Update 3 (v.1.3.3) Mac ESO Client - FEEDBACK

viktorcodeneb18_ESO

Yeah, that's why I'm glad to see the new mode. Plain full screen can't be used with VSYNC. Full screen window reverses that.

Moonraker

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

I've just quested for 3+ hours in Alik'r. No crashes, no lags, no stuttering, no low FPS rates, no low res textures. Playing on Fullscreen, native 27" 2560x1440 resolution on Ultra High quality setting (no custom changes), VSYNC is off. With VSYNC on, frame rates drop to half and below.

Thanks for feedback. Much as expected for the setup. I am having to re-download the whole client currently before testing ^^

Generally Vsync should be OFF. Due to the double buffering it will throttle fps down by half as a limit if lower that ratio to display refresh rate so 60 > 30 > 15 etc. Therefore even if a bit below 60 or 30 it will limit FPS to 30 max or 15 respectively. With ESO and decent settings getting higher than 60 FPS is unlikely so best to not use it, unless for some reason it helps your performance for some reason.

IKilled007

PvE: still fine.
PvP: worse than before. What's more, even my guildies NOT on Macs, who never crashed in PvP are crashing now, and as often as I do. I told them, "Welcome to how it plays for me."

Moonraker

After some issues with the download (repeated download, indicating download, relaunch and can Play right away ^^) I had a chance to test the Mac ESO client with the latest version;

Version: eso.live.1.3.3.1030803

Setup: System: iMac 27-inch, Late 2013/ 3.4 GHz Intel Core i5/ 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3/ NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB/ OS X 10.9.4

ESO Settings: Ultra-High with Shadow Quality=Medium, View Distance=62, Ambient Occlusion=Off, Depth of Field=Off(last to for personal preference rather than performance as they change little for that). In PvP both U-H and Medium settings tested.

Summary:

* Memory Crash

Basically little to no change from previous version/s.

PVE has extended play between memory crash 2-3-4 hours in general PVE questing etc. (tends to be shorted with lot of time in populated towns) 20-45 minutes in PvP big battles depending on setting (Ultra-High and normally Medium in PvP) This is time in or near big battles as playing in Cyrodiil generally is similar to PVE questing.

* Vsync, Window Modes & Performance

I noted a significant drop on performance with Vsync=ON in normal PVE settings by almost half not due to double buffering. With Medium settings with Vsync=OFF was 68FPS; Vsync=ON <30FPS. On U-H custom setting Vsync=Off 43FPS; Vsync=On 24FPS (well below expected 30FPS double buffer cap)

With Vysnc=On it was a large performance hit and felt very laggy.

There seems to also be some different behaviour than previously in that occasionally toggling from Fullscreen > Windowed the Vsync would still work (capping FPS) but it was hard to replicate this as generally it doesn't as before.

I had not experienced this previously with Vsync capping FPS to 60 > 30 as expected but otherwise performing well. However Vsync is not recommended and especially from this version from my tests (some have noted it improves things so not sure what's going on here possibly MacBook Pro Retina differences to iMac)

Windowed (Fullscreen) still appears to work just as Fullscreen does ie. it is working like true Fulscreen and no OS X key commands or keyboard specific keys (i.e. Brightness, Spaces) function. Only when toggled to minimised window where it is Windowed will they work as expected. And it doesn't toggle back to Windowed (Fullscreen) from Windowed (see above possible differences with MBP Retina to other Macs)

Details:

Memory Crash Details

Sample crash report;

[reporter]
version = 0.01


[extra]
ProductName = eso
Version = eso.live.1.1.2.995904
char.account = xxxxxxx
char.alliance = 3
char.name = xxxxxxxx
client.executablebits = 32
client.mode = load
client.renderertype = OPENGL
client.session_start_timestamp = 2014-05-27T22:00:47.650Z
client.time_since_load = 3
client.timestamp = 2014-05-27T22:01:16.018Z -frme 1695-
client.uptime = 28.2
computer.name = xxxxxxxx
computer.user = xxxxxxxxx
cpu.count = 4
data.depotid = 4001
data.dir = /Applications/ZeniMax Online/The Elder Scrolls Online EU/game_m
data.syncm = databuild
data.version = 0.win.0.live.990524
exe.buildnum = 995904
exe.opt = release
exe.reltype = public
exe.type = client
gfx.description = NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M OpenGL Engine
gfx.deviceid = 0.0.0
gfx.driver = 2.1 NVIDIA-8.26.21 310.40.35f08
gfx.vendorid = 0
globby.address = 198.20.200.194
globby.port = 24503
loc.wloc = 204 175501 12470 193890 279.14
loc.world = Bangkorai
loc.worldid = 204
loc.zone = Bangkorai
login.address = 198.20.200.194
mem.current = 1602
mem.peak = 1616
mem.physical = 16384
os.platform = mac
os.version = 13D65
realm.depotid = 0
realm.id = 4001
realm.name = EU Megaserver
reportfield.ver = 3

Details from Activity Monitor for eso process;


Note: The ZOS Crash Report states Bangkorai when it was a crash in Cyrodiil, presumably as it kicked the character back to region before joining the campaign.
Also it reports memory as;

mem.current = 1602
mem.peak = 1616

Where the actual memory is at the typical memory crash limit (32-bit 4GB) in the Activity Monitor process window;

Real Memory 2.76GB
Virtual Memory 3.93GB

This was with higher settings than usual Medium setting on my Mac for PvP (hence probably crashing a bit sooner than Medium) but is in line with previous tests.

I guess that the memory usage was effected somewhat by moving the character to the previous region (or at least attempting to as it crashed and screen stuck in Cyrodiil) This may give false reports then via ZOSReporter records. This is also reflected in the time reported;

client.uptime = 28.2

When in fact I had been in Cyrodiil for approx. 20 minutes from recording time started (crash report is in seconds not minutes) Half of this time was travelling to the actual big battle at a keep.

Hard to continue testing as with the new implementation of PvP campaigns the active campaign (Thornblade) once it crashed and character booted from Cyrodiil, the queue was locked due to being full.

Stash

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

I've just quested for 3+ hours in Alik'r. No crashes, no lags, no stuttering, no low FPS rates, no low res textures. Playing on Fullscreen, native 27" 2560x1440 resolution on Ultra High quality setting (no custom changes), VSYNC is off. With VSYNC on, frame rates drop to half and below.

Can you try some PvP and see what happens? I can PvE all I want with textures and graphics at medium (late 2009 imac) and maintain 30fps with no crashes. PvP however crashes due to memory leak after 30 minutes or so, no matter what graphics settings I use.

Moonraker

Stash wrote: »

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

I've just quested for 3+ hours in Alik'r. No crashes, no lags, no stuttering, no low FPS rates, no low res textures. Playing on Fullscreen, native 27" 2560x1440 resolution on Ultra High quality setting (no custom changes), VSYNC is off. With VSYNC on, frame rates drop to half and below.

Can you try some PvP and see what happens? I can PvE all I want with textures and graphics at medium (late 2009 imac) and maintain 30fps with no crashes. PvP however crashes due to memory leak after 30 minutes or so, no matter what graphics settings I use.

Se my post above. I have the same iMac as @KhajitFurTrader and setup and testing today shows little difference in PVE or PvP.

Best to test yourself but it is unlikely to be much different though results can vary depending on GPU etc.

viktorcodeneb18_ESO

Moonraker, your VSYNC math is wrong. It doesn't cut average frame rate in half; rather it rounds up a frame time to the next biggest value of 16.67 ms time chunks (frame time at 60 FPS).

i.e. suppose a game frame time is 20 ms. It means that the player won't see it until the second VSYNC event at 33.3 ms (2 frames). However, due to double buffering, right after finishing drawing the frame at 20 ms mark, the engine will switch to the second buffer without waiting for the first one to actually appear on the screen. So, when the first frame will be displayed at the 33.3 mark, the second frame will be already partially rendered and the engine will finish it before the next VSYNC event. It means 2 game frames per 3 VSYNC events at 60 FPS. Continue that for the rest of the second, and you will have about 40 FPS or a bit more.

Reality is that in ESO VSYNC is bugged. Here's how it goes for video modes:

Full screen : VSYNC is broken. Turning it on causes huge lag. Turning off causes tearing.
Windowed full screen (new mode) : VSYNC works, but turning it off gives huge lagging. Obvously a bug.
Windowed: VSYNC works. Turning off causes tearing, as expected.

Moonraker

viktorcodeneb18_ESO wrote: »

Moonraker, your VSYNC math is wrong. It doesn't cut average frame rate in half; rather it rounds up a frame time to the next biggest value of 16.67 ms time chunks (frame time at 60 FPS).

i.e. suppose a game frame time is 20 ms. It means that the player won't see it until the second VSYNC event at 33.3 ms (2 frames). However, due to double buffering, right after finishing drawing the frame at 20 ms mark, the engine will switch to the second buffer without waiting for the first one to actually appear on the screen. So, when the first frame will be displayed at the 33.3 mark, the second frame will be already partially rendered and the engine will finish it before the next VSYNC event. It means 2 game frames per 3 VSYNC events at 60 FPS. Continue that for the rest of the second, and you will have about 40 FPS or a bit more.

Reality is that in ESO VSYNC is bugged. Here's how it goes for video modes:

Full screen : VSYNC is broken. Turning it on causes huge lag. Turning off causes tearing.
Windowed full screen (new mode) : VSYNC works, but turning it off gives huge lagging. Obvously a bug.
Windowed: VSYNC works. Turning off causes tearing, as expected.

Not from what I read about it, or rather it's perhaps the way I worded it .

ESO uses double buffering for Vsync. It lowers FPS to the refresh rate which in my case that is the iMac display which has a refresh rate of 60Mz.

So others describe it a lot better than how I can;

Because the actual FPS is synchronized to the refresh, it must be the refresh divided by an integer: so on a 60 Hz refresh, you can only have 60, 30, 20, 15, 12, 10, 8.57, etc FPS. Each of these is a floor: if your system can stay under 16.67 ms for every frame, i.e. above 60 FPS, you get 60 FPS. If your system is capable of between 30.00001 FPS and 59.99999 FPS, you get 30 FPS. Anything running and varying between 59-61 FPS will judder between 30 and 60 FPS, which is unpleasant.

source

I found the following link useful even if it is rather old it explained it as I understand it.

So yes you are right that it is not as simple as to say 'half' but for the most likely caps it makes it easier to explain for me.

If the player has a display with a different refresh rate than the figures would be different.

Basically in game it works as I mentioned in that if I have settings to Medium default it will run at around 68 FPS at 2560 x 1440 with the Nvidia GTX 780M 4GB with Vsync disabled. Once enabled it caps to 60 FPS.

As I generally play at a good compromise for visuals v quality I normally now play with Ultra High default with Shadow Quality = Medium, View Distance = 62 (old default) and just a couple of effects off for visual preference. This gives me on average 35-45 in town or 45-55 out questing. If I test the Vsync it caps to 30 FPS as I expect (as it's running over 30 FPS but under 60 FPS.

Really, in the end it is not so important because Vsync should nearly always be OFF on a Mac as they are rarely capable to run at a consistent FPS above 60 anyhow as we tend to look for better visuals and get the balance to give consistent performance. Especially currently as it appears bugged and causing bad drop of framerate and lag.

So the difference in windowed modes is just confusing currently. If I set Windowed (Fullscreen) in Settings then close it then reopen settings it has defaulted back to Fullscreen. I find both seem to be the same though perhaps not as laggy as Fullscreen with Vsync ON but both not good. I also got a few other weird things but generally that's how it was working for me in testing today.

I would say Fullscreen Vsync does function, just that currently it is bugged in latest update and it causes bad lag though it does still cap to 30 for me. For me Windowed (Fullscreen) doesn't work as expected and really is just Fullscreen mode.

Yshaar

I would just like to report that the fix is no fix. Again.

PVP is crashing after 20min like before. Attitude-wise, I am totally with Moonraker and Kajhit, you guys are wise men.
Nevertheless after all this time and several botched patches (yeah, maybe they fixed a different memory leak I never encountered) the Mac client and PVP are still broken. I don't know what to do except cry about here in the forums (that rarely anyone reads) or stop my sub.

Honestly, dear mac gamers: would it help to make it more public and generate a fuss?

Seedier

Yshaar wrote: »

I would just like to report that the fix is no fix. Again.

Honestly, dear mac gamers: would it help to make it more public and generate a fuss?

No idea but I'm with you
I've cancelled my sub but it's still active until September... I'm hoping to see an improvement on the crashes to give me a reason to resub, but these posts seem to indicate that now is not the time...

KhajitFurTrader

Seedier wrote: »

Yshaar wrote: »

I would just like to report that the fix is no fix. Again.

Honestly, dear mac gamers: would it help to make it more public and generate a fuss?

No idea but I'm with you
I've cancelled my sub but it's still active until September... I'm hoping to see an improvement on the crashes to give me a reason to resub, but these posts seem to indicate that now is not the time...

Truth to tell, I had my sub (80+ days still to go) cancelled, too. I just recently (after 1.3 hit) reactivated it, because I've seen tremendous improvements in client stability and graphics performance since the days of the stress test beta weekends. Yes, it's still not as rock-solid as it could be, but to think that the client once crashed reliably about every 40 minutes... now it runs for hours, at least in PvE. I don't see any reason why this development shouldn't continue.

Here's a recent post from @Publius_Scipio‌, who's just rejoined. He reinstalled the client from scratch, and reports logging two hours of game play in Cyrodiil. It may be anecdotal evidence, but see (and maybe try) for yourself.

Regarding making a fuss: believe me, they know very well the state their client is in. @Moonraker has been one of the most stalwart advocates for client stability since the days of closed beta, and hopefully will be again soon. That doesn't mean we should stop to report issues; we just shouldn't forget to be helpful doing it, because in the end, it's us who want to be helped.

_subjectnamehere_

My sub is gone. The lack of green-posters here and the less than useful customer support who keeps telling me it's my machine that has the issue after four months of play is really not good.

I wish I could get my money back. If I knew they were going to release a broken mac client, I would have never subbed in the first place.

Aranweh

PvE is ok. PvP is just…. crash crash crash and… crash again and again.
1.3 changed nothing.

bollin

Playing is Cyrodil is still almost impossible using the Mac client. That is why I have finally installed Windows. Dear ESO, I can install any other game now and I will do it sooner or later. One of your biggest advantages (having a Mac client) is gone because it is so broken.

Amylar

ZOS_LenaicR wrote: »

Bonjour ici,

Il y a eu une confusion de notre côté concernant ces crashs lors du chargement de la sélection des personnages (liés à un problème de guilde) et les crashs survenant actuellement en Cyrodiil (due à une fuite de mémoire RAM).
Pour ce dernier, un correctif est bien en cours de test et nous vous tiendrons au courant lorsque celui-ci sera mis en place.
...

ZOS_LenaicR wrote: »

Effectivement @Amylar, les MACs et les PC sont concernés.

Posted today in french part of the Forum. He said that they are testing a fix (again) and let us now when it will be online.

I asked him if it was for Mac too, and he answer for both Mac and PC. I'm trying to keep my optimism

Yandros

Finally .... I just spent an intense 90 mins in PVP fighting huge battles with zero lag and not a single crash ...... THANKYOU, THANKYOU, THANKYOU :-) .... only reason I did not go longer was because i lost track of time and needed to go sleep ...... normally I cannot stay 10 mins without a crash ....... this is after the most recent memory leak fix. I am on a 2013 iMAC 27"

Amylar

warren.jones67nub18_ESO wrote: »

Finally .... I just spent an intense 90 mins in PVP fighting huge battles with zero lag and not a single crash ...... THANKYOU, THANKYOU, THANKYOU :-) .... only reason I did not go longer was because i lost track of time and needed to go sleep ...... normally I cannot stay 10 mins without a crash ....... this is after the most recent memory leak fix. I am on a 2013 iMAC 27"

Good to read, hope i can do the same !

KhajitFurTrader

Good news indeed. I'll just have to wait until later until I can test it, too.

Moonraker

This 'should' be as it was anticipated with the release of Update 3 v.1.3.3, except it seems that as the Mac memory fix went live some other memory issues were introduced which effected both Mac & PC from reading forums last week.

It looks like a fix for these other new issues went in so hopefully we can see just how effective the actual Mac client memory fix has been, which looks like it really will make a significant difference as mentioned at the time.

Sometimes things happen out of our control especially in a large project like ESO development and this rather reflects that

I can't test as my account is cancelled but from what I understood it does really feel like a corner has been turned on this memory issue and in no small part to the ongoing efforts.

bollin

It is really much better after the patch. I just had 1 crash yesterday after playing several hours in Cyrodiil. Thanks!

Canavas

Imac 27" late 2013, with allmost everything on low graphic:

I still have micro lags with my char while moving around , is there a solution for this ?

KhajitFurTrader

Canavas wrote: »

I still have micro lags with my char while moving around , is there a solution for this ?

Please, could you clarify?

Do you encounter this lag at all times, or only during specific hours (e.g. prime time)?

Do you have VSYNC turned off?

Do you use any addons, and does the phenomenon persist if you disable them?

Amylar

First of all, I have to say that my play time, in Cyrodiil, have significatively increase since the last patch, i can play more that half hour without crashing. I thank ZOS for the work they've done.

But, after about 1h30 time spent in game, i had two times the same issue : "data load failure" crash. With this crash i have no report to send.

In PVE i never had the same issue, and my FPS goes from 25 to 40.

I have a 2011 iMac, 27"
i5 3.1Ghz
8 Go RAM
AMD Radeon HD 6970 1Go

I play with Medium settings, except textures high, with no grass, low shadows.

Did someone experiment the same issue ? An idea that what can cause this ? and an idea to solve this ?

Thank you

Moonraker

Amylar wrote: »

First of all, I have to say that my play time, in Cyrodiil, have significatively increase since the last patch, i can play more that half hour without crashing. I thank ZOS for the work they've done.

But, after about 1h30 time spent in game, i had two times the same issue : "data load failure" crash. With this crash i have no report to send.

In PVE i never had the same issue, and my FPS goes from 25 to 40.

I have a 2011 iMac, 27"
i5 3.1Ghz
8 Go RAM
AMD Radeon HD 6970 1Go

I play with Medium settings, except textures high, with no grass, low shadows.

Did someone experiment the same issue ? An idea that what can cause this ? and an idea to solve this ?

Thank you

Salut.

This appears to be an issue introduced in one of the recent updates which is effecting both Mac & PC clients. Reading it looks like the difference with the PC client is that it is possible to click off an error message on the window and continue at least for a bit while on the Mac it just doesn't. See this post on this and the whole thread which goes back a while now. I suspect it is something that has yet to be addressed fully by Zenimax and is not Mac specific.

If the ESO client crashes and doesn't generate a crash report then best to either report it via /bug in game or on the Support site via email for Technical Support so at least they get more reports for it. The French page is here.

It is possible it is also an error produced if you have data corruption so it may be worth an uninstall/ fresh install to rule this out if you have a good internet connection/ bandwidth. Otherwise I suspect it needs addressing by Zenimax. I suggest to post to that forum thread to ensure they see it is ongoing and for Mac and watch for any more feedback from CS.

Amylar

Thanks @Moonraker‌ for reply. I've created a ticket 140818-000780 for the issue. Hopping i can have a ZOS reply to.

After reading the post you've linked, i've noticed that they allso experimented this issue in PvE. That is not my case, it's only in Cyrodiil.
Peraps some other Mac user have the same problem ?

Canavas

Canavas wrote: »

I still have micro lags with my char while moving around , is there a solution for this ?

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

Please, could you clarify?

Do you encounter this lag at all times, or only during specific hours (e.g. prime time)?

Do you have VSYNC turned off?

Do you use any addons, and does the phenomenon persist if you disable them?

1.)
Everytime

2.)
Yes its off.

3.)
No addons