Why does ESO sometimes crash my graphics card?

Danikat · May 2021

In the past month or so about 1/4 of the time when I log into ESO I hear the fans in my graphics card suddenly running at full power and the screen goes black, then the computer just stays like that until the monitor says it's not recieving a signal and goes into standby mode. I've left it for about 5 minutes and nothing else happens, to get it working again I have to restart the computer and just hope it doesn't happen again.

If I can get past that point and log into the game then it runs fine with no noticable problems, I don't even crash or get random loading screens very often compared to a lot of people. I also don't get the same problem with any of the other games or software on my PC, it's only with ESO.

My graphics card is a Radeon RX 480, it's the same card I've had for years. Nothing else in my computer has changed since months before this problem started (when I installed a new hard drive). I've checked and all the drivers are up to date. I'm not sure what else to check or how to fix the problem, so any suggestions would be appreciated. I don't know a lot about this stuff, I can install and update a graphics card but anything beyond that I get a bit stuck so I'm not even sure what specs might be relevant but if anyone needs any more info to diagnose the problem I can provide it.

ZOS_Bill · May 2021

@Danikat

If the issue is related to your GPU, you may want to try reinstalling the latest GPU drivers on your PC. The crash troubleshooting found here may also help with determining the cause of this issue.

Ratzkifal · June 2021

I've actually started noticing something similar. When I start up the game while in the login screen and character selection my GPU is reaching up to 80% (even after installing the most recent drivers). Strangely the game itself only gets my GPU up to 40% so something about that empty login screen and character selection is very off. It's also only been happening recently and thankfully my screen doesn't turn black or anything. The fans just make worrying sounds...

My graphics card is an Nvidia RTX 2070, so somewhat recent still.

Edit: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/573597/100-gpu-load-in-login-character-select-screen#latest
Seems to be related and according to the people there it's an old bug that was fixed but now came back.

Danikat · June 2021

Thnaks both for the responses. It took a few days for me to have time to look into this but I'm trying all the fixes listed on the support site.

My drivers and software were already up to date and the instructions on the support page on how to check my graphics cards settings didn't actually match what's in the AMD Radeon software but I think I found the equivalent options and set up a profile for ESO.

I also don't get the repair option on the launcher. Clicking the little cog as shown in the support article doesn't give me the drop-down menu shown, it takes me to a seperate menu with language, startup and PTS options.

I'll wait and see if that's helped at all.

Ratzkifal wrote: »

I've actually started noticing something similar. When I start up the game while in the login screen and character selection my GPU is reaching up to 80% (even after installing the most recent drivers). Strangely the game itself only gets my GPU up to 40% so something about that empty login screen and character selection is very off. It's also only been happening recently and thankfully my screen doesn't turn black or anything. The fans just make worrying sounds...

My graphics card is an Nvidia RTX 2070, so somewhat recent still.

Edit: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/573597/100-gpu-load-in-login-character-select-screen#latest
Seems to be related and according to the people there it's an old bug that was fixed but now came back.

I think that's what's happening to me as well. It's difficult to monitor because of the black screen but when I'm able to log in I see the same spike in GPU activity on the loading screen and character select (and can hear the fans struggling) and then it drops again once I'm in the game. I suspect when the screen goes black it's reached the point where the graphics card can't keep up and crashes.

deleted221106-002999 · June 2021

Danikat wrote: »

...My graphics card is a Radeon RX 480, it's the same card I've had for years.....

Try undervolting it, better stability and improved performance:

undervolting rx480. (caveat: you might have to fiddle around with the latest radeon interface to get at the voltages but the values should be fine).

Might not stop the issue entirely but it'll possibly allow the graphics driver to recover without forced machine restart. It (the gpu) will be more stable, though.

Danikat · June 2021

ZOS_BillE wrote: »

@Danikat

If the issue is related to your GPU, you may want to try reinstalling the latest GPU drivers on your PC. The crash troubleshooting found here may also help with determining the cause of this issue.

If anything the changes suggested here made the problem worse. On the latest attempt I wasn't even able to finish putting in my password before everything crashed and I had to restart, whereas before it was when it reached the loading screen while logging in.

Souterain wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

...My graphics card is a Radeon RX 480, it's the same card I've had for years.....

Try undervolting it, better stability and improved performance:

undervolting rx480. (caveat: you might have to fiddle around with the latest radeon interface to get at the voltages but the values should be fine).

Might not stop the issue entirely but it'll possibly allow the graphics driver to recover without forced machine restart. It (the gpu) will be more stable, though.

I'll try this next and see how it goes.

Edit: It's difficult to say for sure this quickly because the problem is unpredictable, but that seems to have helped. I've started the game and logged in 3 times and each time it hit the new maximum (which I set to 1200 MHz, just above State 5's default) several times while logging in but the fans stayed much quieter and the game loaded without a problem.

Because it doesn't happen every time I log in I'll have to wait and see if that's actually fixed it or I just got a run of good luck but my first impression is it looks promising.

Danikat · June 2021

Update: I've logged in 7 or 8 times since undervolting the graphics card (only while ESO is running) and it hasn't crashed, so it looks like that is working.