FPS stuttering - despite high performance

Sidereum

Hello everyone,
as per title, I have been experiencing annoying FPS stuttering while playing.
I recently bought an MSI laptop (GF 63 12VF - Windows 11). I used to play on a desktop gaming PC (Windows 10) and I had never experienced this issue before.
With my new laptop, I constantly play at 60 FPS, in any situation. I have v-sync ON, and without it I'd reach stable 100 FPS, but I chose the 60,20 mHz setting on Windows 11 to favour temperatures. Temps are OK when I play. I usually reach 65°C (70°C in trials) on CPU and 60°C on GPU. The (one and only) fan works fine when the laptop is under stress, and I also play games with a cooling pad. I play on WiFi, and I play with an xbox one controller via bluetooth (I disabled the Windows 11 Game Bar because I've read online that it could've contributed to the stuttering).
However, from time to time (it's completely random - sometimes it happens dozens of times consecutively, other times it rarely happens during a gaming session), my screen freezes for a split second, while doing literally anything in-game, whether I'm in a crowded area, in a trial, alone in a delve, or doing overland content. I noticed that it happens more frequently when I initiate a combat. The FPS count says 59-58 (sometimes 55), but it feels nothing like that; instead, the screen actually freezes.
I'd be very grateful for any help. Thank you in advance!

These are the specs:

• OS: Windows 11
• Disk: 500gb SSD
• RAM: 16gb
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 (laptop) 8gb
• CPU: Intel i7-12650H

My MSI Center. (I use the AI engine)

In my Windows 11 settings, I use the high performance power plan. (Pardon the Italian lol)

My in-game video settings.

My add-ons. (They're all up to date via Minion)

EDIT: Just wanted to add that I recently did a fresh reinstall of the latest Nvidia GPU drivers with DDU but this did not fix the issue. Windows 11 is also fully up to date.

ZOS_Phoenix

@Sidereum

If you have not already, please try the steps in this article and let us know if they help.

cptscotty

Can you describe your stuttering a bit more? I'll provide some options below:

1. The game completely freezes for a second or more and you can still see everything just nothing is moving at all
2. You get a black screen and cant see anything
3. Your character freezes but everything around you still moves and breathes
4. The game feels occasionally sluggish but never stops moving
5. when panning the camera the game looks choppy but moving in a straight line not that noticeable
6. The game stutter-steps its way through and the stutters happen very fast, less than a second
7. The game is perfectly fine when first playing for the day, then a minute or so in the game starts having issues
8. The game is fine if you just let it sit there for a few minutes after panning the camera around 360 degrees and then only acts up once you leave the area or start moving again after waiting

Feel free to choose a few of those options and let me know, it will help narrow down the issue.

Sidereum

cptscotty wrote: »

Can you describe your stuttering a bit more? I'll provide some options below:

1. The game completely freezes for a second or more and you can still see everything just nothing is moving at all
2. You get a black screen and cant see anything
3. Your character freezes but everything around you still moves and breathes
4. The game feels occasionally sluggish but never stops moving
5. when panning the camera the game looks choppy but moving in a straight line not that noticeable
6. The game stutter-steps its way through and the stutters happen very fast, less than a second
7. The game is perfectly fine when first playing for the day, then a minute or so in the game starts having issues
8. The game is fine if you just let it sit there for a few minutes after panning the camera around 360 degrees and then only acts up once you leave the area or start moving again after waiting

Feel free to choose a few of those options and let me know, it will help narrow down the issue.

@ZOS_Phoenix @cptscotty Thank you both for reaching out!
I have done as the ESO Support page instructed (as I have listed at the bottom of this post) but to no avail.

I suppose only point #1 describes it, while point #6 partially describes it because the stuttering rarely happens.

I'll provide more details:
When the game stutters, whatever is shown on my display is frozen for an instant, maybe even less than half a second. There are no black screens, no screen tearing, no distorted image/sound, but only the frame of what I am doing when the stuttering happens, as if I were taking a screenshot. When it happens, the FPS count goes down from 60 to 59, 58 or 55, but immediately goes up to 60 again.

It appears to be more frequent when I enter crowded areas, which is weird, because if I turn v-sync OFF, my FPS is a stable 100 even in said areas. It also happens when I initiate a fight, in any area, whether I am in a trial or doing overland content. I noticed it happens even more frequently (and in this case not rarely) in Infinite Archive. But generally speaking, it can happen anytime, in any situation, there is no specific pattern, it's all random.

It also happens if I turn the in-game v-sync off and select the 144 mHz option in my Windows 11 settings, thus running the game at 100 FPS (in that case, when it happens, the FPS count will go down to 99, 98 or 95 and then immediately go up to 100).

So far, I've taken some measures that seem to have reduced the frequency of the issue, and also its intensity (the stuttering used to last a bit longer), but that don't seem to have fixed it overall. (The screenshots I have attached show my current in-game video settings, as in, after taking said measures).
I have:

• Reduced the shadows quality and view distance;
• Reduced general view distance;
• Repaired the game client;
• Switched from Borderless to Fullscreen;
• Selected the high performance power plan in the Windows 11 settings;
• Selected the high performance power plan in the Nvidia Control Panel 3D settings;
• (This one has been reverted)Turned OFF in-game v-sync and used the Nvidia Control Panel adaptive v-sync;
• Selected the Nvidia GPU as the default display device (my laptop would switch between the integrated Intel card and the Nvidia card based on which app was running);
• Terminated the Windows Game Bar tool (I play with a controller, therefore using the gamepad UI);
• Done a fresh reinstall of the GPU drivers using DDU;
• Updated Windows 11;
• Installed optional drivers using Snappy Drivers.

The only thing I haven't done is disable add-ons, because when I used to play on my previous gaming machine (Windows 10) they were causing no issue. I suppose I could give it a try, because I used to play with M&K while now I play with a gamepad, and maybe the gamepad UI is conflicting with one or some of the add-ons? Although, after some searching, I haven't found anything online to suggest that any of the add-ons I use are incompatible with gamepad UI.

Thank you again!

ZOS_Bill

@Sidereum

Thank you for listing all the troubleshooting you've tried so far. At this point I would recommend starting a ticket with customer support for more assistance.

cptscotty

Sounds like either swapping (if it was fast to be only the split second) or some form of memory loading. Do you have "Software Occlusion Culling" enabled in video settings in game?

Sidereum

cptscotty wrote: »

Sounds like either swapping (if it was fast to be only the split second) or some form of memory loading. Do you have "Software Occlusion Culling" enabled in video settings in game?

@cptscotty The Software Occlusion Culling setting is OFF. I'm not sure if turning it on would be wise, considering that my CPU reaches higher temperatures than my GPU. It's worth noting, however, that when I play my CPU usage sits around 4%, while my GPU usage sits around 35%.

cptscotty

Turning it on means it wouldnt load as many objects since it doesnt load in stuff you dont see. Would help with performance but it can at times add a stutter like you are describing as it does end up loading things.

Your issue really sounds memory related or something is loading/changing but there are some other stuff you can check. Turn off all your addons if you havent already, and lower down your view/particle distance down to the lowest and use SSAO. Of course you should have good performance at that point, but check if you still stutter when moving around. If you do...then its probably not ESO related and more your hardware thats the issue...if you dont have stuttering then its the game and you have to fine tune the settings to help fix that issue.

Also...make sure you are actually running the game on the nvidia gpu and not the intel cpu/gpu. Get yourself MSI Afterburner and turn on the overlay and watch temps, frequencies of the cpu and gpu, and memory usage. When you encounter the stutter see what is changing on the overlay. See if you spike to the 80c+ temp range for a second, see if your frequencies are downclocked and spike back up during the stutter...also check if the cpu goes into turbo mode on some of the cores during the stutter.

Either way, you may want to look at how to run your card on lower temps. I force my gpu to not go above 70c during the summer and so it downclocks itself if it gets closed to that. I also set my cpu windows power settings to have a maximum power of 99% to force it to never go into turbo. Helps during the summer to keep temps down and keeps my hardware running longer with less stress and thus more stable fps.

ningauble_7b14_ESO

I've been experiencing similar somewhat random stuttering on a Razer Blade 16 lately, with 32GB Ram, an i9-13950hx, rtx 4080 and a Samsung 980 Pro SSD. It only started a couple months ago, prior to that the game ran flawlessly. I tried reverting Nvidia drivers when I first noticed it to the previous version, but this didn't help. I'm wondering if a recent patch to ESO or Windows causes this issue, I don't think it is thermally related, I've monitored the cpu and gpu temps with hwinfo64 and while hot, they aren't reaching throttling temps (about 90c cpu, 83c gpu)

MoonPile

Hi OP did you figure this out?

I'm on desktop with RTX 3080. FPS doesn't drop (it always shows 60, my cap) but the stuttering and lag is insane. Normally performance was good, until the last week or so.

Today I was working on a house and it finally got so bad that I had to quit; every action was pausing.

Otherwise there's been occasional stuttering (choppy) when panning the camera. And massive lag spikes especially when opening menus; everything just stops for a second.

Edit: I checked HW temps too, they were fine. It's not connectivity issues either.

This could of course be client-end and a different issue from yours. But FWIW I've seen others report similar issues elsewhere, also.

Sidereum

ningauble_7b14_ESO wrote: »

I've been experiencing similar somewhat random stuttering on a Razer Blade 16 lately, with 32GB Ram, an i9-13950hx, rtx 4080 and a Samsung 980 Pro SSD. It only started a couple months ago, prior to that the game ran flawlessly. I tried reverting Nvidia drivers when I first noticed it to the previous version, but this didn't help. I'm wondering if a recent patch to ESO or Windows causes this issue, I don't think it is thermally related, I've monitored the cpu and gpu temps with hwinfo64 and while hot, they aren't reaching throttling temps (about 90c cpu, 83c gpu)

MoonPile wrote: »

Hi OP did you figure this out?

I'm on desktop with RTX 3080. FPS doesn't drop (it always shows 60, my cap) but the stuttering and lag is insane. Normally performance was good, until the last week or so.

Today I was working on a house and it finally got so bad that I had to quit; every action was pausing.

Otherwise there's been occasional stuttering (choppy) when panning the camera. And massive lag spikes especially when opening menus; everything just stops for a second.

Edit: I checked HW temps too, they were fine. It's not connectivity issues either.

This could of course be client-end and a different issue from yours. But FWIW I've seen others report similar issues elsewhere, also.

I haven't fully fixed it, but (for Nvidia users) it seems that enabling "Triple Buffering" (either exclusively for ESO or as a general setting) in the Nvidia Control Panel 3D settings has somehow made the stuttering even less frequent.
@MoonPile Do you also play with a controller?

MoonPile

Sidereum wrote: »

ningauble_7b14_ESO wrote: »

I've been experiencing similar somewhat random stuttering on a Razer Blade 16 lately, with 32GB Ram, an i9-13950hx, rtx 4080 and a Samsung 980 Pro SSD. It only started a couple months ago, prior to that the game ran flawlessly. I tried reverting Nvidia drivers when I first noticed it to the previous version, but this didn't help. I'm wondering if a recent patch to ESO or Windows causes this issue, I don't think it is thermally related, I've monitored the cpu and gpu temps with hwinfo64 and while hot, they aren't reaching throttling temps (about 90c cpu, 83c gpu)

MoonPile wrote: »

Hi OP did you figure this out?

I'm on desktop with RTX 3080. FPS doesn't drop (it always shows 60, my cap) but the stuttering and lag is insane. Normally performance was good, until the last week or so.

Today I was working on a house and it finally got so bad that I had to quit; every action was pausing.

Otherwise there's been occasional stuttering (choppy) when panning the camera. And massive lag spikes especially when opening menus; everything just stops for a second.

Edit: I checked HW temps too, they were fine. It's not connectivity issues either.

This could of course be client-end and a different issue from yours. But FWIW I've seen others report similar issues elsewhere, also.

I haven't fully fixed it, but (for Nvidia users) it seems that enabling "Triple Buffering" (either exclusively for ESO or as a general setting) in the Nvidia Control Panel 3D settings has somehow made the stuttering even less frequent.
@MoonPile Do you also play with a controller?

I'll try that, thank you.

No, I use M+KB. (However, I occasionally use a controller for "filming" - the camera panning with a controller is perfectly smooth, where as mouse always stutters no matter what's done with slowness or sensitivity settings. Others have confirmed that over time as well; it's not just my setup. But this issue is different; pronounced stutter and lag.)