Old PC Players - optimization suggestions?

[Rabbit Apocalypse]

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, 32GB RAM, W10pro. Game is on an HDD, my SDD doesn't have space for games; it's a WD Black from about 6 years ago.

Map loads very slow (lots of gear turning), game laggy despite 33ms ping, and it says my GPU driver is out of date, I'm using one from July, bc the newer drivers don't always work and I tried four recently before finding one that didn't crash my system.

I built this PC in 2012, and see between 30-60fps in most games, but not with super high settings. Not looking for advise to build a new PC, I can't afford that right now, just looking for advise to optimize my gameplay experience.

I am aware I am "not supported" by most new games, and yet despite this, I've played many new games with few issues (BG3, Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk, etc.) but some have many issues (D4 the worst, looks awful). Thank you to anyone with helpful suggestions!

[coffeekitkat]

I play PoE2 on GeForce NOW

[AlienZeratul]

Would be good to include the storage medium. It makes a huge difference, if the game is on a slow HDD, fast HDD, SSD or NVME.

Turn down settings, shadows, v-sync, reflection.
If you are not using an SSD yet, i'd consider that.

(Using paragraphs would be nice if you consider no one likes to read a wall of text)

Edit: For comparisons. I got Ryzen5 2600, 16 GB RAM, GTX 2070, System (W10 pro) on SSD, some Games on HDD, latest games on NVME.
Parts of my system might be older than yours!

[MrSoul]

I dunno, try dropping it down to like 720p.

[Rabbit Apocalypse]

Originally posted by AlienZeratul:

Would be good to include the storage medium. It makes a huge difference, if the game is on a slow HDD, fast HDD, SSD or NVME.

Turn down settings, shadows, v-sync, reflection.
If you are not using an SSD yet, i'd consider that.

(Using paragraphs would be nice if you consider no one likes to read a wall of text)

I added breaks, thank you for the suggestions. I had vsync set to adaptive, which was recommended, but I've turned it off. Everything else I had turned down low.

It might be too much to hope that someone else has a similar set up and has a driver recommendation. I hate playing the "which nvidia driver doesn't crash my computer" game. My OS is on a SSD, but games are not.

[SeiKz]

i have a 6 years notebook with a i7 7700 + 1050ti, what worked for me was, for cpu undervolt with throtlestop, it will make your cpu run cooler and better, for gpu i used asus gpu tweak to try to stop thermal throttling, it was 74º₢ now it's 88ºc(can be higher if you want but it's up to you, max allowed is 100 but can be dangerous).

you can also try lossless scaling(steam), fps jumped to 100+ from 30(native and adaptative graphics off), but it can make some graphical glitchs sometimes,

inside the game dynamic culling helped a bit, fsr can help too but im using lossless scaling with native graphics so it look way better.

also install the game in a ssd, yes the game run 100x better.

disable all overlays steam and nvidia they can make your fps drop, newer drivers arent always better, find one and stick with it.

windows 10 if corrupt can make your games lag, for some reason you can use it like it's normal but everything get slow, so you need to install a new one or try to repair( not saying that's what happening to you, but it's a tip)

[Aldroen]

You are CPU bottleneck if anything.

As for optimisations, make sure that multhithreading is enabled in game and if it is already try turning it off as weirdly this might help in your case.

Also try CPU Unpark if not already and obviously minimise any task in the background to bare minimum.

Also SSD is really a must for this game, even PoE 1 ran pretty bad on HDD. If you need to stick with HDD make sure to defrag it after PoE 2 install and if you have any third part software for it make sure to prioritise PoE 2 on it to have it on the faster end of the platter (I know I could do that on win7 but that was years ago so I am not sure what you could use for this today).

[Vences]

Buy at least 256 GB SSD because HDD is the biggest bottleneck for your setup. Even SATA SDD will make a huge difference. No optimizations will help if the game is on HDD. Too long loadings + file swapping, which causes heavy stuttering during the game.
Update Bios, update chipset and GPU drivers.
After that the game should run fine on low/med graphics details.