What Exactly Is Causing Massive FPS loss in Cyrodiil?

Rogue_WolfESO · May 2023

PC NA server, most noticeable on the greyhost campaign
Frequent FPS drops from usual 90-144fps to less than 10fps during combat
Game stuttering makes it almost unplayable. Has been in this server long before MYM

RevJJ · May 2023

During previous MYM/WM events performance would be much better than during regular campaigns but this time performance is absolutely abysmal for me.

disintegr8 · May 2023

Welcome to my world, that is how Cyrodiil has always been for me.

Sluggy · May 2023

Do you have multi-threaded rendering enabled in your graphics settings? The game is notoriously CPU-bound when it comes to rendering and it used to be the norm that everyone had single-digit frames in Cyrodiil. But since they added this feature I don't think I've ever seen it drop below 30 or 45.

RevJJ · May 2023

Sluggy wrote: »

Do you have multi-threaded rendering enabled in your graphics settings? The game is notoriously CPU-bound when it comes to rendering and it used to be the norm that everyone had single-digit frames in Cyrodiil. But since they added this feature I don't think I've ever seen it drop below 30 or 45.

I do and I still get horrible drops from 100 to 8/9/10 fps randomly. Sometimes during a fight, sometimes in the middle of a field while I’m picking flowers and nobody else is around.

vsrs_au · May 2023

RevJJ wrote: »

Sluggy wrote: »

Do you have multi-threaded rendering enabled in your graphics settings? The game is notoriously CPU-bound when it comes to rendering and it used to be the norm that everyone had single-digit frames in Cyrodiil. But since they added this feature I don't think I've ever seen it drop below 30 or 45.

I do and I still get horrible drops from 100 to 8/9/10 fps randomly. Sometimes during a fight, sometimes in the middle of a field while I’m picking flowers and nobody else is around.

I don't get fps problems while roaming around Cyrodiil. My experience is limited, because I've just been going to Vlastarus daily for the daily quests since this event started, and I'd never been to Cyrodiil before that. But my fps has been stable the whole time. NOTE: this is only for roaming around by myself, as I've been avoiding other players since the event started.

My game setup is PC/EU, Vsync enabled in my graphics settings (so my fps is always 59 to match my monitor's refresh rate), I have a high-end gaming PC and run the game on an SSD. My average ping is 400 (I play from Australia).

Dr_Con · May 2023

there's some abilities that have been known to cause fps drops in the past, especially when pets (friendly or enemy) are involved/affected by the AOEs, such as twisted and refreshing path.

SkaraMinoc · May 2023

I haven't gone under 100 fps in large Cyrodiil fights with the following settings.

Multithreaded Rendering ON
SET SoftwareOcclusionCullingEnabled "1"

Switch to FXAA and Shadows Off for even more FPS.

If you have the budget, upgrading your CPU to AMD 3d v-cache helps tremendously. (5800X3D, 7800X3D, or 7950X3D w/ thread affinity on v-cache cores using Process Lasso)

RevJJ · May 2023

vsrs_au wrote: »

RevJJ wrote: »

Sluggy wrote: »

Do you have multi-threaded rendering enabled in your graphics settings? The game is notoriously CPU-bound when it comes to rendering and it used to be the norm that everyone had single-digit frames in Cyrodiil. But since they added this feature I don't think I've ever seen it drop below 30 or 45.

I do and I still get horrible drops from 100 to 8/9/10 fps randomly. Sometimes during a fight, sometimes in the middle of a field while I’m picking flowers and nobody else is around.

I don't get fps problems while roaming around Cyrodiil. My experience is limited, because I've just been going to Vlastarus daily for the daily quests since this event started, and I'd never been to Cyrodiil before that. But my fps has been stable the whole time. NOTE: this is only for roaming around by myself, as I've been avoiding other players since the event started.

My game setup is PC/EU, Vsync enabled in my graphics settings (so my fps is always 59 to match my monitor's refresh rate), I have a high-end gaming PC and run the game on an SSD. My average ping is 400 (I play from Australia).

I tried turning on vsync and at first it seemed to make a difference but then 30 seconds later Fps dropped again.

I also have this outside of Cyro sometimes but not nearly as often.

alternatelder · May 2023

Anytime a ball group showed up is when I dropped in performance. If zos would just eliminate this playstyle through severe nerfs to healing and ult gen, then maybe the servers would be fine.

Sluggy · May 2023

RevJJ wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

RevJJ wrote: »

Sluggy wrote: »

Do you have multi-threaded rendering enabled in your graphics settings? The game is notoriously CPU-bound when it comes to rendering and it used to be the norm that everyone had single-digit frames in Cyrodiil. But since they added this feature I don't think I've ever seen it drop below 30 or 45.

I do and I still get horrible drops from 100 to 8/9/10 fps randomly. Sometimes during a fight, sometimes in the middle of a field while I’m picking flowers and nobody else is around.

I don't get fps problems while roaming around Cyrodiil. My experience is limited, because I've just been going to Vlastarus daily for the daily quests since this event started, and I'd never been to Cyrodiil before that. But my fps has been stable the whole time. NOTE: this is only for roaming around by myself, as I've been avoiding other players since the event started.

My game setup is PC/EU, Vsync enabled in my graphics settings (so my fps is always 59 to match my monitor's refresh rate), I have a high-end gaming PC and run the game on an SSD. My average ping is 400 (I play from Australia).

I tried turning on vsync and at first it seemed to make a difference but then 30 seconds later Fps dropped again.

I also have this outside of Cyro sometimes but not nearly as often.

Vsync can only ever lower your framerate.

Assuming you aren't running on some very old hardware then this likely is some kind of driver issue. Do you run anything that might regulate fan speed or CPU power based on temperature?

Jamie_Aubrey · May 2023

Don't go into CP campaign lol

Seriously, there's a lot more calculations the server has to do, a lot more effects being active that will cause fps drops

ghastley · May 2023

Ironically, server improvements may be a contributing factor. Your client CPU and GPU get more work to do every time the server sends them an update. More frequent notifications from server = more client load.

Holycannoli · May 2023

I think it's more than just CPU bottlenecking. There is pretty terrible lag at times too. Two nights ago in IC (PC NA) I was killed on a platform in Sanctuary by Lethal Arrows and Poison Injection.

On a platform, in Sanctuary.

People tried to rez me but I was immune to rezzing and it would show on my screen that I was immune to the effect, because well I was in Sanctuary and should have been immune to everything. Not even sure how an enemy had line-of-sight to me there let alone got through the Sanctuary effect, other than thinking there was such lag the server had me in a different spot than my screen showed.

The servers are stressed right now with the event going on, and PvP has been notorious for stressing the servers even without a popular event. Lag, FPS drops, terrible delays between pressing a key and having your skill fire and other weird things are going on.

Rogue_WolfESO · May 2023

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

I haven't gone under 100 fps in large Cyrodiil fights with the following settings.

Multithreaded Rendering ON
SET SoftwareOcclusionCullingEnabled "1"

Switch to FXAA and Shadows Off for even more FPS.

If you have the budget, upgrading your CPU to AMD 3d v-cache helps tremendously. (5800X3D, 7800X3D, or 7950X3D w/ thread affinity on v-cache cores using Process Lasso)

I will check my settings against what you have posted. Thanks for the screenshot.
My system is R7 5800x, 3060rtx

Zyva · May 2023

I came to this thread just to see how many people would complain about ball groups XD

Janni · May 2023

Jamie_Aubrey wrote: »

Don't go into CP campaign lol

Seriously, there's a lot more calculations the server has to do, a lot more effects being active that will cause fps drops

The server had nothing to do with framerate.

Gracous · May 2023

Even after the server refresh, battlegrounds and cyrodiil are still laggy as they ever were

geonsocal · May 2023

it's because of the deer...

ZOS_Bill · June 2023

Enabling multithreaded rendering can lead to high GPU/CPU usage since FPS will be uncapped. We also have our basic troubleshooting for performance issues listed here if you don't have multithreading enabled.