And: Over 120fps before 25 June; and now? 70sth erratically dropping to 4 (!!) and to 20sth back to 70sth, 15 etc. Nothing my end has changed. What gives?

I'm noticing a little more asset load stutter riding a mount in busy areas and perhaps some microstutter, but nothing even _remotely_ close to what you're describing. For the most part it's a smooth 180 fps, which is what I set the fps cap at.

Desiato wrote: »

I'm noticing a little more asset load stutter riding a mount in busy areas and perhaps some microstutter, but nothing even _remotely_ close to what you're describing. For the most part it's a smooth 180 fps, which is what I set the fps cap at.

rothan117 wrote: »

Apart from the occasional slight stutter that is just as likely due to my ISP, I am not seeing these issues.

I am SO glad it is not everyone! But nothing my end has changed, and this is the only game I have any issue with.

I would be much more concerned were this happening to literally everyone.

also, 4x today on char select:

Islyn wrote: »

And: Over 120fps before 25 June; and now? 70sth erratically dropping to 4 (!!) and to 20sth back to 70sth, 15 etc. Nothing my end has changed. What gives?

This is what's happening to me, and that is the day it changed. Whatever they did on June 25th maintenance seriously impacted performance. So ZOS knows the day it changed and what they did. So they can revert the change. So why haven't they?

I just put in a ticket this morning about low FPS. I cant do much when my FPS drops down to 20 or lower.
This is really getting bad.

- PC / NA

Raanbury wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno said it's an issue between two data centres and that they were working with their provider to resolve stability.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Just to give a bit more insight into the recent issues, there is a stability problem with the connection between DFW (North American datacenter) and FRA (European datacenter). FRA relies on that connection heavily to remain up and we're working with our provider to investigate and resolve the stability issues.

To be clear, this relates to EU stability issues. The EU servers rely on the NA data center for some things, but the reverse is not true.

Raanbury wrote: »

My issue is the lack of transparency. What is being done to resolve this? We've been made aware of what is causing it - but nobody is telling us how longterm this is going to be rectified? Is connection issues the new norm now? I for one do not feel like playing a game where connection is available at the flip of a coin.

Because they don't know. Do you know how difficult it is to get in contact with an ISP halfway across the world? Do you know how hard it is to get them to give you attention and look into the issue (even with the weight behind you're account like ZoS has)?

They more than likely are waiting for the ISP team to do their digging. It literally could be one port going out on a switch... in a tower full of switches... in a data center that has thousands of towers holding switches.

I've been there (on a much smaller scale back in my IT days) and troubleshooting a bad port is one of the must frustrating things in the world to deal with. It "blips" for just a second.... and then it's fine for a day.. then a blip... then it's fine... then a blip. etc. It can even be such a small enough blip that it's not registering in any of the logging tools but it's enough to throw the entire EU server offline for a second... then when it goes offline the reboot process is an absolute bleep to do.

So yeah, they have my grace on this. These things are hard [snip] to diagnose and solve.
[edited for profanity bypass]

9 times out of 10 when someone has issues running ESO on pc, it's on the user's side, not the server. Often the problem is anything from a bad internet connection, overloading the pc's hardware, or even addons, which ZoS is not responsible for.

If it is a server-side issue, it is usually announced here on the forums or even the official ESO discord or other places, and seeing as how not everyone on your server is noticing issues, it's safe to say it's on your end this time.

Djennku wrote: »

9 times out of 10 when someone has issues running ESO on pc, it's on the user's side, not the server. Often the problem is anything from a bad internet connection, overloading the pc's hardware, or even addons, which ZoS is not responsible for.

If it is a server-side issue, it is usually announced here on the forums or even the official ESO discord or other places, and seeing as how not everyone on your server is noticing issues, it's safe to say it's on your end this time.

No. This is not factual or even remotely close to factual.

Virtually all performance issues in ESO are server side. It's uncommon for connection and performance issues to be client side with ESO.

Desiato wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

So yeah... performance has been pretty bad the last few years - BUT they keep adding new things and it's improving. Is it like a modern game that launched in 2025 - not even close. Is it still pretty good for an engine thats 18 years old - I'd say so.

If you're talking pure client performance, I can't fathom this. My gaming PC is a few years old (5800x) and even an alik'r dolmen is 120 fps. My client is a solid 180 fps most of the time with a 1% low of 120ish. I don't play with ultra settings though. My secondary gaming system with a Ryzen 3600x plays ESO great. I reference cpu because it's a cpu bound game.

When you consider console specs, there's no reason for a modern pc to have performance issues.

The only times I have consistently bad performance issues are when I'm in Cyrodiil and its issues are well-documented.

Outside of Cyrodiil, the biggest issue comes from asset management which is unavoidable because of the outfit system and the vast number of styles, other cosmetics, mounts, pets, etc... it's really impressive that it handles it as well as it does on the fly.

The age of gaming engines isn't as relevant as it used to be and I would guess much of the ESO client has basically been re-written over the years. In fact, we know this. The main relevance of ESO's age is gpu feature support, not performance.

I would encourage anyone who is having client performance issues unrelated to the EU server issues to try playing with a fresh live folder to see what that's like. Don't delete your existing live folder though!

I wonder if some players are playing ESO on a full SSD. SSDs can develop serious performance issues It varies ssd to ssd, but some need as much as 20% free space to avoid performance issues. Because of the vast number of art assets that eso is constantly loading, this could definitely affect client performance -- well, I would guess, I have never filled up an ssd. It is a well-known issue with ssds though, especially cheaper ones. I've also read that once an ssd develops a performance issue from approaching max capacity, merely freeing space may not immediately solve the issue -- depending on the drive.

Before anyone accuses me of being a ZOS shill, I did not hold back criticism in the past:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/367598/video-30-50-fps-drop-bug-almost-2-years-old-cryodiil-pov/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/379166/source-of-cyrodiil-lag-discovered/p1

I have a 4090 new AMD cpu not a hardware issue.

And the engine is 100% an issue. Crap, just look at 343i and Halo. Do a quick google search about how their NEW engine they used cost them so much technical debt that it was impossible for the devs to do anything. It took MONTHS just to add in post match XP because of how bad it was.

I'm not talking about client performance - I'm talking strictly from a ZoS wants to fix X.... they have Y amount of solutions to do.

They are 100% limited by techniques they can use to solve modern day challenges because of how difficult their engine is to use and how outdated it is. Yes, they are adding new tech to it and it's making it easier - sure. But at the end of the day you can not say with a straight face an 18 year old engine doesn't cause issues.

There is a reason why "this only happens when I play ESO and not a single other game I play" comments are rampant on the forums, reddit, social media, etc.

It comes down to the engine and the limited amount of tricks they have to solve things - like when a users internet has a blip for example. They have to do the whole rubberbanding tolerance trick. There was a year where my internet was just so bad and I couldn't play ESO without disconnecting every 5 to 10 minutes. Did I have that issue in any other online game - nope. Zero disconnects, zero buffering, zero rubberbanding, etc.. and I'm talking games with literally thousands of people on the same server as me at the same time.

I'm in no way complaining or trying to throw shade at ZoS - quite the opposite actually. What they are able to do, the tricks they are able to use, with such an old engine is something they absolutely do NOT get enough credit for. The engineers, devs, etc... they are making this old dodge neon purr like a corvette. Unfortunately, shes just one pothole away from disaster.

LadyGP wrote: »

I'm not talking about client performance - I'm talking strictly from a ZoS wants to fix X.... they have Y amount of solutions to do.

This thread is about client performance. The client performs quite well on modern hardware outside of external issues. Like I said, the problem is that it lacks modern features especially in terms of the creation tool ecosystem that has long moved past it.

I also stand by the fact that the asset management it does is incredible. Create a flow chart of what has to happen every time a new player enters rendering distance when a player travels through a busy area. I've done so in my head several times and it's amazing there aren't more asset management stutter issues because they're quite detailed. This is one of the modern features added to the game within the past 7 years and they've greatly improved it since then.

And actually, they could completely replace the netcode no problem. They just did that in Rust! Rust also uses an old engine -- the original legacy render pipeline of Unity which dates as far back as ESO. Not even URP, much less HDRP. And it's fine. It just limits rendering. And Facepunch can't even make low level changes like ZOS can to the ESO engine.

If they were so inclined, they could replace the entire engine module by module and completely modernize it. It just wouldn't make sense to do that to an engine that is only used by one old game. Still, I imagine it will still see more iterations and new features. What really holds it back are first gen consoles. Or more specifically, the customers using them.

But the bottom line is that it's a misnomer to call the engine 18 years old because they have made constant changes to it since then. And in fact, the first few years, if you believe ZOS, they were using a different engine. But that's another contentious topic that I desperately don't want to get into. Unreal is actually much older as it has been iterated from its original release in 1998 but no one calls Unreal 5 27 years old.

The current network issues have nothing to do with the netcode, but rather its architecture. The EU problems right now stem from the fact that the account system is in NA. I would guess that most of the actual network issues we deal with as players stem from things out of their control like DDoSes which no game engine can mitigate.

LadyGP wrote: »

Hear me out....

"2025 for a 10 year old game to have such poor performance".

This game is 10 years old - the engine/dev work is even older (8 I think?).

So with the engine being roughly 18 years old... think about ALL the crazy modern things that have been added.

This is how I view it. The engine is a rusty 2007 Honda Civic where the devs are trying to mod it into a cutting-edge Corvette Stingray. They bolt on modern bells like subclassing, seasonal content drops, ray-traced graphics, etc, making it shine on the surface. But the ancient frame buckles under the load: patching takes forever, lag spikes and rubberbanding plague combat, and it overheats during busy hours, leading to crashes and frustration. It's a got tones of patchwork and is impressive in many many spots, but the outdated core just can't handle 2025's demands without constant breakdowns.

So yeah... performance has been pretty bad the last few years - BUT they keep adding new things and it's improving. Is it like a modern game that launched in 2025 - not even close. Is it still pretty good for an engine thats 18 years old - I'd say so.

It's wild considering GW2, still kicking today. Hell and even archeage - mis management ruined that game (cash grabs), not instability.

LadyGP wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

So yeah... performance has been pretty bad the last few years - BUT they keep adding new things and it's improving. Is it like a modern game that launched in 2025 - not even close. Is it still pretty good for an engine thats 18 years old - I'd say so.

If you're talking pure client performance, I can't fathom this. My gaming PC is a few years old (5800x) and even an alik'r dolmen is 120 fps. My client is a solid 180 fps most of the time with a 1% low of 120ish. I don't play with ultra settings though. My secondary gaming system with a Ryzen 3600x plays ESO great. I reference cpu because it's a cpu bound game.

When you consider console specs, there's no reason for a modern pc to have performance issues.

The only times I have consistently bad performance issues are when I'm in Cyrodiil and its issues are well-documented.

Outside of Cyrodiil, the biggest issue comes from asset management which is unavoidable because of the outfit system and the vast number of styles, other cosmetics, mounts, pets, etc... it's really impressive that it handles it as well as it does on the fly.

The age of gaming engines isn't as relevant as it used to be and I would guess much of the ESO client has basically been re-written over the years. In fact, we know this. The main relevance of ESO's age is gpu feature support, not performance.

I would encourage anyone who is having client performance issues unrelated to the EU server issues to try playing with a fresh live folder to see what that's like. Don't delete your existing live folder though!

I wonder if some players are playing ESO on a full SSD. SSDs can develop serious performance issues It varies ssd to ssd, but some need as much as 20% free space to avoid performance issues. Because of the vast number of art assets that eso is constantly loading, this could definitely affect client performance -- well, I would guess, I have never filled up an ssd. It is a well-known issue with ssds though, especially cheaper ones. I've also read that once an ssd develops a performance issue from approaching max capacity, merely freeing space may not immediately solve the issue -- depending on the drive.

Before anyone accuses me of being a ZOS shill, I did not hold back criticism in the past:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/367598/video-30-50-fps-drop-bug-almost-2-years-old-cryodiil-pov/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/379166/source-of-cyrodiil-lag-discovered/p1

I have a 4090 new AMD cpu not a hardware issue.

And the engine is 100% an issue. Crap, just look at 343i and Halo. Do a quick google search about how their NEW engine they used cost them so much technical debt that it was impossible for the devs to do anything. It took MONTHS just to add in post match XP because of how bad it was.

I'm not talking about client performance - I'm talking strictly from a ZoS wants to fix X.... they have Y amount of solutions to do.

They are 100% limited by techniques they can use to solve modern day challenges because of how difficult their engine is to use and how outdated it is. Yes, they are adding new tech to it and it's making it easier - sure. But at the end of the day you can not say with a straight face an 18 year old engine doesn't cause issues.

There is a reason why "this only happens when I play ESO and not a single other game I play" comments are rampant on the forums, reddit, social media, etc.

It comes down to the engine and the limited amount of tricks they have to solve things - like when a users internet has a blip for example. They have to do the whole rubberbanding tolerance trick. There was a year where my internet was just so bad and I couldn't play ESO without disconnecting every 5 to 10 minutes. Did I have that issue in any other online game - nope. Zero disconnects, zero buffering, zero rubberbanding, etc.. and I'm talking games with literally thousands of people on the same server as me at the same time.

I'm in no way complaining or trying to throw shade at ZoS - quite the opposite actually. What they are able to do, the tricks they are able to use, with such an old engine is something they absolutely do NOT get enough credit for. The engineers, devs, etc... they are making this old dodge neon purr like a corvette. Unfortunately, shes just one pothole away from disaster.

And fyi agree - no shade intended. It's just tbh there comes a time where it's just too much stuff to ignore. It wasn't a few weeks ago - now it is.

For me stutters and FPS drop appears to be linked with playing a new sound.
Previously this was not an issue, but now it is.
On my laptop I moved ESO to an external SSD with USB C connection and there was a definite improvement in performance.

I do not draw a conclusion, only observation, that maybe the game is much larger now (files to be loaded, memory utilisation etc - I do not use any form of resource tracker) and so this has an impact on overhead.