Not just application crashed, but system crashes *****SOLVED*****

Crushinator

This happens to me all the time (every couple hours or even more often). I want to be patient and let the game get fixed, but when I submit the problem report with information that would be helpful to ZOS to fix the issue, I'm told that I have my graphics settings too high or my video card drivers are the problem.

I gotta say, it makes me sick to always be told "It's not our fault, it's XXXXX's fault."

I have a gaming laptop (not the most powerful one out there, but enough).
I can play other games at ultra high settings that have similar requirements to this game, and experience 0 issues. When the game IS running "smoothly," I still only get around 30-40 fps on medium settings. I'm even willing to accept that level of quality, if only it were stable.

Lenovo y410p (easier to look up)
8gb ram
Nvidia GeForce 750M w/ 2gb gddr5
4th gen haswell i7

I've attempted rollback of drivers, tried new updates to drivers, tried fully wiping my drivers and reinstalling. Did the same thing to my onboard Intel graphics drivers, too, while I was at it.

No correlation behind what makes me crash. I will only occasionally get the window with "Elder Scrolls has stopped responding." Occasionally I will get a "Your display driver has stopped responding and was recovered." Most common is the worst issue: My entire computer will UTTERLY lock up. Sound will stutter to a halt like it just got into a car accident. NOTHING will respond, no alt-tab, no alt-f4, no mouse movement, nothing. I have to long-press the power to get my machine off and then turn it back on.

These issues leave NOTHING in my event log except the Error 41 for windows losing power unexpectedly.

I have had this experience at Ultra High graphics, High graphics, and Normal graphics. I tried letting the "Default settings" set by ESO dictate my graphical settings. I have tried my own graphical settings. I have attempted letting the Nvidia Experience application adjust my settings for "optimization." Nothing has had an impact.

I want to throw money at you, ZOS. I want to immerse myself in your game and forget where I am, who I am, and that I'm an adult with a real job and real life. Immersion isn't possible at ALL with this.

You have an awesome LOOKING game. You have an awesome PLAYING game. Make it awesome performing please?

Any answer other than "Update your drivers and reduce the graphic settings" as an answer would be so fresh and welcome!

Any suggestions from the community would be welcome. If it's something I've tried, and didn't note here, at least we're trying!

I'm almost to the point of a full factory reset on my laptop, but I've got about 2% confidence in that making a difference.

Fjalvan

I think I may be having the same, or at least a similar problem. Yesterday I started using a new, fairly high-spec system; upgrading from my Mac Book Pro which ran ESO competently on a mix of medium and high settings. The system was delivered pre-built, allegedly with up to date drivers installed, and when I installed ESO, patched it, and ran it, it played smoothly with a high FPS on Ultra graphics settings. All the while clocking between 35-45% on CPU and RAM usage. The problem came, however, between five and fifteen minutes into playing when my whole system siezed up: graphics, sound, everything. There was still a visual on the monitor (albeit it was frozen still), but the speakers buzzed constantly. The system sounded like it was still powered on, and lights indicated the same too. It required a reset, which I did. I tried booting up ESO again, and within five to ten minutes the same problem had happened again, and has continued to happen consistently, ever since, crashing/freezing/seizing-up at varied time intervals between 5 and 20 minutes. The one or two times this hasn't happened, instead just the ESO client has crashed, and notified me that the Graphics Drivers failed, but were able to restore.

To try and remedy the problem, I have updated my graphics card drivers myself(currently to a beta version released on the 7.4.14), run a windows update which updated my .NET framework etc, and tested most of my other drivers and been told that they are also up-to-date by windows driver update. I've checked for .NET, DirectX, and C++ updates and believe I'm all up to date there too. I've also tried running the game on lower graphics settings, but this didn't alter the end result either.

The new system I'm running looks like:
CPU: Intel Core i5 4670K
CPU Overclocking: 4.2Ghz - Moderate Overclock
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100 Extreme Water Cooler
Operating System: Windows 8.1 (64-bit)
Motherboard: Gigabyte G1 Sniper Z87
RAM: 8GB Corsair 2133mhz Vengeance (2x4GB)
Hard Drive: Corsair 128GB Force GS SSD
Storage: 1TB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
Optical Drive: 22x DVD±RW DL S-ATA
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB
Sound card: Onboard 7.1 Audio
Case: Corsair Carbide Air 540 Silver Edition
PSU: 650W Corsair RM Fully Modular

I'm pretty sure this is more than adequate for a smooth run on ultimate settings, and certainly should be crashing on medium and high, so I feel like something is up. I'll be keeping an eye on your thread to see what solutions people come up with for you, and I'll test them out myself.

Hope we can get ourselves sorted out!

Crushinator

yeah, your system beats the hell out of mine! But your problem seems to be the same. There is no reason the specs you listed should struggle to run this. I'm not an expert, I'll admit. But I'm not a Tyro, either. This feels applications related, since it's specifically isolated to this application. I don't have these freezes/crashes on any other game, while browsing, watching Netflix, etc. The only time it occurs is when I have ESO up.

I'm currently researching what (if any) applications or BIOS modifications will allow me to view and adjust my GPU and CPU fan speeds. Silly laptop limitations. It's not like I'm going to try to turn the fan speed DOWN! Let me increase it!

Crushinator

oh, and also, I'm trying to get an application that can monitor my gpu and cpu temps and stay open in an overlay over the top of ESO, to keep me informed without tabbing out. Tabbing takes the load immediately off my dedicated graphics card and begins using the integrated graphics card to display my desktop.

Anyone know of a suggestion? I'm about to attempt this with MSI's Afterburner, but I'm not holding my breath.

Fjalvan

Added to this list of things that I've tried (courtesy of some very patient and helpful guildmates of mine!) should be:

- Run ESO as Administrator in Windows Seven Compatibility Mode (Same result)
- Run it on Very Low settings (I'll update shortly.)

After this, the next thing I'm going to try is installing Windows 7 instead of Windows 8 and running it in that. That'll give me some indication as to whether it is OS related, or whether I'm still looking at an issue with the system. It's only three days old so I've ruled out dust!

Fjalvan

I don't think I'm having heating issues. I've got a pretty hefty cooling system. The base build I bought, with a few customisations in RAM and Case is:

http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/-b-NEW-b-Shooter-Ghost-GTX-780-94p1890.htm

The case (to give folks an accurate picture of cooling) is:

http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/ShowInfo.asp?SIArray=1438,&cd=Case

Crushinator

Yeah my system never went higher than 80. I tried beta drivers from nvidia but that hasn't solved it either. Still crashing and killing my system.

If it's the OS then I'm done. I'm unwilling to go backwards because they can't make the game work on the current OS versions.

This is getting ridiculous though. I pretty much get 45 minutes to play then 5 minutes to reboot and then 30 minutes poring through event viewer and other troubleshooting methods trying to implement another attempt at a fix to just start the cycle again.

Fjalvan

So I have managed to solve my issue with a BIOS update. I used AIDA64 Extreme and BIOS Agent Plus to run a driver and BIOS diagnosis of my system, and that was the only program I tested that told me that I needed to update some stuff. Then I used @BIOS to update. It was pretty straight-forward. You might've tried it already, but I thought I'd share.

gypsythief

Crushinator wrote: »

I have a gaming laptop (not the most powerful one out there, but enough).
I can play other games at ultra high settings that have similar requirements to this game, and experience 0 issues. When the game IS running "smoothly," I still only get around 30-40 fps on medium settings. I'm even willing to accept that level of quality, if only it were stable.

Lenovo y410p (easier to look up)
8gb ram
Nvidia GeForce 750M w/ 2gb gddr5
4th gen haswell i7

Gaming laptops such as yours use nVidia's Optimus technology to dynamically switch between the power-conserving on-board graphics of the i7 for standard stuff (web browsing etc) and the power-hungry grunt of the nVidia card for more demanding things such as gaming.

Most games run in "exclusive" graphics mode, meaning they and they alone have exclusive control over the GPU; in this situation the graphics drivers realise you need more power and switch from the on-board i7 to the nVidia card.

However, ESO does not run in exclusive mode. This has already caused problems with people trying to run SLI / Crossfire, as it simply doesn't work in non-exclusive mode. It's possible that the same thing is happening on your laptop: because the game is not running exclusively, the drivers are not switching to the nVidia card, the game then runs off the i7's graphics. This will be woefully inadequate, and probably lead to overheating and crashes / lock-ups.

I'm not hugely up on Optimus, but I think on most systems there is an option in the BIOS to disable the i7 graphics entirely and only use the nVidia graphics. This will shorten battery life, but might resolve your problems.

Crushinator

I changed that setting right when I got the laptop

Crushinator

Fjalvan wrote: »

So I have managed to solve my issue with a BIOS update. I used AIDA64 Extreme and BIOS Agent Plus to run a driver and BIOS diagnosis of my system, and that was the only program I tested that told me that I needed to update some stuff. Then I used @BIOS to update. It was pretty straight-forward. You might've tried it already, but I thought I'd share.

I'll have to look into this some more. I did a little looking into modding my bios to adjust my fans, but after monitoring my system even within ESO I'm convinced that heat isn't my issue.

Lately I've just put the 335.xx drivers from nVidia back in instead of the beta drivers, put my graphics back to high with increased view distance, and I've had less crashes vs, medium and even low graphics settings. Still crashing, but only once since going back to better graphics settings has the crash actually taken out the laptop. Once has it done "Display driver has stopped responding and has recovered," but a number of times I have had eso.exe stopped responding.

It seems to be random still, but (crossing finger, knocking on wood) slowly showing signs of improvement?

Crushinator

Spoke too soon. =/

Crushinator

So I tried a few more things. I noticed that all the "eso.exe has crashed" error submissions show my graphics driver and device as the Intel HD 4600. This is running off my nVidia GT750M.

So the BIOS is locked and I can't completely disable the HD 4600 graphics. I know with nVidia and the Intel graphics, there is the potential that Optimus is my issue. I am unable to test that fully since I can't completely disable the onboard graphics.

I attempted to disable the device in Device Manager, but then when I attempt to open ESO, it is utterly unplayable. After disabling the device in Device Manager, I also am unable to open nVidia Control Panel. It gives an error that my display is not attached to an nVidia GPU.

Upon uninstalling the Intel HD 4600 device, I am instructed to restart my computer. I do so and it immediately installs the HD 4600 drivers again. If I reboot into safe mode and use Driver Sweeper to completely remove the drivers for it, then reboot, it immediately reinstalls HD 4600 drivers. There is no dialogue asking me to do so, it just does so.

I uninstalled the HD4600 and rebooted into safe mode, used driver sweeper to remove drivers, and reinstalled version 9.18.10.3071 which is what came with the laptop.

I then rebooted, made sure all settings were right to make nVidia GT 750M my preferred graphics card. Launched ESO. I am writing this post because I just crashed again. And again my crash report lists Intel HD 4600 as my graphics card and 9.18.10.3071 as my driver version. At least the version matches what I rolled back to.

Why is the game using HD 4600? How can I completely disable Optimus?

I've used the nVidia control panel and set global settings to only use the nVidia GeForce GT 750M.

I've used the nVidia Control Panel to set application specific settings for eso.exe, ensuring they match my global settings, just to be safe, but instructing it to use the application-set settings.

I've run the launcher as administrator.

I've run the launcher as "Run with graphics processor..." in the right click menu, selecting the nVidia card (even though it is already as the default card).

The next step I'm going to try is rollingback all the way to the nVidia drivers that were supplied with the laptop.

Crushinator

so I've rolled back my nVidia drivers to 311.41

Also, in addition to adding the launcher executable to the "application list" in the nVidia control panel, I've also added the game executable to the application list.

I'll test this out and see if I get another crash report. If I do, I'll check if it still lists the HD 4600 as the graphics device being used. If so, I'm going to either pull my hair out and use my laptop for target practice, or I'll keep trying to fix it.

Crushinator

I ran the game straight from the executable, after adding that executable to the nVidia control panel application list. Running the executable directly instead of the launcher did not crash once in about 90 minutes solid of testing.

However, 90 minutes in game is not enough for me to be certain this made a difference.

The nVidia drivers 311.41 used with ESO isn't a good thing. There are a ton of artifacts and tearing due to the older drivers (roughly June 2013).

I took a screenshot of one of the more dramatic looking artifacts from the old driver.



Hopefully now that I'm running the executable directly and have it added the nVidia control panel application list I'll be more stable, so I'm going to ramp up to the 335.23 drivers and see what happens.

Crushinator

Even though it lets me insert the picture, it apparently won't show it in the post, only the link. Weird.

Crushinator

This is the screenshot I took. That entire formation in front of me doesn't really exist. I can walk through it. It's just a random artifact.

Crushinator

Fun Fact: If you zoom in on that picture, the chat log will show some comments about the interesting formations I was seeing, and whether they were caused by Skooma.

Crushinator

Well here's an update.

I was hoping to come back to this with [RESOLVED] as my edit =/

That is not the case. For about 36 hours after I posed that torn screenshot and updated my drivers, I had stellar performance. No crashes, FPS ~40-60 steady, no issues to speak of whatsoever.

Then I crashed once. I looked at the crash report details from ESO and it still mentioned ONLY my Intel HD 4600. I submitted the crash report and relaunched the game and didn't have any problems further that day.

I decided to chalk it up to bad luck.

The next day 2 more crashes. Then the entire problem was back. Crashing randomly and intermittently. Crashing with just error reports. Crashing with "Your display driver has stopped responding and was recovered." Crashing where my entire machine grinds to a halt and the sound even stutters to a halt alongside.

Back to square one I guess.

Armoril

Crushinator wrote: »

I have a gaming laptop

I think I found your problem

Crushinator

So to anyone who is checking this post, I fixed the issue.

ESO isn't written well to handle the "Optimus" style power management between a notebook dedicated GPU and an integrated GPU. This process is common in almost any laptop with a dedicated card.

I don't know how easy this will work on anyone else's laptop:

In my BIOS (I had to unlock my bios, Lenovo keeps it completely locked up), after unlocking, I disabled my Intel HD 4600 (integrated) graphics device.

This simple (though incredibly power consuming) change allows the game to run very very smoothly.

This means your display, games, and ALL things graphic are all running off your dedicated graphics card. This, in turn, will drain your battery super fast.

I never use my laptop without it being plugged in, so that's not an issue for me.

I never get "Display Driver" errors anymore. I never get crash reports. I have had 0 issues with my entire laptop locking up, requiring a long-press on the power key to power off, then back on.

This one change has fixed the issue for me. It's not necessarily something I recommend, as hopefully ESO is going to fix this issue soon. But until then, it might be a good work around for you.

Moonraker

Just for info, if you have a MacBook Pro it is simple to ensure the more powerful discrete GPU is used which you can see on this Apple kb article;

MacBook Pro and MacBook Pro with Retina display computers: How to set graphics performance

Basically deselecting the Automatic graphics switching in Energy Saver.