What changed with June 25 maintenance that cause worse performance?

Vinterskald

Can definitely confirm something is awry. Earlier I hit three loading screens just running from the Elden Root wayshrine to the Undaunted enclave and back, and I'm seeing lots of character models not rendering - the last time I saw that was from when I still had ESO installed on a regular hard drive, before I moved it to an SSD. I'm struggling to get more than 20fps in towns now, even though nothing on my end changed. I didn't notice any of those things before June 25th.

MorallyBipolar

Yep, I also am wondering what they changed on June 25th. This is the first update that has ever tanked FPS as far as I can recall, and lag is worse everywhere now, especially after using a wayshrine or in Cyrodiil.

ZOS did something. They know what it is, and they aren't reverting it so the hit to performance remains still.

exiars10

Yep, something is going on.

I had stable 120 fps in the vast majority of towns even with a lot of players, some small dips are ok.
But in the last few weeks, fps randomly drops way to down.
I'm just standing in Rawl'kha, and fps goes down to 40 fps for a several seconds for no reason at all.
I won't even write what is going in trials .

Gankform

C:\Users\Unknown\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live and delete 'ShaderCache.cooked' may fix fps drop

L_Nici

Gankform wrote: »

C:\Users\Unknown\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live and delete 'ShaderCache.cooked' may fix fps drop

No, it doesn't fix anything long term. Just one zone load later and its back to terrible FPS. Unless you want to delete that Cache in between every LS, thats not a solution.

ToddIngram

Gankform wrote: »

C:\Users\Unknown\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live and delete 'ShaderCache.cooked' may fix fps drop

It didn't. Still getting massive fps drops for no apparent reason. Never had this issue prior to June 25th and I haven't changed my system at all. There was always intermittent issues with lag, but never with FPS....until June 25th.

LadyGP

Versalium wrote: »

Not only the performance, but also a massive sound lag. The sound very often comes after action was made. And when it finally comes, it is often ends abruptly anyway like it realizes that it was late.

The issue got a bit better, but it still there and annoying. I'm almost getting used to doing lockpicking in silence. That's not right.

The sound lag has been one of my biggest complaints for a hot minute. Quickest way to destroy immersion.

Techwolf_Lupindo

Two things I noticed.

First one on day of patch, the character select takes a second or longer for the characters to change after selecting them. This has never happened before. It was always instant.

Second, sounds get delayed at times. This is very noticeable when pulling up the map, the sound may delay a second or two. But the second map pull up usually have no delay. In PvE overland and public dungeon, the more thing going on, the more delayed the sounds are and sometimes no sound for the action.

virtus753

Techwolf_Lupindo wrote: »

Two things I noticed.

First one on day of patch, the character select takes a second or longer for the characters to change after selecting them. This has never happened before. It was always instant.

Second, sounds get delayed at times. This is very noticeable when pulling up the map, the sound may delay a second or two. But the second map pull up usually have no delay. In PvE overland and public dungeon, the more thing going on, the more delayed the sounds are and sometimes no sound for the action.

I actually ended up logging in on the wrong character due to the first issue you mentioned there.

I had logged off of an alt and clicked on my main. I know I clicked on my main, the same as I have always done to select a character. Then I clicked login. It loaded the character I had just logged off of instead. When I clicked on my main (again), there was a noticeable delay before that character was shown.

Also having the sound issue on every character. It reminds me of the delay that used to happen a lot with Jabs and occasionally with Beam. Now not only is it often with Jabs and Beam but also with many other things as well. Like you, I also noticed some sounds just never end up playing.

JustLovely

Thanks for bringing this up. You weren't the only one who noticed this after the June 25 maintenance.

What could they have possibly done to tank FPS? That's historically been set by the clients video card, but not in this case. It's not just lag from the server now, it's super low FPS too.

...just when you think performance can't get any worse....

AngryPenguin

What did they change is indeed the question of the day.

@ZOS_Kevin

Any chance of getting an answer to this important question? Even FPS bottoms out at less than 10fps in even moderate fights now and sometimes while just standing alone at one of the gates. Something very significant was changed on June 25th and we noticed. Please revert this change that was made to the servers. It tanked performance big time.

Juju_beans

I've been having FPS problems as well.

Today I logged into 9 FPS and all I could do was collect the daily and then log off.

Islyn

Just jumping in to say: Same here. Sudden frame drops 120 to 4 - never seen anything like it.

Major_Toughness

PC EU dead again.

SaffronCitrusflower

If the players can pinpoint the day the change was made that tanked performance, surely ZOS can figure it out too.

So why isn't ZOS reverting this change? Even FPS is bottoming out now and it's not due to our video cards or equipment. Even FPS is being determined server side now, and this change IS NOT WORKING! This can be fixed. ZOS knows what they did and what needs to be done to revert the change. So why hasn't this change been reverted in either of the two maintenances we've had since June 25th?

@ZOS_Kevin
@ZOS_BrianWheeler
@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_RichLambert
@ZOS_MattFiror
@ZOS_Phoenix
@ZOS_Adrikoth

Desiato

When I troubleshoot eso issues, I start with a new Live folder.

On PC, in \Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\ there is a folder called Live where all client settings, screenshots and addons are stored, in addition to some other things like the shader cache.

With ESO closed, I rename it to something like "Live_old" (do not delete it).

The next time I start ESO, the game will create a new Live folder with default settings and the current iteration of the default usersettings.

I load the game, adjust the graphics settings to my preference, play a little and see if that helps my problem.

If my problem isn't solved, I delete the temporary Live folder that was just created and rename Live_old back to Live.

If it does help, I start adjusting the rest of the client-side settings to my preferences and slowly reintroduce addons, one by one. In the past, this has helped me identify addons that were contributing to performance issues.

If someone migrates to a new Live folder, make sure you move your Screenshots folder before deleting the old live folder.

I'm not blaming addons for any particular performance issues players are describing in this thread. However, I will say a ZOS graphics engineer has previously confirmed the implementation of LUA in ESO is single threaded (as it usually is) and the more active addons a player uses, the greater the performance impact can be. They stated very clearly addons are a tradeoff between performance and features.

So I'm very careful only to use the addons I need. Because I'm in a large trading guild, I disable trading addons and some of the bigger libraries like LibHistoire when I play in trials. And though trial addons should only be active in the trials they are relevant to, I still only enable the specific addons I need out of an abundance of caution.

Sometimes I watch trial streams, and I'm occasionally astounded by how poor their performance is from the multitude of addons the player is using! I could never play like that.

Beware of clickbait performance optimization guides on youtube. Most of those are total garbage and either provide outdated information/tips or spread misinformation. Many can result in long term performance issues. Very little optimization is needed these days. The biggest improvement probably comes from configuring the GPU's power setting to prefer maximum performance. Never make changes you do not clearly understand just because some random person told you to.

I will also add it is normal for performance issues to emerge during the warmer times of the year in spaces that aren't climate controlled. All modern processors have thermal management systems that adjust performance according to operating temperatures -- which will always be relative to the temperature of the space they operate in.

Also, when troubleshooting, one may also consider the Thermal Interface Material on their CPU and GPU. It can degrade over time, and impact performance. My TIM is a few years old and I believe this is the reason the CPU on my gaming PC is running a little hotter. I have been putting off reapplying it for a few months. This isn't something everyone can do, but it will eventually affect most consumer TIMs I am aware of. A lot of hardware will continue to operate for years with old TIM, but it will probably degrade performance.

Sometimes new or old graphics drivers can be the problem. It's not uncommon for a new nvidia driver to cause a problem with a particular game or for an out of date driver to do the same. If experiencing issues, updating one's gpu driver can be a good idea. I also make sure my [motherboard] chipset drivers are up to date.

And of course network issues can manifest as performance issues. Wifi should be considered unreliable for gaming, and those who share connections in a household need to be cognizant of what the other users are doing at the time they experience issues. Also docsis cable modems are notorious for hidden performance issues that can affect things like gaming and voip. By hidden, I mean they may not show up in conventional ping tests. I finally transitioned to fibre and wouldn't go back to cable (or dsl) again.

My motherboard actually uses an infamous integrated ethernet controller, the intel i225-v. The early iterations of this can cause intermittent performance issues, so I'm always aware of it. The stepping my motherboard uses is fine with recent drivers though.

To be clear, I am not blaming any of these things for any particular performance issues. But knowing that many players aren't experiencing performance issues and the forums aren't melting down from complaints about them, factors such as these are at least worth considering.

I remember a time in 2014 when my PC started crashing in Shadowfen and in the Craglorn bank. I left feedback to ZOS about it and actually got a response from someone with a high level of technical knowledge. I felt awful because I realized the problem was a failing fan on my gpu. This has happened a couple of times. During the second instance, a fan had developed an imbalance that would cause the gpu to vibrate at high loads which I think affected its link to the pci bus, eventually resulting in a crash. I've also had two CPUs degrade from overclocking that resulted in instability.

SaffronCitrusflower

Desiato wrote: »

When I troubleshoot eso issues, I start with a new Live folder.

On PC, in \Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\ there is a folder called Live where all client settings, screenshots and addons are stored, in addition to some other things like the shader cache.

With ESO closed, I rename it to something like "Live_old" (do not delete it).

The next time I start ESO, the game will create a new Live folder with default settings and the current iteration of the default usersettings.

I load the game, adjust the graphics settings to my preference, play a little and see if that helps my problem.

If my problem isn't solved, I delete the temporary Live folder that was just created and rename Live_old back to Live.

If it does help, I start adjusting the rest of the client-side settings to my preferences and slowly reintroduce addons, one by one. In the past, this has helped me identify addons that were contributing to performance issues.

If someone migrates to a new Live folder, make sure you move your Screenshots folder before deleting the old live folder.

I'm not blaming addons for any particular performance issues players are describing in this thread. However, I will say a ZOS graphics engineer has previously confirmed the implementation of LUA in ESO is single threaded (as it usually is) and the more active addons a player uses, the greater the performance impact can be. They stated very clearly addons are a tradeoff between performance and features.

So I'm very careful only to use the addons I need. Because I'm in a large trading guild, I disable trading addons and some of the bigger libraries like LibHistoire when I play in trials. And though trial addons should only be active in the trials they are relevant to, I still only enable the specific addons I need out of an abundance of caution.

Sometimes I watch trial streams, and I'm occasionally astounded by how poor their performance is from the multitude of addons the player is using! I could never play like that.

Beware of clickbait performance optimization guides on youtube. Most of those are total garbage and either provide outdated information/tips or spread misinformation. Many can result in long term performance issues. Very little optimization is needed these days. The biggest improvement probably comes from configuring the GPU's power setting to prefer maximum performance. Never make changes you do not clearly understand just because some random person told you to.

I will also add it is normal for performance issues to emerge during the warmer times of the year in spaces that aren't climate controlled. All modern processors have thermal management systems that adjust performance according to operating temperatures -- which will always be relative to the temperature of the space they operate in.

Also, when troubleshooting, one may also consider the Thermal Interface Material on their CPU and GPU. It can degrade over time, and impact performance. My TIM is a few years old and I believe this is the reason the CPU on my gaming PC is running a little hotter. I have been putting off reapplying it for a few months. This isn't something everyone can do, but it will eventually affect most consumer TIMs I am aware of. A lot of hardware will continue to operate for years with old TIM, but it will probably degrade performance.

Sometimes new or old graphics drivers can be the problem. It's not uncommon for a new nvidia driver to cause a problem with a particular game or for an out of date driver to do the same. If experiencing issues, updating one's gpu driver can be a good idea. I also make sure my [motherboard] chipset drivers are up to date.

And of course network issues can manifest as performance issues. Wifi should be considered unreliable for gaming, and those who share connections in a household need to be cognizant of what the other users are doing at the time they experience issues. Also docsis cable modems are notorious for hidden performance issues that can affect things like gaming and voip. By hidden, I mean they may not show up in conventional ping tests. I finally transitioned to fibre and wouldn't go back to cable (or dsl) again.

My motherboard actually uses an infamous integrated ethernet controller, the intel i225-v. The early iterations of this can cause intermittent performance issues, so I'm always aware of it. The stepping my motherboard uses is fine with recent drivers though.

To be clear, I am not blaming any of these things for any particular performance issues. But knowing that many players aren't experiencing performance issues and the forums aren't melting down from complaints about them, factors such as these are at least worth considering.

I remember a time in 2014 when my PC started crashing in Shadowfen and in the Craglorn bank. I left feedback to ZOS about it and actually got a response from someone with a high level of technical knowledge. I felt awful because I realized the problem was a failing fan on my gpu. This has happened a couple of times. During the second instance, a fan had developed an imbalance that would cause the gpu to vibrate at high loads which I think affected its link to the pci bus, eventually resulting in a crash. I've also had two CPUs degrade from overclocking that resulted in instability.

This is not a client side issue. We didn't do anything to change our systems. Everything was, mostly anyway, fine prior to the June 25th maint. Then when we log on after June 25th performance was horrible. Even FPS is bottoming out now even for those of us who have $1500 video cards. This is 100% ZOS server side and we can pinpoint the exact day the change was made that created this situation.

Desiato

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

This is not a client side issue. We didn't do anything to change our systems. Everything was, mostly anyway, fine prior to the June 25th maint. Then when we log on after June 25th performance was horrible. Even FPS is bottoming out now even for those of us who have $1500 video cards. This is 100% ZOS server side and we can pinpoint the exact day the change was made that created this situation.

Before quoting my entire msg, did you not read the disclaimers? I'm not saying any of these things are affecting you. But because this thread isn't 50 pages long, I doubt the issues are as widespread as it may seem from your perspective, so some people may find these things worth considering. If they don't apply to you, then so be it.

Like I said before, I've noticed a little bit of microsutter, but nothing close to what some players are describing. It's possible not everyone is experiencing the same thing or if there is an issue on ZOS' end, it's being exacerbated by other factors.

I will also add, anyone experiencing issues should first leave feedback in game with /bug or /feedback because that provides ZOS with technical information about one's PC and internet connection. ZOS engineers will never read a thread like this and look up your account to figure out what is going on, so it's important to leave feedback in-game. Instructions for console users.

Tandor

freespirit wrote: »

We just had this subject come up in one of my guild chats, interestingly people on older machines(PC) running Win10 were seeing less problems than those on far superior rigs but running Win 11.

I myself have had a few problems but usually that is when these forums are on fire with server problems being reported, outside of these times I am not seeing any major difference. My PC is on the way to being classed as a "potato" and I run the game on settings that I adjust accordingly, many are still ramped right up some are actually off.

Is Win 11 still not playing nice with ESO and apparently some other games too?

If I remember rightly, the latest feature version 24H2 for Windows 11 does have some issues with gaming.

I use Windows 10 on both my machines. One of them is 14 years old and quite slow with 8GB RAM and a GTX960 graphics card but still plays ESO fine albeit with longer loading times, while the other is a couple of years old with 32G RAM and RX6750 XT graphics card and runs ESO fine with quick loading times. Both continue as they always have to run ESO smoothly with no noticeable performance issues except when the connection issues arise as explained by ZOS in the last week or so and which impact on logging in. I don't do PvP or endgame PvE and don't use addons or belong to any guilds. However, I do duo dungeons with my grandson using both machines and the only difference in performance is when using wayshrines as whoever is using the older machine takes longer to get to where we're going. I play on both EU and NA servers from the UK with no obviously noticeable difference between them.

I suspect there may be something in the point about Windows 11, and I've always found in game forums that those with middle-of-the-road systems tend to fare better than those with state-of-the-art systems. I suspect that's because the slightly older systems are what the games and their updates were built and therefore optimised on.

Desiato

Tandor wrote: »

If I remember rightly, the latest feature version 24H2 for Windows 11 does have some issues with gaming.

In general, 24H2 is very good for gaming. Gaming mode is actually beneficial now. Windows 11 on modern hardware performs very well.

Keep in mind that userbases with millions of people, it's possible for issues affecting only a small percentage of them to seem more widespread than they actually are. Especially in the PC ecosystem in which PCs are assembled from parts from dozens of different manufacturers.

All of my PCs are using 24H2 without issue, including my gaming PC.

Gankform

Desiato wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

If I remember rightly, the latest feature version 24H2 for Windows 11 does have some issues with gaming.

In general, 24H2 is very good for gaming. Gaming mode is actually beneficial now. Windows 11 on modern hardware performs very well.

Keep in mind that userbases with millions of people, it's possible for issues affecting only a small percentage of them to seem more widespread than they actually are. Especially in the PC ecosystem in which PCs are assembled from parts from dozens of different manufacturers.

All of my PCs are using 24H2 without issue, including my gaming PC.

i also use 24H2 - 26100.4652 lasted. My frames are always stucked to 180...no fps drop here, the game run very smooth...rtx4060 - ryzen 5800x - 16gbram ...i dont use occlusion and DlSS/AA

LootAllTheStuff

It might be helpful if both the people who are and those who are not having issues, to state which server they're on? Because there is at least one current known server issue affecting EU but not NA.

LPapirius

I also noticed a distinct decline in performance after the June 25th maintenance. I've never had an issue with FPS crashes like this.

Something was changed server side that has really borked performance in all zones and during big fights FPS drops below 15FPS on a regular basis now.

What gives?

@ZOS_Kevin

PC NA

Sluggy

LPapirius wrote: »

I also noticed a distinct decline in performance after the June 25th maintenance. I've never had an issue with FPS crashes like this.

Something was changed server side that has really borked performance in all zones and during big fights FPS drops below 15FPS on a regular basis now.

What gives?

@ZOS_Kevin

PC NA

SaffronCitrusflower wrote:

This is not a client side issue. We didn't do anything to change our systems. Everything was, mostly anyway, fine prior to the June 25th maint. Then when we log on after June 25th performance was horrible. Even FPS is bottoming out now even for those of us who have $1500 video cards. This is 100% ZOS server side and we can pinpoint the exact day the change was made that created this situation.

I mean, by definition it can't be server side if it's affecting your framerate. Your framerate is controlled by your hardware and the software running on it, not by some machine operating remotely that has no say in rendering and only asynchronously sends data (unrelated to rendering) to and receives data (also unrelated to rendering) from your machine.

And yes, I had serious issues as well after that patch. But it was clearly something related to that patch. You know, the update... the one that was sent out to all of our clients?

JustLovely

Sluggy wrote: »

LPapirius wrote: »

I also noticed a distinct decline in performance after the June 25th maintenance. I've never had an issue with FPS crashes like this.

Something was changed server side that has really borked performance in all zones and during big fights FPS drops below 15FPS on a regular basis now.

What gives?

@ZOS_Kevin

PC NA

SaffronCitrusflower wrote:

This is not a client side issue. We didn't do anything to change our systems. Everything was, mostly anyway, fine prior to the June 25th maint. Then when we log on after June 25th performance was horrible. Even FPS is bottoming out now even for those of us who have $1500 video cards. This is 100% ZOS server side and we can pinpoint the exact day the change was made that created this situation.

I mean, by definition it can't be server side if it's affecting your framerate. Your framerate is controlled by your hardware and the software running on it, not by some machine operating remotely that has no say in rendering and only asynchronously sends data (unrelated to rendering) to and receives data (also unrelated to rendering) from your machine.

And yes, I had serious issues as well after that patch. But it was clearly something related to that patch. You know, the update... the one that was sent out to all of our clients?

This is not the case with ESO since June 25th maintenance. Even FPS is being determined server side now somehow. You can be standing alone in a field and ms/FPS both bottom out for no apparent reason. And if there is a fight of any magnitude, even in PvE, both ms and FPS bottom out. (ms goes super high, and FPS goes super low same time)

It's been a month. Why hasn't ZOS even commented about this very serious and very real performance issue?

@ZOS_Kevin

madman65

I work out of Mournhold and I can tell you this, I can be outside the city where Rolis is stationed, walk through the arches into the city and the FPS will drop 30-50 FPS. I can port to the Flaming Nix Inn, walk out and head to the Wayshrine, halfway to the Wayshrine the FPS will drop the same amount. Outside Mournhold doing WB`s and Overland, I will have 100-120FPS so I will state this might be from to many gamers in the area but if that is true then we have a problem. We CANNOT group, if we do then we get poor performance and game experience which is not good for the game and the gamers will leave. So will ESO/ZOS continue to run the game in this condition? We`ll find out.

AngryPenguin

Welp. Judging by the silence for over a month now despite all the tags and requests for information about this issue...

.....looks like 10-20 FPS during bigger fights is just the new normal.

Another take it or leave it from ZOS. It's just sad how this has gone on like this for so long. The only time in a decade performance actually improved was when they got new servers. Now even FPS is determined server side and it's just as bad as the lag.

I don't know anyone who's OK with this new normal.

ToddIngram

I've never played a game where FPS was so low due to server side issues. I've done everything possible on my end, done everything in the ZOS help pages, nothing works. Big fights are 10-25 FPS and that's just the way it is. This can't possibly be right.

exiars10

Fights only?

I'm currently standing in the middle of nowhere and no matter where I go, 15-20 fps (normally 120 fps caped) and 160+ ms ping (normally ~80 ms). I doesn't last long but it happens randomly.

MorallyBipolar

I've been struggling with FPS drop outs for about a month now. I'm at my wits end trying to fix this issue and have determined it's just an issue with ZOS' servers.

I just did benchmark tests on my GPU. My peak FPS was over 500, with my minium being 45. But when I'm playing I'm lucky to hit 45 FPS and if it's during a fight or porting from zone to zone it drops to 10-20 FPS.

Since when is FPS a server side issue rather than a client side issue?

I've got too many hours into trying to work this out already. I've done everything ZOS has suggested and it's been a complete waste of time. The problem is server side with ESO. It's really that simple folks. Don't believe it when people try to claim performance issues with ESO are client side. They're not. The performance issues with ESO are server side, even FPS is determined server side now.