How? It is WILD in 2025, for a 10 year old game to have such POOR PERFORMANCE

fizzylu · July 22

LadyGP wrote: »

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 It's a got tones of patchwork and is impressive in many many spots, but the outdated core just can't handle 2025's demands without constant breakdowns.

(moderatelyfatman beat me to it, but oh well haha)
Except there are a ton of MMOs, some even older, that also add the new bells and whistles all the time (even more often than ESO gets updates) but still run way better than ESO ever has. And "it's improving" is debatable. I'd say performance now is worse than it was some chapters ago.

ApoAlaia · July 22

For the record, the problems I described in my post I can replicate on:

- 3 desktop PCs
- 1 laptop
- 1 NUC
- 3 VMs in two different hosts/platforms (one Intel running Hyper-V, one AMD running ESXi).

The only thing they have in common (besides yours truly) is that all have nVidia cards: RTX A4500 (VMs) - RTX 3070Ti (Laptop) - RTX 4070Ti (2 PCs) - RTX 4090 (1 PC) - RTX 5080 (NUC)

Driver version seems to have no effect, I rolled back (where possible) to 553.xx and 552.xx with no positive results.

Furthermore the issues manifest across a range of different ISPs and connections (one of the VM hosts is in a data centre in Dunkirk for instance and no other network related services show any anomalies) and can be observed even before logging into the service anyway (simply launching the ESO client already causes a noticeable deterioration on how responsive the affected device is).

So, tl;dr, you may say 'PEBKAC' but I still have enough cause for 'Press X to doubt'.

EDIT: Yes, I did try without addons - not that I thought that addons mattered that much when the issue first manifests upon launching the client - and yes, is still observable.

EDIT 2: I am done with the Q&A 'labouring', I have found a method to avoid the worse issue (as described with in my previous post) and a workaround for the 'stuttering' by simply playing the entertainment on a PC that is not running ESO. Continuing to troubleshoot an issue that at this point I am somewhat certain I cannot fix myself seems like a merry waste of time.

If they fix the issues great, if they don't w/e.

Desiato · July 22

ApoAlaia wrote: »

For the record, the problems I described in my post I can replicate on:

- 3 desktop PCs
- 1 laptop
- 1 NUC
- 3 VMs in two different hosts/platforms (one Intel running Hyper-V, one AMD running ESXi).

The only thing they have in common (besides yours truly) is that all have nVidia cards: RTX A4500 (VMs) - RTX 3070Ti (Laptop) - RTX 4070Ti (2 PCs) - RTX 4090 (1 PC) - RTX 5080 (NUC)

Have you tried a basic bare metal Windows 11 install with default settings, amd-v disabled and no additional software at all -- on a proper desktop system and not the nuc? I wouldn't expect ESO to play nice with VMs or hypervisors at all.

I read through your posts, and I can assure you, I experience NOTHING like you do. I play LA rotations in HM trials that require fast response times which I can't imagine doing with what you describe. I get asset management stutter in busy areas (like towns) which can sometimes also manifest as stutter executing an ability.

You shouldn't expect overall cpu load across all cores to ever approach being maxed, but it's possible for the core running the main thread to approach full load in some situations. For this reason, I set GPUSmoothingFrames to 6 at the lowest and don't use nvidia low latency modes.

For the record, I play full screen which could be relevant in an older game using dx11, though of course it's not classic exclusive fullscreen -- which I have given up trying to force because fse is good enough. I get audio/video stutter for a moment only when the client launches. When I'm not raiding or in dungeons, I am always listening to music. In trials it's normal for me to have discord up on a 2nd display without issue.

Have you ever observed a top player executing a rotation? They can get their timing down within 50ms! That would be impossible with what you are describing.

ApoAlaia · July 22

Desiato wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

For the record, the problems I described in my post I can replicate on:

- 3 desktop PCs
- 1 laptop
- 1 NUC
- 3 VMs in two different hosts/platforms (one Intel running Hyper-V, one AMD running ESXi).

The only thing they have in common (besides yours truly) is that all have nVidia cards: RTX A4500 (VMs) - RTX 3070Ti (Laptop) - RTX 4070Ti (2 PCs) - RTX 4090 (1 PC) - RTX 5080 (NUC)

Have you tried a basic bare metal Windows 11 install with default settings, amd-v disabled and no additional software at all -- on a proper desktop system and not the nuc? I wouldn't expect ESO to play nice with VMs or hypervisors at all.

I read through your posts, and I can assure you, I experience NOTHING like you do. I play LA rotations in HM trials that require fast response times which I can't imagine doing with what you describe.

For the record, I play full screen which could be relevant in an older game using dx11, though of course it's not classic exclusive fullscreen -- which I have given up trying to force because fse good enough. I get audio/video stutter for a moment only when the client launches. When I'm not raiding or in dungeons, I am always listening to music. In trials it's normal for me to have discord up on a 2nd display without issue.

Have you ever observed a top player executing a rotation? They can get their timing down within 50ms! That would be impossible with what you are describing.

Yep, as you can see I have listed 3 desktop PCs and 1 laptop. Which are 'bare metal'.

And yes, I have tried with a fresh OS and no additional software installed.

I'm not sure if my prose is letting me down here, but my problem is not ESO per se, ESO runs OK bare the occasional stutter/frame drop around busy 'transitional' areas (like the wayshrine in Leyawiin). Is just that with ESO running the PC becomes... unpleasant to use. For no apparent reason because there are plenty of resources left.

Which wasn't the always the case. ESO used to get along fine with the rest of the applications. But not anymore.

Plus the issue of crashing the nvidia drivers ofc, but that as already mentioned had a reasonably easy solution. Still think that it shouldn't happen, but hey gotta be realistic with one's expectations.

Desiato · July 22

ApoAlaia wrote: »

I'm not sure if my prose is letting me down here, but my problem is not ESO per se, ESO runs OK bare the occasional stutter/frame drop around busy 'transitional' areas (like the wayshrine in Leyawiin). Is just that with ESO running the PC becomes... unpleasant to use. For no apparent reason because there are plenty of resources left.

I can't speak to this because all I do on my gaming pc is play games and listen to music. It should be noted that I think other people in this thread are discussing their actual ESO performance.

I wonder if W11 24H2 gaming mode has something to do with your issues. It is actually impactful now, unlike previous versions.

ApoAlaia · July 22

Desiato wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

I'm not sure if my prose is letting me down here, but my problem is not ESO per se, ESO runs OK bare the occasional stutter/frame drop around busy 'transitional' areas (like the wayshrine in Leyawiin). Is just that with ESO running the PC becomes... unpleasant to use. For no apparent reason because there are plenty of resources left.

I can't speak to this because all I do on my gaming pc is play games and listen to music. It should be noted that I think other people in this thread are discussing their actual ESO performance.

I wonder if W11 24H2 gaming mode has something to do with your issues. It is actually impactful now, unlike previous versions.

I honestly don't know, and as I said I am done troubleshooting otherwise the obvious question creeps in: is one has a non-essential piece of software that one spends more time troubleshooting than using... is it worth using it?

The issue is confined to ESO, everything else runs just fine without these 'side-effects' and again although not ideal I have workarounds for the most irritating side effects so... onwards and upwards.

Would I like it addressed? for sure, hence posting my 'findings so far'. In the meanwhile... onwards and upwards.

SilverBride · July 22

I have had very few performance issues, but recently noticed some stuttering when in town. Well my PC was about 7 years old and I had been thinking about building a new one, so I did. Now the stuttering is completely gone.

This shows me that a lot of performance issues may be on the client side rather than the servers.

ToddIngram · July 22

KapiteinBoterham wrote: »

I don't know what's goin on in this thread but I have been suffering from insane stuttering in Elden Root and Wayrest UNTIL I turned on "Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling" in the Windows graphics settings.

The game runs smooth as butter now!

Thank you for the suggestion. I tried this and it may have helped, but not very much. Certainly none of the suggestions on the help pages made any difference what so ever. Normally FPS drops are client side, I know this, but it's not in this case. Even the FPS drops are server side with ESO. In reading, apparently this issue began on June 25th.

None of the other comments in defense of Zenimax in this thread are helpful in any capacity.

ToddIngram · July 22

TheMajority wrote: »

look, before that update, my computer could even run CYRODIIL with barely any performance issues, and now I'm getting this stutter and FPS drops others speak of and NOTHING fixes it. I'm stuttering doing crafting, it's not normal, and it's not me.

This is how it is for me.

Islyn · July 22

SilverBride wrote: »

I have had very few performance issues, but recently noticed some stuttering when in town. Well my PC was about 7 years old and I had been thinking about building a new one, so I did. Now the stuttering is completely gone.

This shows me that a lot of performance issues may be on the client side rather than the servers.

That shows you that was true in your case. I am not gonna list all my components - but my pc components are 'high end' although not the latest, but everything is under 2 years old. I do a LOT of intense things on my PC; and ESO is the only issue I have. *shrug*

Islyn · July 22

ApoAlaia wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

I'm not sure if my prose is letting me down here, but my problem is not ESO per se, ESO runs OK bare the occasional stutter/frame drop around busy 'transitional' areas (like the wayshrine in Leyawiin). Is just that with ESO running the PC becomes... unpleasant to use. For no apparent reason because there are plenty of resources left.

I can't speak to this because all I do on my gaming pc is play games and listen to music. It should be noted that I think other people in this thread are discussing their actual ESO performance.

I wonder if W11 24H2 gaming mode has something to do with your issues. It is actually impactful now, unlike previous versions.

I honestly don't know, and as I said I am done troubleshooting otherwise the obvious question creeps in: is one has a non-essential piece of software that one spends more time troubleshooting than using... is it worth using it?

The issue is confined to ESO, everything else runs just fine without these 'side-effects' and again although not ideal I have workarounds for the most irritating side effects so... onwards and upwards.

Would I like it addressed? for sure, hence posting my 'findings so far'. In the meanwhile... onwards and upwards.

Exactly - and if the annoyance outstrips the enjoyment - that's it for me.

SilverBride · July 22

Islyn wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I have had very few performance issues, but recently noticed some stuttering when in town. Well my PC was about 7 years old and I had been thinking about building a new one, so I did. Now the stuttering is completely gone.

This shows me that a lot of performance issues may be on the client side rather than the servers.

That shows you that was true in your case. I am not gonna list all my components - but my pc components are 'high end' although not the latest, but everything is under 2 years old. I do a LOT of intense things on my PC; and ESO is the only issue I have. *shrug*

Client side could also be the player's ISP, or their modem/router and not just their system.

I don't know why it's just ESO causing issues for some, but the fact that some have little or no issues makes me think it's not the servers, or everyone would be having these issues.

I think it's worth looking into all these things.

YandereGirlfriend · July 22

The maintenance caused a bunch of folk I know to randomly have their .ini files reset to vanilla (along with keybinds, etc.).

For some of them, it even disabled features like multithreading, which obviously tanked their performance.

YandereGirlfriend · July 22

Desiato wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

For the record, the problems I described in my post I can replicate on:

- 3 desktop PCs
- 1 laptop
- 1 NUC
- 3 VMs in two different hosts/platforms (one Intel running Hyper-V, one AMD running ESXi).

The only thing they have in common (besides yours truly) is that all have nVidia cards: RTX A4500 (VMs) - RTX 3070Ti (Laptop) - RTX 4070Ti (2 PCs) - RTX 4090 (1 PC) - RTX 5080 (NUC)

Have you tried a basic bare metal Windows 11 install with default settings, amd-v disabled and no additional software at all -- on a proper desktop system and not the nuc? I wouldn't expect ESO to play nice with VMs or hypervisors at all.

I read through your posts, and I can assure you, I experience NOTHING like you do. I play LA rotations in HM trials that require fast response times which I can't imagine doing with what you describe. I get asset management stutter in busy areas (like towns) which can sometimes also manifest as stutter executing an ability.

You shouldn't expect overall cpu load across all cores to ever approach being maxed, but it's possible for the core running the main thread to approach full load in some situations. For this reason, I set GPUSmoothingFrames to 6 at the lowest and don't use nvidia low latency modes.

For the record, I play full screen which could be relevant in an older game using dx11, though of course it's not classic exclusive fullscreen -- which I have given up trying to force because fse is good enough. I get audio/video stutter for a moment only when the client launches. When I'm not raiding or in dungeons, I am always listening to music. In trials it's normal for me to have discord up on a 2nd display without issue.

Have you ever observed a top player executing a rotation? They can get their timing down within 50ms! That would be impossible with what you are describing.

What does GPUSmoothingFrames actually do?

LPapirius · July 23

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

Desiato · July 23

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

What does GPUSmoothingFrames actually do?

It creates a buffer of several frames before they are displayed on screen to account for inconsistencies in frame delivery.

So if one plays with no smoothing frames, they will experience slightly less latency but more stutter when there may be a delay rendering a frame -- because of a bottleneck somewhere; it could be the core handling the main thread hitting max load, waiting for lua, etc...

The downside is slight latency. The default is 10 smoothing frames, so that would add 166.7ms latency at 60 fps and 83.3ms at 120 fps.

I find occasional stutter at 0 smoothing frames to be a larger issue than the latency because my brain can adapt to the latency -- which it already does because there is latency within our own processing of reality.

Faltasë · July 24

I notice that in newer trials the optimization for performance is super bad. I lag more in new trials than I ever have.

JustLovely · July 24

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

This is what I logged on today to look into. We are at the one month mark since I started having horrible performance, even FPS bottoms out now, sometimes for no apparent reason what so ever.