 setups.

Also the DX 9 performance seems to have taken a hit in the most recent patches for many different people on different varieties of harware.

For me this points towards a problem with the patch, which Henry GGG has acknowledged in this thread:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1825845/page/1#p14144690

Personally I am 100% convinced that this is nothing to do with POE's interaction with Windows 7, I think that is is just a poorly implemented patch.

Here's hoping that they fix the issues at hand a.s.a.p for all users concerned. :)

EDIT:

FYI here is an example thread of what I am taling about:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/5qoiub/is_the_amd_gup_support_dropping_with_each_patch/

Quote from the page.

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[–]necrate 6 points 4 hours ago
My performance has been getting better and better with each patch. My hardware is: Intel i7 4770k @ 3.7GHz, 16GB DDR3, R9 290 4GB (stock); running PoE natively on Win7 64 with up-to-date drivers

There are always going to be instances where some users, with similar hardware, will display 'good' results and others 'bad.' With regard to the aforementioned reddit thread, the poster says his performance has been "getting better and better" but we have no baseline from which to determine the improvement, it's also in direct contention with other users, for whom the latest patches have been less than optimal.

The simple fact is, users with AMD hardware have, since the beginning of PoE, generally had more issues than their Nvidia counterparts and that's only on the GPU side. Perhaps that will change in the future, considering AMD supply the hardware for Xbox.

As far as Operating System are concerned, as we move toward the end of life for Windows 7, there will almost certainly be fewer opportunities to improve the game experience for this platform. Newer version of DirectX (we can only dream of support for OpenGL/Vulkan) and the need to improve support Windows 10/Xbox and maybe PS4, will drive the development effort.

From my own experience, of the last few days testing, the patches under Windows 7 have caused stuttering and erratic and inconsistent fps/frame times. The game is not unplayable but it's also not enjoyable. Under Windows 10, on the same hardware, the game is generally much 'smoother,' however, under this OS I have been seeing situations where the games freezes for a second or so and then resumes. When this happens, there is no change to the in-game graphs and the network exhibits no untoward packet loss or latency. There's also no dramatic increases in queue length or stalling from the HDD.

So, coming back to your original statement, yes, there are issues with Windows 10 just as there are with Windows 7. However, bearing in mind the the limitations of Windows 7 with regard to some of the features introduced in the latest patches, my guess would be a different root cause for the problems being seen. I may of course be completely wrong and I'd be happy to accept that.

Windows 7 will be supported until 2020 by Microsoft with updates. And DX9 is still supported in the client. GGG may decide not to update the DX9 engine in their client, but it will still be around a long time. And given the fact that GGG still supported Windows XP long after Microsoft stopped supporting updates for it, I don't have any worries about the future of PoE on Windows 7. I still run Windows 7 too, and plan to move to 10.-whatever by or before 2020.

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Kellog a écrit :

From my own experience, of the last few days testing, the patches under Windows 7 have caused stuttering and erratic and inconsistent fps/frame times. The game is not unplayable but it's also not enjoyable.

Issue specific to your system. All of my Windows 7 systems run PoE smoothly. I'd troubleshoot from the assumption that there's some configuration, driver, or connectivity issue on your system. Run the DX9ex client instead of DX11 and it should be buttery smooth on a decent PC with a good Internet connection.

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cipher_nemo a écrit :

Windows 7 will be supported until 2020 by Microsoft with updates. And DX9 is still supported in the client. GGG may decide not to update the DX9 engine in their client, but it will still be around a long time. And given the fact that GGG still supported Windows XP long after Microsoft stopped supporting updates for it, I don't have any worries about the future of PoE on Windows 7. I still run Windows 7 too, and plan to move to 10.-whatever by or before 2020.

I think you missed the overall point of the thread. GGG are already implementing features that are not supported by Windows 7, whether or not these are the cause of the issues a people are reporting, both here are reddit, is uncertain. The point is, this is just the beginning.

AS far as Windows 10 is concerned, I've been on the Inside program since the beginning, However, I won't be moving to the OS after Windows 7 eol. As an aside, the game, for me, runs very well under Windows 10. Same hardware and same GPU driver version.

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Issue specific to your system. All of my Windows 7 systems run PoE smoothly.

Mine and a seemingly large number of posters here and reddit.

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I'd troubleshoot from the assumption that there's some configuration, driver, or connectivity issue on your system. Run the DX9ex client instead of DX11 and it should be buttery smooth on a decent PC with a good Internet connection.

As far as DX9 is concerned, as I and others have reported, DX9/ex now offers abysmal performance, so much worse than DX11, even with the issues mentioned, it's quite extraordinary. This is also something that changed with a recent patch. I'm not sure which, as I've been using DX11 since it was released.

With regard to troubleshooting, I've been around the block with this, several times. Prior to the 2.5.2 patch DX11 was working extremely well, arguably the best performance I've ever had, (perhaps, with the exception of when I had lockstep.) Following the patch, which incidentally, introduced the features unsupported by Windows 7, things went downhill. The only thing that changed on my end was the update.

Regardless, I have been through the usual routine. Connectivity is consistent, with no packet loss and no excessive latency at any hop. It's basically the same as it usually is. If I'd had connectivity issues I'd have posted them, like I usually do in my Moscow thread.

AS far as drivers in use, they're the same as prior to the patch, although I did try and earlier version of Crimson, but that was for a different reason.

That leaves 'configuration' which is an extremely amorphous term and if you have any specific configuration in mind, I'd appreciate a heads-up. However, in the next day or so, I'll be making some changes on my main system, removing Windows 10 - Usually I keep this in a VM but I wanted to test the performance against Windows 7 for PoE and see how Game Mode worked - I'll also revert Windows 7 to a vanilla image and start fresh. At that point I'll be able to see if the issues are with this system

Finally, to put this in perspective, as I mentioned above, the game is not unplayable with DX11, it's just a lot worse than it was prior to 2.5.2.

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Kellog a écrit :

I think you missed the overall point of the thread.

No, I know exactly the point of the thread: to spread FUD about GGG supporting Windows 7 in PoE. Just because I have an opposing opinion to you doesn't mean I've "missed" the point of this thread.

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Kellog a écrit :

GGG are already implementing features that are not supported by Windows 7, whether or not these are the cause of the issues a people are reporting, both here are reddit, is uncertain. The point is, this is just the beginning.

This is the FUD I'm talking about. Just because Windows 7 will need a patch (update), or just because PoE will need a patch, doesn't mean there's features in PoE updates that's unsupported by Windows 7. DX11 is an all or nothing. It's a standard, and support for it is all or nothing. If something in DX11 is not working in Windows 7, then it needs a fix by Microsoft, and that will come in a future update (this is not related to DX11.1, just DX11).

And just because Windows 7 users won't benefit from a performance improvement in PoE that works in Windows 10, doesn't mean GGG is dropping off support for Windows 7. Stop spreading FUD!

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cipher_nemo a écrit :

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Kellog a écrit :

I think you missed the overall point of the thread.

No, I know exactly the point of the thread: to spread FUD about GGG supporting Windows 7 in PoE. Just because I have an opposing opinion to you doesn't mean I've "missed" the point of this thread.

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Kellog a écrit :

GGG are already implementing features that are not supported by Windows 7, whether or not these are the cause of the issues a people are reporting, both here are reddit, is uncertain. The point is, this is just the beginning.

This is the FUD I'm talking about. Just because Windows 7 will need a patch (update), or just because PoE will need a patch, doesn't mean there's features in PoE updates that's unsupported by Windows 7. DX11 is an all or nothing. It's a standard, and support for it is all or nothing. If something in DX11 is not working in Windows 7, then it needs a fix by Microsoft, and that will come in a future update (this is not related to DX11.1, just DX11).

And just because Windows 7 users won't benefit from a performance improvement in PoE that works in Windows 10, doesn't mean GGG is dropping off support for Windows 7. Stop spreading FUD!

+1

Also, just because DX 11 POE introduces some aspects of the engine that are unsupported by Windows 7 that does not necessarily equal better performance on systems that do support said features, like mine, or worse performance on systems that don't, like the poster above me.

In the example above my Windows 10 system, that does support said features, is getting worse performance this patch on both DX 11 and DX 9. The poster above me, with Windows 7, is getting better performance despite his system not supporting the features implemented in this iteration of the DX 11 patch.

If it was "Implement unsupported Windows 7 features = Windows 7 bad performance = Windows 7 POE future in jeopardy." Then it would affect every Windows 7 user. Clearly, as demonstrated above, it does not.

I will re-iterate.

GGG have acknowledged a problem with this particular patch and have said that they are working on it:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1825845/page/1#p14144690

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cipher_nemo a écrit :

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Kellog a écrit :

I think you missed the overall point of the thread.

No, I know exactly the point of the thread: to spread FUD about GGG supporting Windows 7 in PoE. Just because I have an opposing opinion to you doesn't mean I've "missed" the point of this thread.

Clearly, you don't and you have.

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Kellog a écrit :

GGG are already implementing features that are not supported by Windows 7, whether or not these are the cause of the issues a people are reporting, both here are reddit, is uncertain. The point is, this is just the beginning.

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This is the FUD I'm talking about. Just because Windows 7 will need a patch (update), or just because PoE will need a patch, doesn't mean there's features in PoE updates that's unsupported by Windows 7. DX11 is an all or nothing. It's a standard, and support for it is all or nothing. If something in DX11 is not working in Windows 7, then it needs a fix by Microsoft, and that will come in a future update (this is not related to DX11.1, just DX11).

And just because Windows 7 users won't benefit from a performance improvement in PoE that works in Windows 10, doesn't mean GGG is dropping off support for Windows 7. Stop spreading FUD!

Lets break this down:

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This is the FUD I'm talking about. Just because Windows 7 will need a patch (update)

Windows 7 will never support WDDM 1.2, which is needed to support the features provided in patch 2.5.2, specifically Parallelised rendering, which requires support for Constant Buffer Offsets and partial Updates. These are features of DX11.1. Windows 7 only supports a subset of the DX11.1 feature levels.

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PoE will need a patch

It will. but if the base OS doesn't support the features they're trying to implement, there's only so far they can go. Moreover, as the eol for Windows 7 is only three years away and they've just announced Xbox support, which has similar requirements to Windows 10, where do you believe they'll prioritise development?

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DX11 is an all or nothing

No, it's not. As already mentiond, Windows 7 has support for WDDM 1.1. This level driver support has limitations with regard to DX11.1 feature levels, specifically, it only supports the software features.

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If something in DX11 is not working in Windows 7, then it needs a fix by Microsoft, and that will come in a future update

This is extremely naive. Windows 7 is almost at it's end. Do seriously believe Microsoft would rewrite the entire Windows Display Driver Model, at this stage in the OS life cycle. In case you were unaware, Mainstream stopped and Sales of Windows 7 have already stopped. All we'll get now are security fixes.

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And just because Windows 7 users won't benefit from a performance improvement in PoE that works in Windows 10, doesn't mean GGG is dropping off support for Windows 7.

I've not suggested anywhere that GGG are dropping support for Windows 7, to do so would alienate a large proportion of the user base. The purpose of the thread was to try and ascertain the future path GGG have in mind for Windows 7 support and development.

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Stop spreading FUD

Unfortunately, the only FUD in this thread is being introduced by your posts, which are seemingly aimed at derailing the questions I asked in the OP.

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Bhaladas a écrit :

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cipher_nemo a écrit :

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Kellog a écrit :

I think you missed the overall point of the thread.

No, I know exactly the point of the thread: to spread FUD about GGG supporting Windows 7 in PoE. Just because I have an opposing opinion to you doesn't mean I've "missed" the point of this thread.

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Kellog a écrit :

GGG are already implementing features that are not supported by Windows 7, whether or not these are the cause of the issues a people are reporting, both here are reddit, is uncertain. The point is, this is just the beginning.

This is the FUD I'm talking about. Just because Windows 7 will need a patch (update), or just because PoE will need a patch, doesn't mean there's features in PoE updates that's unsupported by Windows 7. DX11 is an all or nothing. It's a standard, and support for it is all or nothing. If something in DX11 is not working in Windows 7, then it needs a fix by Microsoft, and that will come in a future update (this is not related to DX11.1, just DX11).

And just because Windows 7 users won't benefit from a performance improvement in PoE that works in Windows 10, doesn't mean GGG is dropping off support for Windows 7. Stop spreading FUD!

+1

Also, just because DX 11 POE introduces some aspects of the engine that are unsupported by Windows 7 that does not necessarily equal better performance on systems that do support said features, like mine, or worse performance on systems that don't, like the poster above me.

Quite true. Performance on disparate systems can be fickle at best and trying to write and support code, that caters to every possible combination of software and hardware out there, must be a nightmare.

As far as the latest patches are concerned, they may or may not be the cause of the issues people are having. It's also true that any performance improvement/degradation may be brought about by numerous things.

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In the example above my Windows 10 system, that does support said features, is getting worse performance this patch on both DX 11 and DX 9. The poster above me, with Windows 7, is getting better performance despite his system not supporting the features implemented in this iteration of the DX 11 patch.

Again, quite true. However, I could show you posts where people on Windows 7 have seen significant performance regression and those on Windows 10, huge performance improvements. For me, personally, playing PoE on Windows 10, using the same hardware as Windows 7, is, with the exception of some oddities with movement, a joy. The game is stable with very little fluctuation in fps or frame time. On Windows 7, since the latest patch(s) the game stutters and is quite unreliable going into large packs or breaches. It's not unplayable, just worse than it was prior to 2.5.2.

Regardless, whether or not the performance issues people are seeing, on any OS, are the direct result of the latest patches, is immaterial. The question I raised in the OP, was about the direction of support for Windows 7, bearing in mind the limitations of the OS.

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If it was "Implement unsupported Windows 7 features = Windows 7 bad performance = Windows 7 POE future in jeopardy." Then it would affect every Windows 7 user. Clearly, as demonstrated above, it does not.

As the only data we have is hearsay, forum posts and reddit, which constitutes a minority, I don't believe we're in a position to make any assumptions regarding what may or may not be causing problems or how many are affected.

Clearly, for those with systems that support the code, the patch(s) wwre designed to improve performance. For some reason, your system got worse, so maybe your problem isn't patch related.

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I will re-iterate.

GGG have acknowledged a problem with this particular patch and have said that they are working on it:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1825845/page/1#p14144690

That post only acknowledges an issue introduced in 2.5.2c/d. Moreover, no one in that thread mentions their specifications. So, yes, there is a problem and I'm sure GGG will create a fix. All of which is irrelevant to this thread and the question I asked.

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Bhaladas a écrit :

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/5qoiub/is_the_amd_gup_support_dropping_with_each_patch/

Quote from the page.

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[–]necrate 6 points 4 hours ago
My performance has been getting better and better with each patch. My hardware is: Intel i7 4770k @ 3.7GHz, 16GB DDR3, R9 290 4GB (stock); running PoE natively on Win7 64 with up-to-date drivers

I just wanted to coma back to this as I don't believe I addressed this fully in my earlier post. In that Reddit thread, the top post is now:

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7870 here, the FPS was amazing prior to 2.5.2* patch. That was the one that totally broke performance. Dx11 brought amazing performance, I lagged no where, not even in breaches.

Prior to dx11 there was lag everythere and after that cursed patch, the performance is shit. Not just for me, tons of people if you look at all the threads ;)

This mirrors my situation. I also use a HD7870 and the initial DX11 patch gave me a huge improvement in performance. Unfortunately, it also introduced horrible graphical glitches, which were reported in many different threads, most notably 2.4.2 Effect Artifact / Disco Inferno. The solution to this was to use '--noasync' which, for the most part solved the issue. Unfortunately, this introduced incredibly long load times, sometimes up to two minutes for an instance to be available.

With the later patches, these graphical problems were more or less solved. The game no longer needs '--noasync' and when the issue does occur, it's fleeting and is now an annoyance and not a major issue. However, the 2.5.2 patch, with the unsupported Windows 7 features, which may or may not be causing the stuttering etc., is really more of an issue. If I freeze due to a serious stutter, I'm pretty much dead. Fortunately, that doesn't happen very often.