If You're Crashing and Running an NVIDIA Card....

ravendas

....make sure you're not using driver 358.50 (the latest) because it is most likely the problem. Scanning the NVIDIA forums revealed that tons of people are having lots of problems with it crashing games (https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/883847/geforce-drivers/geforce-358-50-driver-update-crash-issues-had-to-revert-back-to-previous-version-355-98-/1/ ). Rolling back to 355.98 *should* fix the problem. One way to check to see if it's the driver and not the game is to try and run other games and see what happens. When I tried to play LoTRO it crashed the same way (but SWtOR ran fine for some reason). Once I installed the older driver and deleted the new one, everything ran great again.
This isn't a 100% sure fix for everyone, but it's worth a shot...and maybe saves some stress over getting mad at ZOS when it may not even be an issue with the game itself.

Skorol007

I have the previous version and still get lots of crashes ...

Soleya

I was getting tons of black screens after a few mins of playing. The screen would just go black, but I could hear the game still running. I rolled back and still had issues (had issues before), but just a little less often. Today I updated back to the latest driver (clean install) and started getting black screens again. They seem more common when running nvidia shadowplay, but still happen if it's disabled.

So finally I installed EVGA PrecisionX 16. My card was overlocked by the manufacturer (EVGA) so I dropped it back 64mhz to match the nvidia specs, and my black screens stopped.

Before changing the clock speed I couldn't play for more than 2 minutes without a black screen. Today I played for a few hours with no issues.

Baraz

Personally, with updated Windows 10 and NVIDIA drivers, I do not crash though I have a budget computer (i3, GTX 650 1Gb).

How : Windowed mode. I have crashes if I use true Fullscreen with Windows 10.
Graphic settings on moderately high, except anti-aliasing off.

Elsonso

Slayer9292_ESO wrote: »

I was getting tons of black screens after a few mins of playing. The screen would just go black, but I could hear the game still running. I rolled back and still had issues (had issues before), but just a little less often. Today I updated back to the latest driver (clean install) and started getting black screens again. They seem more common when running nvidia shadowplay, but still happen if it's disabled.

So finally I installed EVGA PrecisionX 16. My card was overlocked by the manufacturer (EVGA) so I dropped it back 64mhz to match the nvidia specs, and my black screens stopped.

Before changing the clock speed I couldn't play for more than 2 minutes without a black screen. Today I played for a few hours with no issues.

You should call EVGA. You may have a bad card.

Seravi

Black screens were the horror at ESO launch. Lots of us spent a few months dealing with crashes non stop and had to force the game to run DX9 and run windowed full screen to stop it. There was no set driver causing the problem but the one thing we all had in common is we were running NVIDIA cards. I think around driver 344 it was fixed between the driver and game code. I am currently running two GTX980Ti Classified ACX 2.0+ cards SLI on driver 355.60. It seems to be the most stable driver for my setup and runs fine. I still run windowed full screen so I can easily get out to my other monitors as needed.

Not sure what card you are running but the 970's have been known to have a black screen issue. Not specific to ESO only as other games or general computing will cause the issue but there are 970's that have "whatever the issue is" bug and will black screen on you. Mostly happens when you are pushing the cards like when playing ESO. Screen goes black but you can hear the game.

Oh_Skrivva

I also run 2 980 ti's in sli i7 6700k paired with 16 gb 2400 ram and ssd runs perfect. Especially with a 5k monitor.

ZOS_AlexTardif

For the black screen issues mentioned here by a couple of you, a good thing to try is deleting your UserSettings.txt found in your Documents/Elder Scrolls Online/ directory, and letting the patcher/game regenerate it for you (it will do this automatically). You will need to reset some settings back to what you had before, but we've seen a number of people (especially if you've played for a long time) end up with a corrupted UserSettings file at some point, which can cause these black screens to occur.

Soulshine

I have a very high end system but after recent update to latest driver was having crashes. However, I also realized that I had not run any widows updates for quite a while (I always do these manually as I do not like anything downloading into the system without my awareness first...). So after updating everything two days ago, I now have zero crashes from the new drivers for Nvidia. Not sure if this info will help anyone else but for what it's worth that was my experience with the 358.50

Mannitu

I have W7 and W10 + GTX 770 problem after the Nvidiadriver 355.98.

New-Driver 358.87 same problem!

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/886861/geforce-experience/driver-358-50-causing-only-elderscrolls-online-to-freeze-and-go-black/

Cadelay

I had problems with crashing with my EVGA GTX 970 on several drivers when using Windows 8.1.

Since installing Windows 10 I haven't had my display driver crash once. Weird but nice.

Elsonso

NVM

Mannitu

Nvidiadriver 359.00 same Problem!

suman

Running any drivers past 353.62, meaning 355.60 and above is causing the game to crash.

FMonk

suman wrote: »

Running any drivers past 353.62, meaning 355.60 and above is causing the game to crash.

I rolled back to 353.62 a few days ago to try and fix it, still having the same issue, but less frequently.

altemriel

my nvidia geforce driver is 359.00

why are you guys so past?


edit: I am running the game with GeForce GTX 980M and no problems at all

Mannitu

After Nvidia-Driver 355.98 and my GTX770 i have the problems.

I think, some series be affected from the problem.

CaptainObvious

GTX 670. Problem still present when I stepped back to 355.98. Takes a bit longer though.

If 980M has no problems, then that means a change in the drivers messed up older cards somewhere in their driver line.

pema

I rerolled after the previous Nvidia update, as that caused crashes for me.
So I would advise roling back two steps.
The one they released for the star wars beta started the whole enchiladas.

Good to see that I'm not the only one, and glad I didn't try this update...

Gargath

I have Win7 and Asus GTX660TI with drivers 353.06 from 31.05.2015, also with game optimization by nVidia GeForce Experience, which makes the game to run smooth in ultra details on 27" full hd monitor.
So far I had no problems with black screens or CTD described here (knock knock), hope they won't occur after i wrote this .
It seems my game isn't sensitive much to windows update issues, because I make them occasionaly and I was playing on both not actualised and actualised windows and no difference noted.

Usually I play as long as possible on existing drivers if all games run smooth without problems. I install new drivers no earlier than once of 6 months or even longer. Driver maker promises each time some extra percent more fps per new driver, but it's not so much to risk games instability and troubles. Better wait few months untill the drivers are checked and approved by others than check them by myself

Patouf

The same :

Crash issue with 970 gtx i5 4460 8gb ram with the lastest nvidia driver!

Playing with high settings (70 fps) all addons are updated.

VoodooTC

Same issues for me, running GTX770, kept getting black screens and error reports.
Had to do 2 things to stop it:
Roll all the way back to v 353.62 nVidia driver - seems to be the last one that gave stable ESO performance for me.
Uninstall kernel-mode driver framework version 1.11 - seems to be a conflict between that and the nVidia drivers, and it's an unnecessary Windows update thingo.

Mannitu

Driver 361.43 same Problem...please fix it...

KeplerMG

VoodooTC wrote: »

Uninstall kernel-mode driver framework version 1.11 - seems to be a conflict between that and the nVidia drivers, and it's an unnecessary Windows update thingo.

How do you do that?

Sordidfairytale

ZOS_AlexTardif wrote: »

For the black screen issues mentioned here by a couple of you, a good thing to try is deleting your UserSettings.txt found in your Documents/Elder Scrolls Online/ directory, and letting the patcher/game regenerate it for you (it will do this automatically). You will need to reset some settings back to what you had before, but we've seen a number of people (especially if you've played for a long time) end up with a corrupted UserSettings file at some point, which can cause these black screens to occur.

Just started having this happen and this did not work for me. Luckily I renamed and moved my usersettings.txt file so I can go back to my settings.

KallistaBlackheart

well, i have tried every driver back many generations.... it's not the drivers. its the game.

KallistaBlackheart

and just for fun i deleted the settings text file.. nope. it is the game......

Gargath

I play with driver 353.06 dd 2015-05-31 and game runs stable. I do not wish to change drivers every time they make new one, just to gain few more percents of speed. Stability over performance .

Odanen

i'm updated to 364.51. Three last days there was no crashes.

VoodooTC

Welp, the black screens started up for me again. Hadn't played in a few months due to travel and stuff, went back into it yesterday and it started again. Hadn't changed a thing. Did the settings.txt, uninstalled the kernel-mode driver thingo and still getting black screens after a minute or two. In desperation, downloaded and installed the latest nVidia drivers (was running 353.62) but still having issues.

VoodooTC

This black screen issue is still happening for me, can't play the game for more than about 10 minutes before it dies on me.
I have done the following:

Deleted the UserSettings.txt file and let it regenerate.
Running launcher as admin.
Ensured that Power Management Mode in Nvidia Control Panel is set to Prefer Maximum Performance.
Uninstalled the kernel-mode driver framework version 1.11.
Tried the latest Nvidia driver - gave same issues so I rolled back to 353.62, which used to work fine, but not any more.

None of these fixes has worked. I've attached my DxDiag in case people can pick up something that I haven't.
Would appreciate some feedback from ZOS as this is getting ridiculous.
*Attaching Game Consutant Report as well