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Missing textures, disappearing/reappearing character geometry, and glitched sound

JRockwater
Initial information: the PC in question is clean, runs all other games flawlessly, and is completely patched to latest in all respects that matter. I've tried scrubbing ESO and re-installing from scratch, which resulted in no changes to the aberrant behavior of the game engine. The game files check out as valid when doing a "repair" from the launcher. I have submitted a support ticket for this, but have had no response in the past week.

Various short videos of the game audio & video glitching badly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y520ejoB38g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OtHrn0rlqk

Taken after a complete re-install of ESO, and a complete error check of storage devices:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKKo1Wzg2SM

The game does this regardless of the quality settings. I've tried max quality and absolute minimum quality with all options turned off. Same behavior.

Various short videos of other MMORPGs working fine on the same system:

Guild Wars 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LrejATq8A4

Rift
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCbx2j4ChFY

Blade & Soul
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chT1h4snR-o

This system is water-cooled, and the GTX980 is down-clocked to normal ranges for the chipset in order to be completely stable. Elite:Dangerous was suffering from driver crashes before the card was down-clocked. This is the first game I've ever had that has exhibited sound issues, though. The random sound glitches, static bursts, and improper positioning in the sound field make me believe this is a game engine issue, not a system or driver issue.


[MSINFO]
OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise
Version 10.0.10240 Build 10240
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name GAMEBOX24
System Manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer INC.
System Model KGP(M)E-D16
System Type x64-based PC
System SKU To Be Filled By O.E.M.
Processor AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 6344, 2600 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
Processor AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 6344, 2600 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 3201, 2/19/2013
SMBIOS Version 2.6
Embedded Controller Version 255.255
BIOS Mode Legacy
BaseBoard Manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer INC.
BaseBoard Model Not Available
BaseBoard Name Base Board
Platform Role Desktop
Secure Boot State Unsupported
PCR7 Configuration Binding Not Possible
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.10240.16392"
User Name ROCKWATER\jroch
Time Zone Mountain Standard Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 64.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 63.9 GB
Available Physical Memory 58.0 GB
Total Virtual Memory 73.4 GB
Available Virtual Memory 67.0 GB
Page File Space 9.50 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
Device Guard Virtualization based security Not enabled
A hypervisor has been detected. Features required for Hyper-V will not be displayed.


[DXDIAG]

Display Devices
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce GTX 980
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Type: Full Device
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13C0&SUBSYS_29893842&REV_A1
Display Memory: 36744 MB
Dedicated Memory: 4008 MB
Shared Memory: 32735 MB
Current Mode: 3440 x 1440 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor
Monitor Model: 34UM95
Monitor Id: GSM76D8
Native Mode: 3440 x 1440(p) (59.973Hz)
Output Type: Displayport External
Driver Name: nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Driver File Version: 10.18.0013.6175 (English)
Driver Version: 10.18.13.6175
DDI Version: 12
Feature Levels: 12.1,12.0,11.1,11.0,10.1,10.0,9.3,9.2,9.1
Driver Model: WDDM 2.0
Graphics Preemption: DMA
Compute Preemption: DMA
Miracast: Not Supported
Hybrid Graphics GPU: Not Supported
Power P-states: Not Supported
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 1/22/2016 20:31:27, 17116616 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes

Sound Devices
Description: 34UM95-4 (NVIDIA High Definition Audio)
Default Sound Playback: Yes
Default Voice Playback: Yes
Hardware ID: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10DE&DEV_0071&SUBSYS_38422989&REV_1001
Manufacturer ID: 1
Product ID: 100
Type: WDM
Driver Name: nvhda64v.sys
Driver Version: 1.03.0034.0004 (English)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
Date and Size: 11/2/2015 15:49:25, 205456 bytes
Other Files:
Driver Provider: NVIDIA Corporation
HW Accel Level: Basic
Cap Flags: 0xF1F
Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 200000
Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 1, 0
Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0
HW Memory: 0
Voice Management: No
EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No
I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No
Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No
  • mook-eb16_ESO
    mook-eb16_ESO
    ✭✭✭✭
    try and delete your shader cache \Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\liveeu shadercache.cooked then restart your game.
  • JRockwater
    That didn't change anything:

    https://youtu.be/AWHPQsdWWuk

    I also verified that the engine is using D3D11.
  • kenjitamura
    kenjitamura
    ✭✭
    With all the info you've provided it sounds like the problem is very likely with DirectX 11 on your system. Guild Wars 2, Blade and Soul, and Rift all use DirectX9 last I checked. Do you have any other games that use DirectX 11 to verify if that could be the problem?

    Out of curiosity what happens when you change the renderer to OpenGL?

    In your UserSettings.txt file change the line from
    SET GraphicsDriver.7 "D3D11"
    to
    SET GraphicsDriver.7 "OPENGL"

    The file can usually be found in some place like "Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live"
  • JRockwater
    Videos of the results below after a completely fresh (used DDU to strip out old drivers) driver install for the graphics card. Based upon the number of games and test apps that work flawlessly in DX9, DX11, and OpenGL, I believe we can conclude that ESO is the problem.


    ESO
    ==========
    D3D11:
    https://youtu.be/yv7NLoci3Qk

    D3D9:
    https://youtu.be/U5ZZEIvyCLI

    OPENGL:
    Crashed on load.


    Fallout 4
    ==========
    D3D11:
    https://youtu.be/mo3ZpaW5Vgg


    Deus Ex: Human Revolution
    ==========
    D3D11:
    https://youtu.be/bAfJdXYgcvs


    Endless Legend
    ===========
    D3D11:
    https://youtu.be/sP7NCLR8TrM


    Diablo 3:ROS
    ==========
    https://youtu.be/e5019LActjE


    CS:GO
    ==========
    https://youtu.be/So54-Hg9lk0


    Elite:Dangerous
    ==========
    https://youtu.be/6miiOfjBeec


    GPUTest / TessMark X64 (OpenGL 4.0)
    ==========
    https://youtu.be/qvfwJKdHlJU
  • ZOS_AlexTardif
    ZOS_AlexTardif
    ✭✭✭✭
    The pink textures that you are seeing, and the glitching sounds you are hearing indicate that the patcher has somehow corrupted your data, because this is what happens when the game client can't find the data files it is looking for.

    The best course of action is usually to just wipe the game and the patcher from your computer, as well as all files in Documents\Elder Scrolls Online. Then, reinstall the patcher, run it as administrator, and have it download everything again. Also make sure you have plenty of hard drive space - although the base game is 45GB, the data that we have added to the game through expansions and patches has added much more. If you have 100GB free on your drive, you should be okay.
    Edited by ZOS_GinaBruno on February 13, 2016 3:12AM
    Zenimax Online Studios
    Staff Post
  • JRockwater
    I'll give it a shot, although I did uninstall and scrub the folders off the system previously. This will be the third time to try re-installing fresh.

    The patcher's "repair" function doesn't properly catch these types of corruption cases?
  • JRockwater
    A look through the DXDIAG Windows Error Reporting cases does have a couple entries related to ESO:

    Windows Error Reporting:
    +++ WER0 +++:
    Fault bucket 116106651967, type 5
    Event Name: BEX
    Response: Not available
    Cab Id: 0

    Problem signature:
    P1: eso.exe
    P2: 1.0.0.1
    P3: 56b294fa
    P4: nvoglv32.DLL
    P5: 10.18.13.6175
    P6: 56a2c68d
    P7: 01065b02
    P8: c0000409
    P9: 00000007
    P10:

    Pretty sure these were all pointing to the times I tried to start up ESO using OpenGL as the renderer.
  • babylon
    babylon
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    Yep nvoglv32.DLL is associated with openGL.
  • JRockwater
    Okay, I decided to test the validity of "files are corrupt" by copying the entirety of the Zenimax Media folder over to a secondary, older machine (4 core, nvidia 760-series) to see what would happen.

    Turns out it runs flawlessly on that system, so the files in question are not corrupt, and the launcher/patcher is working just fine. ESO simply doesn't like something about the 24-core Opteron server mainboard or something like that, which is the basis for my primary system.

    So, back to square one. I'm attaching DXDIAG to this post for the techs to poke through.

    Test on older system:
    https://youtu.be/UNKomT6iVKA
  • babylon
    babylon
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    24 cores? How fast is the processor, asking because until they add a 64bit client this game only sits on one of the cores at a time, and if the overall speed is loads slower than the overall speed on a CPU with fewer cores then you would see problems on it.

    Just read dxdiag, and maybe 2.6GHz is a bit slow for the game, if you're running it maxed anyway.
    Edited by babylon on February 13, 2016 4:07PM
  • JRockwater
    babylon wrote: »
    Just read dxdiag, and maybe 2.6GHz is a bit slow for the game, if you're running it maxed anyway.

    That's irrelevant to the problem, as that would simply lower the frame rate. In addition, you're likely comparing i-series core speads to Opteron core speeds, which aren't directly comparable. Just like you can't compared older Pentium-class clock speeds to Core2 clock speeds to i-series clock speeds.

    The older system that I tested with (for file corruption) is a Q6600 quad-core at 2.4Ghz, and runs just fine. (See video above.)
  • babylon
    babylon
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    JRockwater wrote: »
    babylon wrote: »
    Just read dxdiag, and maybe 2.6GHz is a bit slow for the game, if you're running it maxed anyway.

    That's irrelevant to the problem, as that would simply lower the frame rate. In addition, you're likely comparing i-series core speads to Opteron core speeds, which aren't directly comparable. Just like you can't compared older Pentium-class clock speeds to Core2 clock speeds to i-series clock speeds.

    The older system that I tested with (for file corruption) is a Q6600 quad-core at 2.4Ghz, and runs just fine. (See video above.)

    This game screws with all of our CPUs, even ones with cores way faster than yours. It's an actual possibility that your slow (per core) CPU isn't able to hand your fast GPU what it wants in time for the files to load and render properly.
  • JRockwater
    babylon wrote: »
    It's an actual possibility that your slow (per core) CPU isn't able to hand your fast GPU what it wants in time for the files to load and render properly.

    No, it's not possible, as that is utter nonsense. The GPU waits until it receives a scene finalize/execute command from the API before rendering the scene, which it often does in multiple passes. It does not have some kind of "window of opportunity" for you to throw triangles and textures at it before it suddenly decides it can't wait any longer. That is simply not how the API works at all.

    I appreciate your desire to provide information and try to help. If you wish to provide accurate information, please refer to the DirectX (or OpenGL) documentation for actual control flow of the rendering pipeline stages and how that is used by the application.

    If you wish to speak knowledgeably about the DirectX API and D3D11 in particular, the online reference is here:
    https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff476345(v=vs.85).aspx
    Edited by JRockwater on February 14, 2016 9:01AM
  • babylon
    babylon
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    Okay fine, it isn't you, it's ZOS. Now what...you going to expect them to make your pink things go away?

    It doesn't happen to me, or to that other computer you tried. So what do you suppose ZOS is doing to your main computer that is different to what ZOS is doing to the rest of us?
    Edited by babylon on February 14, 2016 10:53AM
  • Korax
    Korax
    ✭✭✭
    I would concur with JRockwater on most of the CPU vs GPU stuff he said, having done graphics programming myself working on various idTech (Quake etc) engines and my own hobby projects for the past 17 years.

    BUT

    Taking ESO's current state of technology into consideration:
    I basically stopped thinking about this issue at "Opteron Server Mainboard".

    Don't get me wrong, well written software should work anywhere, but we all know ESO still need lots of work, so running the game on hardware that not actually designed to run games on *should* raise a flag.

    I don't get those issues. I'm still running a fairly old-ish i5 (95w, 760, 2.8gz) with 2x 460GTX 1GB in SLI on High. All I get is random unstable FPS, but no weird artefacts apart from getting a minor low-rez texture/geometry issue on a very infrequent basis, which is more likely a memory limitation issue than any corruption issue. I'm sure the 64bit client would sort that out.

    I'd say in this case its just better to play ESO on hardware it typically expects... gamer hardware.
    I'm sure the game's state will improve over time. Its not like WoW was all that great the first while either.

    TL;DR
    If you know your diesel engine might run on 50ppm, but may just act up... why fill up with 50ppm anyway and afterwards have issues why your engine clogs up with soot after the fact?
    Edited by Korax on February 14, 2016 12:44PM
  • JRockwater
    babylon wrote: »
    It doesn't happen to me, or to that other computer you tried. So what do you suppose ZOS is doing to your main computer that is different to what ZOS is doing to the rest of us?

    Well, there's the part that literally no other game that I own, including hundreds in my Steam library, suffers from any such problems. Skyrim plays perfectly fine.

    I suspect one of their internal libraries that is used as a resource manager for storing the game resources that DirectX uses has a bug in it. The DX API is used for both world geometry and positional audio, and it appears that the references to those objects is just getting mangled somewhere in the process.

    The hard part for them is tracking down the combination of factors that results in the code failure. However, thus far they've not actually responded to the ticket I submitted.
  • JRockwater
    Korax wrote: »
    I would concur with JRockwater on most of the CPU vs GPU stuff he said, having done graphics programming myself working on various idTech (Quake etc) engines and my own hobby projects for the past 17 years.

    That's the whole point: the API layers provide the abstraction necessary such that the actual platform is irrelevant just so long as it has the hardware and drivers to support the requested features. As alluded to in the post above, I suspect there's a logic bug in their resource manager that only rears its head in very specific cases. I just happen to have one of those cases as my primary dev/game box.

    I don't expect them to drop everything and solve my problem, but I do expect them to actually stuff it onto the bug list, work with me or their own hardware to root cause it, and track down the error in their code. Because it's liable to bite them with a larger audience as time goes on.

    But I've got other games to play and projects to work on, so I'm cool if they take a month or three to get around to checking out my issue.
  • Valen_Byte
    Valen_Byte
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    ESO hates AMD....I rebuilt 2 towers...put intel's inside..lol and they work no problems. I also get better performance on ultra than I do at low settings..weird but thats how it is.
    ***Dixon Kay MagDK FORMER EMPEROR***Deca Dix MagDK FORMER EMPORER***Valonious MagPlar FORMER EMPEROR***
    GM of BYTE
    MAY YOUR DEATHS BE SWIFT, AND YOUR LOAD SCREENS LONG.
    And alien tears will fill for him, Pity’s long-broken urn, For his mourners will be outcast men, And outcasts always mourn
  • Korax
    Korax
    ✭✭✭
    Yea, its likely some fringe-issue they didn't bargain for. It could be a stupid as that they got some switch statement in their code checking the CPU against all the typical string identifiers (like type & SSE support, etc) on the CPU or whatever that end in a default (usually meaning "unknown") that have them behave in some kind of generic way that at the end doesn't work well on your undetected/unsupported CPU. Not that I think there should be a thing like an unsupported CPU unless it quite old or way out of left field.

    Kinda reminds me how GPU drivers lately get "updated" for each game. That in itself sounds wrong. If a game is developed correctly, the drivers don't have to conform to each and every AAA game coming out as to my view sound more like compensating for bad programming... like a quirks-mode graphics programming.

    Its like the browser wars of yesteryear, repeated for GPUs where each vendor tries to make sure each new title (read: website) renders and performs the best on their product.

    That in itself creates a lot of bugs and issues in games and drivers in combination.

    LOL, a little OT there. :blush:
  • JRockwater
    I've gotten two support ticket responses thus far, which have both been form letters. The first apologizing for their service outage due to inclement weather, the second was a short list of troubleshooting tips, all of which have been recommended by forum members here and already tried.

    Now the long wait to see if they'll actually escalate this to have an actual team member look into a potential bug, or if they'll just ignore it until I wander away. Recent updates have had no impact on the weird glitches.
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