Path of Exile Patch Adds 'Clear Cache' Button

A recent Path of Exile patch added a “Clear Cache” button. Developers Grinding Gear Games took to the community to explain what it does and why they added it in the first place.

The patch in question is patch 3.14.1d. The patch notes state,

• The Path of Exile client now utilises your system's video memory more efficiently, which means that assets will stay loaded for longer. For systems with sufficient video memory, this will result in significantly fewer assets being visibly loaded during gameplay.
• Added 'Clear Cache' button in Options. While we clear Path of Exile's cache periodically, this button can be used on demand to attempt to troubleshoot issues that may be due to invalid files, or if the cache grows too large.

Given this is a restartless patch, you’ll need to restart your client upon patching. But what about that “Clear Cache” button? Grinding Gear Games explained,

“The 'Clear Cache' button will clear out several temporary storage locations that Path of Exile uses for things like downloaded images and graphics shaders. After clearing cached shaders your client performance will be temporarily degraded while the client regenerates the shaders it needs. For this reason we recommend only using 'Clear Cache' as a last resort when troubleshooting a crash or other graphical problem, or if the size of the caches has become a problem.”

They note they’re currently monitoring results of this patch to address any lingering issues. If you happen to experience crashes with Vulkan, try using DX11 and see what happens with that API. You can see the full explanation here.

In case you missed it, you can catch the Path of Exile team answering community questions about various game mechanics. If you’re the type of person who loves getting in the weeds in ARPGs, you really should check it out.