Choppy FPS and freezes since patch

Nyeo

Same deal its as if whatever is happening is gradually hoarding away all my system resources, game starts out fine then gradually gets worse until it just completely locks up the system and I have to hard reset the computer this only started after today's patch

Brittany_Joy

Nyeo wrote: »

Same deal its as if whatever is happening is gradually hoarding away all my system resources, game starts out fine then gradually gets worse until it just completely locks up the system and I have to hard reset the computer this only started after today's patch

Yes it does seem like that for me too. Sometimes it will be fine and later it gets worse to the point were it will freeze my computer even if I close ESO.

Arato

Okay, there are 2 things happening here.

ONE (the periodic freezes for a few seconds) is caused by something to do with multicore processors, and can be fixed by either disabling the game's ability to use hyperthreading (set in the usersettings, I still don't know which setting to set to 0 if anyone knows please let us know!) or by disabling CPU parking using windows registry settings (a bit over my head, there's a program for it but I don't know how far I trust it so I haven't applied it).

TWO (the game crashing to desktop, or completely hammering a computer's resources and causing system instability), is most likely a memory leak. The game has had a slow memory leak (a faster one on the Mac client that was eventually fixed, PC one has never been addressed) based in HeroEngine (Star Wars: the Old Republic has this same slow leak) forever and perhaps this patch made a "slow" leak into a faster leak. Things like switching characters or playing through a lot of instances over extended periods of play pile on how much RAM the game is using and it's not properly releasing RAM. When your game exceeds 2GB or so when you have 4GB total RAM, it's going to crash. If you have more RAM, it'll still cause problems when it nears 4GB RAM usage because it is a 32bit program, and they tend to have problems using over 4GB (remember Skyrim used to have to rely on a third party fix to address this until there was an official patch with extended memory support?). Unfortunately there's nothing we can really do on our end to address this, as I'm sure any third party fix to address the game's handling of RAM would be a bannable offense.

Now as to computer instability even after exiting the game client, unless you go into task manager and see the client is still utilizing RAM, I don't know what that is.

Silverblade

ZOS...you there? Fix your game please.

Brittany_Joy

@Arato, I noticed there was an awesomeness version 1.1..something while I had taskmgr up. Which is odd why would ZoS name their thingys with such names?

So if we can't do anything about it what are we supposed to do? wait for a patch? 'cause I can't keep playing like this. It basically is mimicking the symptoms of a virus; slowly decreasing my PC perfomance and then completely crashing the computer. It really only starts the problems if I start ESO and will persist after exiting, only a restart will fix it but starting ESO again will bring back the problem. So ESO is just unplayable at the moment.

Brittany_Joy

I find it odd how no ZoS employee posted on any of the threads with the same issue. It really seems like they ignore us and just expect us to pay them.

FireKat

I'm having the same issues. My game had never crashed or had any major lag problems before this patch. My game has crashed 5 times in the last hour (4 of those game crashes took my PC with it). It is completely game-breaking. Every single loading screen takes a good 5-7 minutes (before patch it was a few seconds), and that's IF my game doesn't crash before it loads. Many people in my guild were having trouble as well - we were trying to do a skyshard hunt in Cyrodill and we were all lagging out and crashing and had to eventually abandon the mission. It was ridiculous. I'm being killed by mobs before I can even begin to attack them because my frame rate is so incredibly low now.

I think I may have been cursed by the Gods of Tamriel.

Seravi

I am having the same issues as well. Didn't have this problem before the patch. Our guild gave up last night and sadly today is no better. Just tried to do a lower level anchor drop as I moved around the map and we all kept crashing or the game would be totally unresponsive and you couldn't use any weapon or things like fire breath, etc. I have also noticed that when you come up on say iron or some other mat or barrel, it takes at least 10 seconds for it to register you are there and let you have it. It is near impossible to play right now.

The SET RequestedNumThreads "-1" to 0 is no longer in the usersettings and this fixed a lot of the choppy mess before. Not sure which of the strings that replaced it to change to zero now. ugh... The usersettings is not setting the windowed height and width as it should be. I may try to change that and see if it makes any difference. Right now mine shows 768x1024 and I am running 1920x1080.

Arwyn

Someone mentioned moving the settings to windowed and then fullscreen again, something about a full screen fix for SLI, it was in another thread. Worth a shot.

Arato

Brittany_Joy wrote: »

@Arato, I noticed there was an awesomeness version 1.1..something while I had taskmgr up. Which is odd why would ZoS name their thingys with such names?

So if we can't do anything about it what are we supposed to do? wait for a patch? 'cause I can't keep playing like this. It basically is mimicking the symptoms of a virus; slowly decreasing my PC perfomance and then completely crashing the computer. It really only starts the problems if I start ESO and will persist after exiting, only a restart will fix it but starting ESO again will bring back the problem. So ESO is just unplayable at the moment.

Awesomiumprocess.exe is used by other MMO's as well, GW2 for instance uses it for its auction house, I'm not sure what ESO uses it for. It's not malware though.

Particularly it's used for creating in game browsers and menus.. so if you disable it, your game UI might not work.

Brittany_Joy

@Arato, oh okay. I do hope ZoS fixes the Choppy FPS and constant crashing soon 'cause ESO is unplayable and I really want to play with the new changes.

Cously

Arato wrote: »

I'm pretty sure it has to do with these two settings in the usersettings text file. There were freezes that used to happen before for 5-6 seconds and the way you fixed it was to set SET RequestedNumThreads "-1" to 0 and save the file (has to do with how the game handles on multicore processors)

Now that setting is gone and has been replaced by 2 different settings:

SET RequestedNumJobThreads "-1"
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads "-1"

I don't know which to edit to 0 or if you should edit both... I'm hoping someone can narrow this down.

My game was freezing. Then I set both to 0. Game works flawless.

Brittany_Joy

But playing ESO made my computer freeze not just the game so I would have to force restart. If I start ESO it will slowly decrease my PC's performance till it freezes even if I exit out of ESO.

Arato

Good to know, I'll try setting both to 0 as well. I did put in a ticket to technical support on the issue, asking specifically about which setting to change. I didn't want to be run around a loop of scanning computers running without addons, reinstalling, rebooting etc when I know it was one of those two (or both) of those settings.

dannymcgr81b14_ESO

Same thing here. No problems before the patch and now everything is jerky and my fps is jumping from the 40's to the teens. Just crashed and it froze my computer. I'm not running any add-ons and the only thing that has changed was I downloaded the patch.

thifi

Joolio wrote: »

Arato wrote: »

I'm pretty sure it has to do with these two settings in the usersettings text file. There were freezes that used to happen before for 5-6 seconds and the way you fixed it was to set SET RequestedNumThreads "-1" to 0 and save the file (has to do with how the game handles on multicore processors)

Now that setting is gone and has been replaced by 2 different settings:

SET RequestedNumJobThreads "-1"
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads "-1"

I don't know which to edit to 0 or if you should edit both... I'm hoping someone can narrow this down.

My game was freezing. Then I set both to 0. Game works flawless.

I didn't have crash problems but every 30 seconds my framerate dropped below ten for a few seconds. Changing the above two in UserSettings.txt fixed it.

PS: Not sure if this is related or not but it seems even the game runs a bit smoother than before with these settings .

Arato

thifi wrote: »

Joolio wrote: »

Arato wrote: »

I'm pretty sure it has to do with these two settings in the usersettings text file. There were freezes that used to happen before for 5-6 seconds and the way you fixed it was to set SET RequestedNumThreads "-1" to 0 and save the file (has to do with how the game handles on multicore processors)

Now that setting is gone and has been replaced by 2 different settings:

SET RequestedNumJobThreads "-1"
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads "-1"

I don't know which to edit to 0 or if you should edit both... I'm hoping someone can narrow this down.

My game was freezing. Then I set both to 0. Game works flawless.

I didn't have crash problems but every 30 seconds my framerate dropped below ten for a few seconds. Changing the above two in UserSettings.txt fixed it.

PS: Not sure if this is related or not but it seems even the game runs a bit smoother than before with these settings .

Yeah as I mentioned earlier there are 2 major problems I know of, one being this cpu parking/hyperthreading problem, the other being the memory leak. So far for me once I changed the usersettings to disable hyperthreading (avoiding the cpu parking issue) I notice the RAM creep up, but it seems to be the same slow leak I'm used to dealing with in both this and SWTOR. Changing characters or going through a lot of instances will degrade performance after awhile. When I break 2GB RAM, I restart the client. I can play for a couple of hours off and on this way. For people crashing after 20-30 min of play on one character... the leak must be much more severe for you.. not much I can think of that you can do on your end but wait for a hotfix.

Jade1986

Arato wrote: »

Okay, there are 2 things happening here.

ONE (the periodic freezes for a few seconds) is caused by something to do with multicore processors, and can be fixed by either disabling the game's ability to use hyperthreading (set in the usersettings, I still don't know which setting to set to 0 if anyone knows please let us know!) or by disabling CPU parking using windows registry settings (a bit over my head, there's a program for it but I don't know how far I trust it so I haven't applied it).

TWO (the game crashing to desktop, or completely hammering a computer's resources and causing system instability), is most likely a memory leak. The game has had a slow memory leak (a faster one on the Mac client that was eventually fixed, PC one has never been addressed) based in HeroEngine (Star Wars: the Old Republic has this same slow leak) forever and perhaps this patch made a "slow" leak into a faster leak. Things like switching characters or playing through a lot of instances over extended periods of play pile on how much RAM the game is using and it's not properly releasing RAM. When your game exceeds 2GB or so when you have 4GB total RAM, it's going to crash. If you have more RAM, it'll still cause problems when it nears 4GB RAM usage because it is a 32bit program, and they tend to have problems using over 4GB (remember Skyrim used to have to rely on a third party fix to address this until there was an official patch with extended memory support?). Unfortunately there's nothing we can really do on our end to address this, as I'm sure any third party fix to address the game's handling of RAM would be a bannable offense.

Now as to computer instability even after exiting the game client, unless you go into task manager and see the client is still utilizing RAM, I don't know what that is.

I have played SWTOR for an entire day before and the memory was stable. It was fixed.

Cogo

I am amazied about most of the system you describe to play games on.
I am not rich or anything. I saved so I could buy a proper computer that would not run into many problems on my side.

My system i built myself, because most brands simply dont put the correct hardware in their brands. They always go cheap on something.

This system is almost 3 years old. With the only upgrade a new SSD drive and 27" monitor.

My system is quite simply. Big desktop, doesnt cost much and lots of room for airflow/cooling/added disc. Cooling is very cheap and quite easy to set up an airflow to cool CPU, graphic card, RAM and Discs. Discs are not a big problem since the ONLY valid option if you want to game, is an SSD drive. I still dont understand people who use SATA drives as their C: where they put games.....do you want slow speed?

Sure, 500 GB SSD costs about 280 euro. 2TB SATA can be as cheap as 90 euro. However, you do not need to be a computer nerd to check the differences in SSD vs SATA. the WORST SSD drive is 20 times faster then one of the better SATA.

Decent motherboard, quite cheap but supports the higher busses needed. Called Sabretooth. This motherboard become toms hardwares favorite because it was quality, without any of the "normal" features most motherboards comes with that most people dont even know that it is, like RAID.

CPU today matters very little. Quad core 3.2 Intel wasnt to expensive and been working in every cpu demanding game I can throw at it. Including the huge map in Civ 5.

Here are the important bits where I fail how low people choose to have.
RAM = 16GB. 12 Minimum. RAM is one of the cheapest but most important hardware for your system, and most people have 4?!?!! Hell, if you install Win 8 with 4GB RAM, you get problems with most things....

And then of course a PSU to power your system. Do not go cheap here. PSU is easy one of the main reasons for overheating/powerfailure or simply not strong enough.

Oh yeah, Dvd drive. what, 25 euro?

This was 3 YEARS ago, and I play All games, including ESO on ultra high. I do not lag (other then guild bank lag and entering Cyro)

music, browser, viruskiller, voice applications, whatever, I have running while I game. No lag, no interupts.

I am not the smartest, just interested in computers and gaming. But I think I see one problem. Do all of you play on LAPTOPS??!?!

A laptop with even simular to lower effect costs 50% more then a desktop.
Are people really playing so much on....LAPTOPS? I use one for work, because it needs to be mobile. I doubt very much that your gaming sessions needs to be mobile.

Stop complaining about your framerate, lag, whatever, when you playing on a kids toy.

Get a proper system if you are into gaming. Most computer stores in UK does it for free if you buy parts from them.

For a system that will not cause you any local problems for the next 3-4-5 years:
DESKTOP
Good CPU
16GB RAM, high bus speed
Motherboard that supports the current bus speed and USB 3 (Doesnt need to be expensive)
SSD drive. I dont care how you calculate that you get 4 times more space for a lot less money. THIS is your achilles heel.
Some decent CPU, pick medium. CPU speed is not important. What "type" they are, is. (How many threads they can do at the same time etc)
DVD drive. Pick the cheapest if you wish.
PSU, add money here. Not only do you buy yourself from overheating, you garantee a longer life of your system and if you wish, you can buy cheap SATA HD as disc space. (E: drive etc)
Graphic card. This has almost always been the most important part along with the CPU for gaming. A good graphic card is good, but with fast RAM and SSD, the graphic cards job will more be to handle the graphic, not calculate it.

A laptop may work for you and if you are comfterble with constant problems in games, why not.

Either way this isnt that expensive if you take into account that you probebly buy a new laptop/Ipad/phone way more often then a REAL computer.

If your passion is games, then you are wasting money on not using the correct hardware.
Oh, stay the HELL away from Win 8. Win 7, 64 bit = works with most things.

Any computer shop, even some online can help you build a gamesystem. Sure, it costs a bit more then your laptop, but again, do you want problems or not.

My system runs almost 24/7. 27" monitor, always highest resolution in any game, including ESO.

And today when I logged in after the Patch, I had a smoother experience and better graphics! No lag like most people here seams to get.

I played ESO since 5 days early access and I do take time zoning into Cyrodiil (not a local problem). In Cyrodiil, I have never lagged, ever.

And my system is 3 years old. How old is your laptop? ;-)

Phantax

I've experienced this also. (no addons at all) but still horrid !

pema

Same problems. Huge fps changes. As I submitted a ticket they awnser that my computer has to be up to specs... wtf been playing since beta. Since patc 1.0.7 its been worse and now to where it's no longer playable. I go from 50 fpz to 8 in a second. Doing group combat freezes it up and eats my memory giving me hell to close the game. The game seems to use even more memory then beglfore... I'm ready to call it quits.
Dear eso: don't fix what aint broken....

Jade1986

Cogo wrote: »

I am amazied about most of the system you describe to play games on.
I am not rich or anything. I saved so I could buy a proper computer that would not run into many problems on my side.

My system i built myself, because most brands simply dont put the correct hardware in their brands. They always go cheap on something.

This system is almost 3 years old. With the only upgrade a new SSD drive and 27" monitor.

My system is quite simply. Big desktop, doesnt cost much and lots of room for airflow/cooling/added disc. Cooling is very cheap and quite easy to set up an airflow to cool CPU, graphic card, RAM and Discs. Discs are not a big problem since the ONLY valid option if you want to game, is an SSD drive. I still dont understand people who use SATA drives as their C: where they put games.....do you want slow speed?

Sure, 500 GB SSD costs about 280 euro. 2TB SATA can be as cheap as 90 euro. However, you do not need to be a computer nerd to check the differences in SSD vs SATA. the WORST SSD drive is 20 times faster then one of the better SATA.

Decent motherboard, quite cheap but supports the higher busses needed. Called Sabretooth. This motherboard become toms hardwares favorite because it was quality, without any of the "normal" features most motherboards comes with that most people dont even know that it is, like RAID.

CPU today matters very little. Quad core 3.2 Intel wasnt to expensive and been working in every cpu demanding game I can throw at it. Including the huge map in Civ 5.

Here are the important bits where I fail how low people choose to have.
RAM = 16GB. 12 Minimum. RAM is one of the cheapest but most important hardware for your system, and most people have 4?!?!! Hell, if you install Win 8 with 4GB RAM, you get problems with most things....

And then of course a PSU to power your system. Do not go cheap here. PSU is easy one of the main reasons for overheating/powerfailure or simply not strong enough.

Oh yeah, Dvd drive. what, 25 euro?

This was 3 YEARS ago, and I play All games, including ESO on ultra high. I do not lag (other then guild bank lag and entering Cyro)

music, browser, viruskiller, voice applications, whatever, I have running while I game. No lag, no interupts.

I am not the smartest, just interested in computers and gaming. But I think I see one problem. Do all of you play on LAPTOPS??!?!

A laptop with even simular to lower effect costs 50% more then a desktop.
Are people really playing so much on....LAPTOPS? I use one for work, because it needs to be mobile. I doubt very much that your gaming sessions needs to be mobile.

Stop complaining about your framerate, lag, whatever, when you playing on a kids toy.

Get a proper system if you are into gaming. Most computer stores in UK does it for free if you buy parts from them.

For a system that will not cause you any local problems for the next 3-4-5 years:
DESKTOP
Good CPU
16GB RAM, high bus speed
Motherboard that supports the current bus speed and USB 3 (Doesnt need to be expensive)
SSD drive. I dont care how you calculate that you get 4 times more space for a lot less money. THIS is your achilles heel.
Some decent CPU, pick medium. CPU speed is not important. What "type" they are, is. (How many threads they can do at the same time etc)
DVD drive. Pick the cheapest if you wish.
PSU, add money here. Not only do you buy yourself from overheating, you garantee a longer life of your system and if you wish, you can buy cheap SATA HD as disc space. (E: drive etc)
Graphic card. This has almost always been the most important part along with the CPU for gaming. A good graphic card is good, but with fast RAM and SSD, the graphic cards job will more be to handle the graphic, not calculate it.

A laptop may work for you and if you are comfterble with constant problems in games, why not.

Either way this isnt that expensive if you take into account that you probebly buy a new laptop/Ipad/phone way more often then a REAL computer.

If your passion is games, then you are wasting money on not using the correct hardware.
Oh, stay the HELL away from Win 8. Win 7, 64 bit = works with most things.

Any computer shop, even some online can help you build a gamesystem. Sure, it costs a bit more then your laptop, but again, do you want problems or not.

My system runs almost 24/7. 27" monitor, always highest resolution in any game, including ESO.

And today when I logged in after the Patch, I had a smoother experience and better graphics! No lag like most people here seams to get.

I played ESO since 5 days early access and I do take time zoning into Cyrodiil (not a local problem). In Cyrodiil, I have never lagged, ever.

And my system is 3 years old. How old is your laptop? ;-)

Again, screenshot of your resource monitor, ping test, AND speedtest please.

skeletorz_ESO

Joolio wrote: »

Arato wrote: »

I'm pretty sure it has to do with these two settings in the usersettings text file. There were freezes that used to happen before for 5-6 seconds and the way you fixed it was to set SET RequestedNumThreads "-1" to 0 and save the file (has to do with how the game handles on multicore processors)

Now that setting is gone and has been replaced by 2 different settings:

SET RequestedNumJobThreads "-1"
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads "-1"

I don't know which to edit to 0 or if you should edit both... I'm hoping someone can narrow this down.

My game was freezing. Then I set both to 0. Game works flawless.

Same here. Set both to 0 and now the memory in task manager for eso.exe stabilizes at 1.6 gb. Additionally, I no longer have the short bursts of freeze-up/lag and windows no longer locks up causing me to have to force a reboot.

Brittany_Joy

@Cogo, I prefer a laptop because it is portable and I tend to game with friends and I bring my laptop to their places so we can all play together and just nerd out all weekend. We basically have a nerd sleep over or somethin'. I prefer laptops simply because it is portable and good enough to run games. Of course I know desktops are superior and you get more for the money you spend but it just seems silly to have to carry around a huge desktop everytime you want to go to a friends, meeting, or vacation.

But the major problem here is people had no problems with their PC before the patch. The patch 'caused people to have problems even if they have a powerful machine.

Cogo

@laced

Oh I agree, and I type so much sometimes that things I want to say gets blurred in. For those who wants a laptop, fine, BUT, I am just stating a simple fact.

3 years old computer. 16GB ram, SSD drive

I have no lag to speak of, and no, I shouldnt need to prove it with screenshots. Believe me or not. Or even better. Find me in game, and lets go somewhere, that YOU lag...and see if I simply move better?

I dont know the reason, I just know that lag has not been a problem for me in ESO, other then the confirmed bugs.

Believe me or not. Free will.

Oh, for you who played WOW the past year and know Ordos? Never laged there either.

I THINK, and have no proof of this but my system simple manage to handle the data and send it back fast enough. Take SSD drive for an example. Do you need me to prove that ANY SSD drive is about 20 times faster then a SATA drive?

AND my monitor is Asus 27" 144hz. ESO looked great! Now it looks even better!?
How graphic works isnt my department, other then check for current drives and what new type of graphic things they support.

This you do not need to believe me for. Just google.

I wasn't looking for problems. Just stated a fact that a lot of people who are trying to battle with lag, seams to have 1. low ram. 2. Laptop.

I also run a very clean system. No bloody sidebards/addons or whats they called on Firefox. Turned off a lot of unnedded Windows services.
I use CC cleaner, to get rid of items that MAY slow me down. Also registry cleaner.

I also have very few "services" loaded. There are so many that steals resources from you. By themselves they barely get noticed. But take Skype for example. That service, even when skype isnt running (The service is) LOOOVES to check, do stuff. I dont know, but I THINK I have managed to turn off every single service that isnt needed until I need them. Apart from Windows (Except getting rid of that stupid windows gadget sidebar? The active services are viruskiller, Steam and java.

But ok, this is what windows tool says about my system:

Windows claims they put point from 1 - 7.9

Component Details Subscore Base score
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 950 @ 3.07GHz 7,5 7,5
Determined by lowest subscore

Memory (RAM) 16,0 GB 7,5
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series 7,9
Gaming graphics 7931 MB Total available graphics memory 7,9
Primary hard disk 210GB Free (447GB Total) 7,8
Windows 7 Home Premium

System

---

Manufacturer System manufacturer
Model System Product Name
Total amount of system memory 16,0 GB RAM
System type 64-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 4

Storage

---

Total size of hard disk(s) 4341 GB
Disk partition (C:) 210 GB Free (447 GB Total)
Disk partition (D:) 554 GB Free (1863 GB Total)
Disk partition (E:) 408 GB Free (1863 GB Total)
Media drive (F:) CD/DVD
Media drive (G:) CD/DVD
Media drive (H:) CD/DVD
Disk partition (I:) 168 GB Free (168 GB Total)

Graphics

---

Display adapter type AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
Total available graphics memory 7931 MB
Dedicated graphics memory 2048 MB
Dedicated system memory 0 MB
Shared system memory 5883 MB
Display adapter driver version 14.100.0.0
Primary monitor resolution 1920x1080
DirectX version DirectX 10

Network

---

Network Adapter Realtek PCI GBE Family Controller

Notes

---

The gaming graphics score is based on the primary graphics adapter. If this system has linked or multiple graphics adapters, some software applications may see additional performance benefits.

Cogo

Brittany_Joy wrote: »

@Cogo, I prefer a laptop because it is portable and I tend to game with friends and I bring my laptop to their places so we can all play together and just nerd out all weekend. We basically have a nerd sleep over or somethin'. I prefer laptops simply because it is portable and good enough to run games. Of course I know desktops are superior and you get more for the money you spend but it just seems silly to have to carry around a huge desktop everytime you want to go to a friends, meeting, or vacation.

But the major problem here is people had no problems with their PC before the patch. The patch 'caused people to have problems even if they have a powerful machine.

I played early this morning, EU time when the hotfixes where not on. I STILL didnt lag in the game. However, I didnt even bother to try Cyro.

The only difference that I saw, was the things moves smoother, and graphic looked better!!!

And please dont get me wrong. If someone is happy with a laptop, I have no opinion about that. The only reason I posted this was cause I noticed that most players who claims they lag, crash or other things, seams to have low Ram and/or Laptop. Still, I cant sit here and say thats the reason.

Cogo

ZOS_JessicaFolsomZOS_JessicaFolsom admin
3:27AM Staff Post
We completed pushing the patch to the European megaserver much earlier than anticipated. If you are currently playing on the European megaserver please completely exit the client and patch to get the fixes. Thank you!
Jessica Folsom
Community Manager (English) - The Elder Scrolls Online

Woop!